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Screenshot of a tumblr post by hbmmaster:
the framing of generative ai as “theft” in popular discourse has really set us back so far like not only should we not consider copyright infringement theft we shouldn’t even consider generative ai copyright infringement
who do you think benefits from redefining “theft” to include “making something indirectly derivative of something created by someone else”? because I can assure you it’s not artists
okay I’m going to mute this post, I’ll just say,
if your gut reaction to this is that you think this is a pro-ai post, that you think “not theft” means “not bad”, I want you to think very carefully about what exactly “theft” is to you and what it is about ai that you consider “stealing”.
do you also consider other derivative works to be “stealing”? (fanfiction, youtube poops, gifsets) if not, why not? what’s the difference? because if the difference is actually just “well it’s fine when a person does it” then you really should try to find a better way to articulate the problems you have with ai than just saying it’s “stealing from artists”.
I dislike ai too, I’m probably on your side. I just want people to stop shooting themselves in the foot by making anti-ai arguments that have broader anti-art implications. I believe in you. you can come up with a better argument than just calling it “theft”.
The premise here is wrong.
The theft isn't "ai made a derivative work". The theft is "human ai bros scraped all the stuff I made, without permission or compensation, and used it as training data".
The problem is that art is being used for purposes the artist explicitly disagrees with. Imagine your artwork as a backdrop for company that steals candy from babies to feed elephant poachers. In a normal world, you can at least sue that company to take it down.
But when OpenAI uses your artwork to pump thousands of tons of CO2 into the air, you can't do shit, and according to OP, you shouldn't even complain about your work being taken.