"Famous" AI Artist Says He's Losing Millions of Dollars From People Stealing His Work

gizmodo.com Famous AI Artist Says He's Losing Millions of Dollars From People Stealing His Work

The guy who used Midjourney to create an award-winning piece of AI art demands copyright protections.

https://archive.ph/tR7s6

Get fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked

“This isn’t going to stop,” Allen told the New York Times. “Art is dead, dude. It’s over. A.I. won. Humans lost.”

"But I still want to get paid for it."

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Arthur Besse @lemmy.ml

5mo ago

"Famous" AI Artist Says He's Losing Millions of Dollars From People Stealing His Work

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Tony Bark @pawb.social

5mo ago

Famous AI "Artist" Says He's Losing Millions of Dollars From People Stealing His Work

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69 comments

I get that socialists will naturally be sympathetic to artists who often are not well compensated for their labor. However I think it’s also important that we understand that in order to make a living, independent artists rely heavily on intellectual property law. As such, they tend to want to categorize all AI art as unoriginal and derivative of existing works.
Unfortunately I think that’s a bit of a liberal argument. It ascribes some ineffable quality to human creativity that AI cannot replicate. In doing so it obfuscates the process by which the state creates and enforces a market for intellectual property. Therefore, I don’t think it’s particularly useful argument for socialists to make.
That’s not to say “AI” companies aren’t exploiting the work of unpaid artists. That is definitely still true. We just need to be advocating for solutions that go beyond what capitalist markets can offer.
- I don't think it is a particularly ineffable quality though? It's art because another human did it, and it really doesn't have to be much deeper than that. That said, I do agree that intellectual property is ultimately blind alley. What most people don't understand is that IP laws are only enforceable in the name of capital.
  
  I think I disagree with the idea that art is art because a human created it. I think art is art because it provides a particular kind of experience to us as humans. Whether or not a human made the art by hand, with a machine, or if it was simply an item someone found in nature it’s all still art. Even curating art is art.
  That said AI art is still a product of human creativity. It’s abstracted by a few layers of technology sure and most of the people that build or use the models don’t know what good art is. However bad art is still art. People get drunk at paint nights and create shitty imitations of famous paintings but it’s still art as reticent as I am to admit it.
  
  For sure a person can curate AI art, and maybe even communicate something about the human experience with it. But, compared to a traditional painting, where every brush stroke tells the story of its creation, there's just so much less bandwidth for that sort of expression. And in this case it would be the statement itself that is the art, not the 'painting'.
- Unfortunately I think that’s a bit of a liberal argument. It ascribes some ineffable quality to human creativity that AI cannot replicate.
  every single time the AI argument comes down to this. "oh you just don't trust AI cos youre a rube who believes in a soul" no motherfucker I'm just not some fucking anti-intellectual who has decided, apropros of NO research into neuroscience, that I know how the brain works and it MUST be analogous to something algorithm based machines can understand
  you genuinely don't know what you're talking about, and you have to take so many intellectual shortcuts to derive your position that you are not worth taking seriously
  
  Who are you arguing against? I never said AI was analogous to a human brain. It’s plainly not.
  
  here?
  Unfortunately I think that’s a bit of a liberal argument. It ascribes some ineffable quality to human creativity that AI cannot replicate.
  unless my lying eyes deceive me
  
  When I say replicate I mean replicate an output. I.e. AI can be used to create images that are unique but categorically indistinguishable from various types of digital images that we would classify as art. I did not mean to imply that the AI models which currently exist can replicate processes that occur in the human mind.
  I understand why there might be some confusion and I’m sorry if I wasn’t more clear. I genuinely dislike calling these models “neural nets” or “AI” because that implies they function as a human mind would. Anyone who understands the basics of both should know that’s not at all true.
  
  exist in part to belittle actual artists for the sake of boosting the treat printers (or the treat printer prompters) to artist status
  that's what's so insane to me. for the longest time, STEM folk were all about 'artists aren't worth respecting' 'oh arts degree? just put the fries in the bag lmao'
  then suddenly AI art comes about and then it's 'look at my art! AI makes better art than anyone and it's imperative we dump everything into it! you must respect my AI art! you must treat me like an artiste'
  and now that it's clear it's a grift, it's 'art is dead, we will never beat AI, artists are back to not worth respecting'
  once again, tourists visiting every creative medium they can to try and find fresh rubes for their machine
- Yeah I think what AI is exacerbating is the tension between creativity and commodity. Businesses don't celebrate art, they seek profits. Images, articles, music, and whatever else are all simply products to sell under capitalism. Turning every artist into a copyright lawyer won't change the fact that their creations are ultimately still commodities.
  I see a lot of arguing over the definition of "art" but that's beside the point. The problem is the entire bourgeois concept of property and the way capitalism impoverishes the working class so that they must spend their lives selling their labor.
- Nah this is lib shit.
  
  No attacking artists for trying to avoid having their work (labor) stolen is lib shit. I am not arguing with you because there is nothing to argue about with a liberal.
  
  That’s not what I’m saying though. It’s more that I think arguing for better protections under IP law is akin to participating in get out the vote campaigns for democrats. If the goal is to better conditions for working people including artists, neither of those avenues will lead you anywhere.
  
  You’re only reading me that way because you’re lumping my arguments in with all the pro AI nonsense that’s out there. I honestly don’t care for any of the slop AI models tend to produce and it’s not reasonable to assume that I do.
  Also my arguments stand on their own. Even if there are no near term solutions to the plight of artists that doesn’t mean reifying the concept of intellectual property is worth anything.
  
  That’s irrelevant to the legitimacy of my argument. I can tell you rhino horn isn’t going to fix your love life without telling you what will. That said I’m an ML. I don’t believe most artists will be fairly compensated for their labor until we can actually abolish capitalism.
  
  I mean if you don’t want to read what I wrote you can claim I never wrote anything at all I guess.
  
  You told everyone to stop complaining
  I never said people should stop complaining about their own exploitation. You’re arguing with yourself at this point.
  
  I’m not running defense for capitalists. If you think that I am you’re completely missing the point.
- You know all those people on this site and others, begging for money to survive the next month because of various reasons? I think they really put too much stock into the capitalist concept of money and should stop giving so much stock to something that's bad.
  Is this really your take? That people within capitalism have to not use what little scraps of recourse they are given to have some sort of moral high ground? Really? Fuck you. People need money to live in the current shitty times and if there is a way to get money, they need to engage with it, because the alternative is that they starve and die. This really shouldn't be hard to understand. Artists rely on a shitty system to make their money because it's the only path available to the within the current shitty system. The legal system also sucks and yet it is the only recourse for people who get fucked over by corporations. Should they also stop trying to get some manner of justice because the system sucks? I guess we should all lie down and die, because the system sucks.
  SO yea, what the fuck are you talking about with solutions that go beyond the capitalist markets? How about we DESTROY these immoral, terrible markets and get us a good system of government?
  
  What are you even talking about? This is the least charitable and most absurd interpretation of what I said.
  
  Oh no am I being uncharitable to someone okay with fucking over normal people because of a technicality? Sorry not sorry.
  
  Why are you assuming I’m okay with fucking over normal people? That’s just absurd lol.
  
  Because the vast majority artists are normal people and you are telling them to eat dirt because copyright law sucks?
  
  I’m not telling them to eat dirt. I get there are people out there who just tell artists shit like “Artists just have to learn the new AI tools and if you don’t that’s on them.” We can agree those people suck. I am not one of them.
  I agree that AI just mimics the patterns found in existing works of art. I agree that companies making money off these AI models are in a round about way exploiting the labor of artists who often struggle to make a living. I agree artists should engage in political activity to the degree that they can to fight for what they deserve.
  That said, I am arguing that relying on copyright law and capitalist concepts of private property are not the avenue for artists to get what they deserve. That doesn’t mean I think artists should just accept the status quo. It also doesn’t mean I fault anyone, especially artists, if they disagree.

69 comments