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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”.
Disclaimer: I’ve not workshopped this much, so idk if these are the right words to convey how I feel
I feel like using AI to generate images is akin to taking someone’s art and applying a light gaussian blur to it or putting an uncredited artist’s work in a big game.
I know it’s done in a much more intricate way, and it’s genuinely impressive how AI companies got it to work so well, but if I try to sell AI generated images, especially if they’re meant to be made similar to an artist’s work, then that’s all I’m doing.
I don’t necessarily see it as stealing from artists (though it is threatening the livelihood of a lot of artists), but more as exploiting artists but with a new buzzword.
If I arrange 4 pieces of art in a jpeg and then apply a whacky filter, am I actually creating anything, or am I just exploiting artists and doing something similar to copying and pasting different bits of an essay and then changing every instance of a word to a different synonym?
I believe AI does something similar to that, albeit in a more sophisticated way that looks like creativity.