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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”.
AI images try to replicate the style of popular artists by using their work, often including work that was behind a paywall and taken without payment, thus denying the artists revenue. AI has taken something from the artist, and cost the artist money. Until such a time as we come up with a new word for this new crime, we'll call it by the closest equivalent: theft.
Also, someone did an experiment and typed "movie screenshot" into an AI and it came back with a nearly identical image from Endgame. Not transformative enough to be anything but copyright infringement.
Defining "taken something behind a paywall and thus denied them revenue" as theft is the exact same argument movie studios make when you pirate a movie. Theft implies that the original is gone. If I steal your car, you don't have a car. If I pirate a movie, we both have that movie. As someone who supports piracy, I would be careful to conflate piracy with theft. I think that's the entire point the post is making.
Fuck AI slop. There's enough other arguments against it. It destroys the environment and artists' livelihoods. We can point that out without supporting corporate copyright talking points.