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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”.
This is literally already happening. The SAGAFTRA screen actors guild had to negotiate new contracts against studios that were using AI as a bargaining chip to lower their wages
It isn't current AI voice tech that was an issue. It was the potential for future AI they were worried about. AI voices as they are now, are of similar quality to pulling someone off the street and putting them in front of a mid-range mic. If you care about quality at all, (without massive changes to how AI tech functions) you'll always need a human.
And to be clear, what about AI makes it the problem, rather than copyright? If I can use a voice synthesizer to replicate an actors voice, why is that fine and AI not? Should it not be that reproduction of an actor's voice is right or wrong based on why its done and its implications rather than because of the technology used to replicate it?
Edit: And to be clear, just because a company can use it as an excuse to lower wages, doesn't mean its a viable alternative to hiring workers. Claims that they could replace their workers with AI is just the usual capitalist bullshit excuses to exploit their workers.
If your argument is that "AI is just a tool and Capitalism is the real boogeyman, again" then I absolutely agree with you.
My gripe is that openAI and Meta are clearly scraping from copyrighted media but because of the scale of the scraping it's not 'stealing' in the traditional sense. While we're bickering about the semantics of legality, this tool is being weaponised to further wealth inequality.
And to be clear, I've been referencing the AI companies and movie studios, not the technology itself.
My point of contention is that the arguments you're using are flawed, not your intentions. OpenAI, Meta, Disney, ect. are in the wrong because they pirate/freeboot and infringement on independent artist's licenses. It's not their use of technology or the derivative nature of the works it produces that are the problem: making AI the face of the issues moves the blame away from the companies, and allows them to continue to pirate/freeboot/plagiarize (or steal, as you define it) from artists.
Yes, part of my point is that capitalism is bad, but thats further up the chain than what I was arguing. My point is that copyright law and more importantly, its implementation and enforcement is broken. Basically all your issues originate not with AI but with the fact that independent artists have no recourse when their copyrights are violated. AI wouldn't be an issue if AI compananies actually paid artists for their work, and artists could sue companies who infringe on their rights. The problem is that artists are being exploited and have no recourse.
Using allegory to hopefully make my point a bit more clear: Imagine you have a shop of weavers (artists). The comapny running the shop brings in a loom (AI), and starts chaining their workers to it and claiming its an Automatic Weaver™ (pirating and violating artists rights). The problem isn't the loom, and blaming it shifts blame away from whoever it was that decided to enslave their workers. Trying to ban the loom doesn't prevent the shop from just chaining the workers to their desks, as was often done in the past, nor does it prevent them from bringing in Automatic Potters™. If you want to stop this, even ignoring the larger spectre of capitalism, it should be slavery that is outlawed (already done) and punished (not done), not the use of looms.
If you are trying to fix/stop the current state of AI and prevent artists from being exploited by massive companies in this way, banning AI will only slow it and will limit potentially useful technology (that artists should be paid for). Rather than tackle one of the end results of rhe problem, you need to target it closer to its root - the fact that large companies can freely pirate, freeboot, and plagiarize smaller artists.