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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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You tell me what "sensible regulations about AI" are that don't hurt small artists and creators more than they centralize the major players and enrich copyright hoarding, copyright-maximalist corporations. (Seriously, this isn’t bait. I’ve been wracking my mind on the issue for months. Because the only serious proposals so far are expanding the already far-too-broad copyright rights to things like covering training or granting artists more rights to their work during their lifetime - something that will only hurt small artists) We desperately need more fair use, not less. The only "sensible regulations" that we should and could be talking about is some form of UBI. That's it.
UBI is a bandaid that doesn't solve the core issues of production under capitalism, the people with capital still control production, still make more money than eveyone else and still have more money and power to use influencing the politicians that write the laws surrounding UBI. And expecting me to solve the AI problem in a comment section is like me asking you to implement UBI in a way that landlords dont just jack up rent or business dont inflate prices with more cash and demand floating around, also whats your plan for when the level of UBI legislated , or planned increases in UBI is no longer sufficient enough to pay for housing food and other necessities? What do you do to counter the fact that the capitists still have more access to politicians and media empires they can use to discredit and remove UBI?
UBI is a bandaid, sure. But bandaids actually help; “sensible AI regulations” - a nothing phrase that will most likely materialize as yet another expansion of copyright — will actively make things worse. UBI is achievable, and can be expanded on once it’s enacted. You establish protections and regulations that actually help people, and dare opposition to ever try to take them away; instead of carrying water for copyright maximalists along the way.
Exactly. We need to break apart copyright with a crowbar. It's a broken system that only benefits the rich, and AI has the opportunity to turn the entire system into a pile of unenforceable garbage.
Why does legislation or regulation surrounding AI necessarily have to be copyright maxamilism but UBI regulations are somehow in some undescribed way going to be strong enough to prevent lobbying from the people who still control the mean of production? You're arguement gets to use the magic regulations that don't get challenged or changed, but my arguement is stuck to the one mainstream idea that has people worried?
Because those are the only “sensible AI regulations” seriously being talked about. Tell me any other actual regulatory schemes that are being proposed that aren’t, and I’ll be happy to talk about those, and likely support them. I’m not getting the hostility, btw. fwiw this (getting stronger consumer protection laws passed) is literally my job; I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we probably agree with more than we disagree, based on your comment history. Obviously UBI won’t be enough to - will never be enough to - oust capitalists from having an outsized influence in policy, but what I don’t support at all are regulations that would further centralize the corporate IP holders and tech companies that would actually benefit from the copyright maximalist proposals currently being bandied about by the fear mongering anti generative AI discourse.
Fundamentally we’re not going to copyright our way out of the externalities AI brings with it.
My arguement is not limited to the only regulations being currently talked about any more than your arguement is limited by what types of UBI are currently talked about because im not hearing any talk on UBI.
Friend you haven’t proposed ANY thing except “sensible” regulations. I’ve asked you to elaborate on what those might be, but I’m cautioning against the regulatory schemes currently being proposed and considered. Maybe I’m too in the weeds on this issue — again, literally my job — but I can tell you the only proposals actually being discussed right now are copyright maximalist.
Because the western world has no other framework for intellectual property other than copyright claims, and the people who write the laws and discuss the solutions are the people already at the top who have property to protect. If copyright in it's entirety disappeared tomorrow with nothing in it's stead the very first people to lose and lose the most will be the small artists, because there's nothing to stop people or companies with massive resource pools just steamrolling over them, in fact I can't see that move(eliminating all copyright) doing anything but accelerating a monopoly forming to whichever company can steal and distribute art the best. My best guess says if you try to solve that problem you'll find solutions that will at least alleviate the AI problem for smaller creators. But again I don't know what you're expecting of me, If I had the regulation all figured out, I probably wouldn't just be jawing about it on Lemmy, and you yourself said you cannot figure it out and it's related to your field. Because right now like you said, more copyright will slowly strangle creators, and like I just said no copyright will let them be steamrolled over by anyone who can sell or distribute it for a lower price than them. UBI make sure the artist doesn't die. Great honestly, better than just letting people drop, but if all the artists work can simply be stolen for profit by those that didn't make it, and they have to subsist on the payments everyone gets, then there's really no such thing as an artist in terms of vocation anymore, nor would there be enough opportunities to profit from your own artistic work. I don't know the solution any more than you do, but to me I don't think UBI is good enough because I believe being an artist is labor worth being paid for. I think we need something targeted at the AI problem, not something reactionary, and not something necessarily targeting the AI itself, perhaps targeting the relationship between people who create art, people who distribute it, and people who profit from it, since often times those aren't all the same person.
You’re making a lot of jumps here. Copyright need not be eliminated entirely — that won’t happen anytime soon. But fair use exists for a reason, and generative art is if anything a fair use machine more than a plagiarism one. Everything is a remix, and artists making art using AI tools deserve to be able to monetize that work. I, too, believe artists deserve to get paid. I’ve worked personally helping small artists and creators navigate those waters, writing license agreements and helping them argue fair use to create and monetize their work. Expanding copyright terms further than they are wont help those artists get paid. It will further centralize the major corporations and big tech. It’s a siren song, a distraction from the real issue: that AI represents a far bigger threat than JUST to artists and writers. There is major economic upheaval right around the corner. There will be massive job displacement. Rather than further enriching corporations for misplaced short term gain, we must move to consider how we can allow artists and creators and everyone else with a creative spark to continue to exist and create art without further building up these legacy structures — that are already fraying at the seams and not fulfilling their original purpose, having long since been co-opted by the disneys of the world. We need more fair use, not less. UBI of some form is that answer, as far as I can tell. We need to start providing people the freedom to work on what they want without the crushing pressures of imminent destitution if we hope to have artists making art. I say again: copyright will fundamentally not be the solution to the externalities of AI. We need more creative, more radical solutions. https://abovethelaw.com/legal-innovation-center/2023/07/21/stop-rushing-to-copyright-as-a-tool-to-solve-the-problems-of-ai/
I still have yet to argue in favor of more copyright, I don't know why you're still arguing against something we both agreed was bad, but this is the first time in a while I've heard UBI called radical in the face of capitalism, I don't think it gets at the root of the problem of capitalism or of the smaller AI vs artist problem as I've explained previously. The relations of production and profit don't budge an inch. I've also never said I oppose UBI though, in fact I said if it helps keep people fed and sheltered that's great. I just see it as a stopgap 'solution' that will buy time and comfort until the market adapts on how to recuperate that money since it can expect every citizen to get that every month, I don't trust a free market not to ruin that. Furthermore specifically in the face of AI versus artists, the consequences are already happening and the push at a political level for UBI is lower than when Andrew Yang was running, and since the political level is where UBI would have to come from, I don't like the idea of not trying anything else until then.
Simple: Make UBI is inflation adjusted. Problem solved.
Andrew Yang is a neoliberal hack, and I promise you UBI is about as radical as we could hope for that’s still attainable in the currently policy landscape. Anything more radical and we’re talking actual get-out-your-guillotine-revolution. Fair enough, though, I would suggest that the way you talk about addressing AI as it relates to artists dances around copyrightland more than directly and broadly focusing on labor — which imo is the best way to tackle AI externalities. What we should be doing is building bridges between artists and the rest of labor, finding ways out of the cyberpunk dystopia not by relying on intellectual property but by building stronger social programs that lift us all up.