Artists hold leverage that they can wield if they organize strategically along material lines. What if illustrators unionized to mandate human oversight in AI-assisted comics? What if musicians demanded royalties each time their style trains a model?

The answer to this latter question would seem to be an enormous centralisation of royalties in the hands of a few artists whose style is in style at any given time, and no more actual work for many future artists. Not a ton different from the current state of affairs, just further accelerated.

I can’t object to the broad strokes of the argument. It’s a fair point. It still feels premature to use the term “AI”, but I don’t have any objections to the field of machine learning in general. We just happen to be living through a period in which some of the most gormless motherfuckers on this earth are using it for nefarious purposes.