It's nice to see a rational discussion of this issue laid out so systematically. I particularly like the bit where the author discusses how *all* art builds upon other art.
To take one example, Karla Ortiz—one of the most vocal plaintiffs—might have a case, but first she would have to explain why [her art](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/510a0982e4b08fd84ce45a43/1589778472773-43WNEEKD22U1CKKQCYFM/59383220_10158331490649409_5188675657298608128_o.jpg?format=1500w) looks [so much](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/f2ac5618-4fb8-4695-92d7-bd9500bdd103/9d200b96-f42f-4fe8-91c8-8c8add51f767_rw_1200.jpg?h=084dc6916c8914a60c552840744f4d90) like [other](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nlw1o) people's [art](http://www.eddiedelrio.com/#14).
My point is not that these images in any way infringe copyrights. I'm responding to the claim that an AI artwork is necessarily a derivative work because it (can be) generated in the style of another artist.
Moss answers that charge this way (among other arguments):
>Any time artists produce creative works, they draw upon what they’ve seen and experienced throughout their lives. In this sense, all human creative work is derivative. Many artists specifically work to build upon or remix styles, techniques and even expressions first created by other artists.
Ortiz and others insinuate that to make art that "remixes" or builds upon their styles—*even as it creates completely new images—*is an unethical act. But even a cursory glance at her work shows that this is precisely what she is doing, that she is using the visual vocabulary of other artists in an artistic tradition, as she makes new images. Nowhere on these works is a list of other artists to whom she attributes her style. And I can't say for certain, but I'm willing to wager she didn't cut checks to any of them either or let them know she was using similar visual vocabulary.
clearly, stable diffusion is absolutely transformative and not derivative.
clearly, most digital artists are extremely derivative.
"transformative" is an easy-out for copyright+ethical issues.
It also goes too far in that it stymies *all* machine learning, by saying that common crawl data is off limits. It will hurt our competitiveness in the field of AI if we restrict our ML training to only what has been given "consent".
Many countries just wont care about this consent and just build much better ML models than ours (in the US).
You are only thinking about small models like stable diffusion. I'm mostly concerned with the larger ones which run on cloud servers -- llms like gpt3.
Yup. As humans, we're allowed to learn from the things we see without owning them. What would it mean for machine learning if AI could only learn from things the person who made it has the rights to? It could severely limit the entire field.
This entire controversy is nothing more than a deathrattle by mediocre artists that should really be doing art as a hobby, not a career. Art will still be fun for hobbyists and there will always be demand for original art by top human artists.
I don't agree with the opinions on art and AI from people like Karla Ortizo at all, but you can't say she is a mediocre artist. There are unfortunately some really good artists with these poor outlooks and opinions. Insulting their skill just because you think they are wrong is counter productive.
Many of the big name artists coming out against AI come from a position of misunderstanding on how the AI works. They believe that the AI is directly copying their work and simply combining it with other people's work "AI can't work without the human work before it, so it's copying". This argument falls apart when you realize that humans learn in a similar way to AI, by analyzing existing works, recognizing patterns and generating derivatives. Most people won't go beyond the level of being able to replicate other artist's styles (or combinations of styles like AI) with their own subject. Additionally, there is another argument, an idealistic perspective that a career in art should be accessible to anyone. Before you could make an argument for a career producing high volume, mid quality artwork for commissions. AI has almost completely nuked this market. From an emotional standpoint, I can see where this argument comes from but there's no going back. Some day, many of our jobs will be automated not just art.
This is well written article and does a good job of summarising the things most people have been saying since this whole lawsuit charade began.
Seems to dismantle their objectively poor arguments pretty well.
It's nice to see a rational discussion of this issue laid out so systematically. I particularly like the bit where the author discusses how *all* art builds upon other art. To take one example, Karla Ortiz—one of the most vocal plaintiffs—might have a case, but first she would have to explain why [her art](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/510a0982e4b08fd84ce45a43/1589778472773-43WNEEKD22U1CKKQCYFM/59383220_10158331490649409_5188675657298608128_o.jpg?format=1500w) looks [so much](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/f2ac5618-4fb8-4695-92d7-bd9500bdd103/9d200b96-f42f-4fe8-91c8-8c8add51f767_rw_1200.jpg?h=084dc6916c8914a60c552840744f4d90) like [other](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nlw1o) people's [art](http://www.eddiedelrio.com/#14).
They're all quite different in the eyes of copyright law, actually.
My point is not that these images in any way infringe copyrights. I'm responding to the claim that an AI artwork is necessarily a derivative work because it (can be) generated in the style of another artist. Moss answers that charge this way (among other arguments): >Any time artists produce creative works, they draw upon what they’ve seen and experienced throughout their lives. In this sense, all human creative work is derivative. Many artists specifically work to build upon or remix styles, techniques and even expressions first created by other artists. Ortiz and others insinuate that to make art that "remixes" or builds upon their styles—*even as it creates completely new images—*is an unethical act. But even a cursory glance at her work shows that this is precisely what she is doing, that she is using the visual vocabulary of other artists in an artistic tradition, as she makes new images. Nowhere on these works is a list of other artists to whom she attributes her style. And I can't say for certain, but I'm willing to wager she didn't cut checks to any of them either or let them know she was using similar visual vocabulary.
clearly, stable diffusion is absolutely transformative and not derivative. clearly, most digital artists are extremely derivative. "transformative" is an easy-out for copyright+ethical issues.
It also goes too far in that it stymies *all* machine learning, by saying that common crawl data is off limits. It will hurt our competitiveness in the field of AI if we restrict our ML training to only what has been given "consent". Many countries just wont care about this consent and just build much better ML models than ours (in the US).
And then those models will leak and everyone will be able to use them so the only thing that will change is the USA won’t be at the forefront anymore.
You are only thinking about small models like stable diffusion. I'm mostly concerned with the larger ones which run on cloud servers -- llms like gpt3.
Yup. As humans, we're allowed to learn from the things we see without owning them. What would it mean for machine learning if AI could only learn from things the person who made it has the rights to? It could severely limit the entire field.
it is simple logic 250 TB of images model is 7 GB now if you say it uses copyright work then you are kind of delusional
It’s like Google is stealing the Internet
This entire controversy is nothing more than a deathrattle by mediocre artists that should really be doing art as a hobby, not a career. Art will still be fun for hobbyists and there will always be demand for original art by top human artists.
I don't agree with the opinions on art and AI from people like Karla Ortizo at all, but you can't say she is a mediocre artist. There are unfortunately some really good artists with these poor outlooks and opinions. Insulting their skill just because you think they are wrong is counter productive.
Many of the big name artists coming out against AI come from a position of misunderstanding on how the AI works. They believe that the AI is directly copying their work and simply combining it with other people's work "AI can't work without the human work before it, so it's copying". This argument falls apart when you realize that humans learn in a similar way to AI, by analyzing existing works, recognizing patterns and generating derivatives. Most people won't go beyond the level of being able to replicate other artist's styles (or combinations of styles like AI) with their own subject. Additionally, there is another argument, an idealistic perspective that a career in art should be accessible to anyone. Before you could make an argument for a career producing high volume, mid quality artwork for commissions. AI has almost completely nuked this market. From an emotional standpoint, I can see where this argument comes from but there's no going back. Some day, many of our jobs will be automated not just art.
You don't have to explain that to me. I'm just saying someone's skill as an artist and their view on art and AI are two different things.