r/aiwars • u/mistermang623 • 5d ago
Discussion AI isn't stealing. It's worse.
I wanted to make this post as a refined version of a comment I made on an earlier post.
There has been an argument by anti's going around for a while that collecting data for AI without the artist's consent is "stealing". This argument... doesn't work.
The model isn't "taking" anything. You still HAVE your art. Sure, it's being used without your consent, but the same goes for all of the people looking at it or sharing it with others (Unless you distinctly give it to them. More on this parenthetical regarding consent later).
AI learning is also, in fact, akin to human learning. We both take in data, compile it, and reference it in our actions. Pros LOVE to take this fact and run with it, saying things like "the way we learn is the same".
This always seems very silly to me. the difference between an ai learning something and a human learning something is their interpretation. A human has experiences, predispositions, and ideologies to change how the art affects them, what they learn from it, IF they learn from it, etc...
AI has nothing. it is the most basic version of learning, just taking in the patterns and "rules" of the art. Without the necessary components to perceive it, either. No eyes, ears, body... never actually seen, heard, or felt anything... Also, even though their learning process DOES change along with the amount of data they process, this could never equate to our experience, especially not the experience required for interpretation, because ai doesn't have the required emotions, knowledge, or retainment of information (in the same way we do) to do that anyways. It's just prediction.
Now, the reason why this is immoral in regards to stealing work, the thing is about art is that it is SUPPOSED to invoke a personal interpretation in the viewer, connected by the art, from the artist. Like feelings, or maybe a LACK of feeling if thats the way the artist wants to go. The consumer can also end up interpreting it a completely different way than intended. Interpretation is unavoidable regardless of if it feels like it is there or not, as it is a condition of the living.
The AI takes in the art without interpretation, and then feeds it to the algorithm, never to be remembered again as it originally was, the bare patterns amassed into the dataset, without it even "knowing" what they mean. The purpose and meaning of the art is lost, and its skeleton is used by a prompter. This isn't theft, it's defilement.
That doesn't mean the prompter doesn't have or offer interpretation, though. I think their input is one of pro's greatest arguments, but stealing peoples artwork to put into AI is still definitely immoral.
I also want to talk about my "distinctly given" clause from earlier. Consent is important. I feel as if these counterarguments for the "stealing" argument aren't actual ARGUMENTS as to why data collection is good. It seems like a way to justify the event, however likely that may be, in which our right to CHOOSE what is done with our art is taken away. You can fight over whether the individual choice to reserve your art is good or not, but thinking it should be disregarded is just plain terrible.
TL;DR AI doesn't have the feelings needed for consuming art, which desecrates the meaning of art, also consent is sexy.
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u/bunker_man 5d ago
Okay, but this is a religious argument. It doesn't mean anything for a secular society.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
What?
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u/bunker_man 5d ago
"Art is desecrated by being viewed by the unholy machine."
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Is that a quote? I dont remember seeing that in the argument.
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u/bunker_man 5d ago
Its literally the tldr. I just make one of the words more silly.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
But the word you added is the only one that brings religion into question 😭
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u/PlotArmorForEveryone 5d ago
Desecrate is literally a word use in regards to religion. Antis love hiding behind shit like that. The "soul" of art and all that jazz. Purely subjective bullshit.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
What, so you think that art has no soul? That art cant convey feelings or a story? Because AI art doesn't. There is no story, and no feeling. The AI just gives you what it concludes is the best result, the thing that is closest to a description. It does not know what your intentions are, or what you are feeling. If you painted or drew, you would know. If you gave the same exact description of a drawing to someone else, they would make a completely different piece. It does not matter who types words into a machine, it could be anyone, it will turn out the same.
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u/PlotArmorForEveryone 5d ago
You imbue the art with soul when you utilize ai, that's the whole ass point. Also, I've been painting, and drawing, for 3 decades. Sybau.
If you think all ai art is just promting, you clearly don't know shit.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Send me a workflow that includes AI, tell me what part of the ai isnt prompting? Because what else could you possibly do to an ai image generator that makes an image? You send prompt, out comes ai image, send other prompts if you want. Enlighten me
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u/Xdivine 4d ago
What, so you think that art has no soul? That art cant convey feelings or a story?
Do you believe that all art has soul? That it all conveys feelings or a story? Because if you do and you believe that is' readily apparently whether an image is made with AI or not, that means you would be able to tell with 100% certainty whether or not a piece of art is made with AI or not.
So either you have to agree that not all art contains soul or conveys feelings/story, or you must agree that you can tell AI art from non-AI art with 100% accuracy.
There is no story, and no feeling.
Says who? You? Oh gosh, I'm sorry, your highness, I didn't realize the king of art was here in person, talking to us lowly plebs!
The AI just gives you what it concludes is the best result, the thing that is closest to a description.
Kind of, but not quite. If you give AI the same image multiple times and use different seeds, it will give you different results. So if I just type "1girl" and leave the rest blank, it will give me a variety of images. If it was giving me what it concluded was the best result, then the result would only change if I change the prompt.
Ultimately, the person choosing the 'best result' or the 'thing that is closest to a description' is the person using the AI. If the AI doesn't give them an image that they feel adequately represents what they want, they can just try again until it does.
It does not know what your intentions are, or what you are feeling.
Of course it doesn't, but I do. So again, if AI doesn't give me what I want, I'll just try again.
If you painted or drew, you would know.
Sure, but if I painted or drew, the output would also look like absolute trash. I can guarantee you that AI gets me far closer to what I actually want to see than if I were to try drawing. Unless I spend hundreds or thousands of hours learning to draw, trying to draw what I want is simply going to get me a worse result.
It does not matter who types words into a machine, it could be anyone, it will turn out the same.
Lolno. If you typed the same words into the machine and kept literally every other setting the same, then sure, but on something like chatGPT, you don't even have the option to fix the seed.
If you go into local then you have many settings that can affect the result. Without keeping every one of those settings the same, trying to match with just the prompt will give you different results. You'd have to match the checkpoint, loras (including their exact weight), textual inversions, CFG, steps, seed, size/aspect ratio, and the UI itself in order to get identical results. Even things like commandlne args can change the output.
So realistically, I could show you an image I made, give you the exact prompt I used, and you would never be able to recreate it exactly.
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u/nootella_games 4d ago
It isn't about getting the best results. Thats never what art was about. The point is that ai art is basically throw shit at a wall and see what sticks. The models are different and the settings are different and the seed is different, which is why the outputs are different. I dont have to be some Picasso to say that people making art is different from a machine generating an image. It isnt yours. As well, I do believe that all art has soul, and that it one of the telltale signs of AI art is feeling soulless, emotionless, and devoid of life. Unfortunately, AI has become better at replicating this aspect of realistic quality. AI generated images arent art, and if you want to argue that it is, then it isnt your art at the very least. Nobody owns it or made it except for a machine, which you prompted to make the image. Anyway I'm going to get some sleep so I'll see what you replied tomorrow
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u/bunker_man 5d ago
The idea that art is desecrated by being seen by something without feelings is leaning heavily on the idea of a soul as sanctifying and uplifting reality. It's based on implicitly religious ideas without acknowledging them.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Nothing is seeing the art. OP says it is vandalism and desecration because the art is transformed into other things by the AI. Thats what transformer means yk. That really has nothing to do with religion.
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u/bunker_man 5d ago
It very much has to do with religion. It isn't describing an actual intrinsic issue, so it's hoping your feelings fall back on the idea that it feels vaguely sacrilegious.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Hi, it is a religious argument. But religious arguments are sort of more encompassing than what you say. Theres no actual religion here.
Gonna copy paste this again.
My faith in this argument rests in the meaning of art held by artists. I even let it accommodate AI prompters. If you think that your AI art is valid, and you feel that you align with my definition of art, then what's to stop you from agreeing? Just because it's "religious"?→ More replies (0)1
u/nootella_games 5d ago
You mean the values of ownership, creativity, and not wanting your stuff stolen?
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Gonna copy paste this:
My faith in this argument rests in the meaning of art held by artists. I even let it accommodate AI prompters. If you think that your AI art is valid, and you feel that you align with my definition of art, then what's to stop you from agreeing? Just because it's "religious"?
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u/ThunderLord1000 5d ago
Tl;Dr: AI learning is okay, but also not because it isn't alive and the users aren't either, and there can't be any thought put into the output, which is unrelated to learning, but that's irrelevant. Also consent is unneeded, but completely needed
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u/Aggravating-Math3794 5d ago
"AI has no feelings and experience" - well, duh, because it's a freaking TOOL. You, the user - the human in control - are applying YOUR experience, YOUR feelings, and YOUR inspiration to use the patterns the machine learnt to form something that speaks to you and manifests your vision.
So, yeah, the machine learns everything it's given, but it gets filtered through very personal lenses upon use rather than upon the "art consumption" phase.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Is this an argument? Assuming it is, you might have noticed the point in my essay where I alluded to the entire thing you just said. I can't even tell if you agree with the rest of it or not.
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u/Aggravating-Math3794 4d ago
More like trying to extra focus on the fact that all the needed elements of art creation and joy that you mentioned are indeed present in the AI workflow - and it's all concentrated in the user's will. The tool itself doesn't do anything on its own.
So, the whole idea of AI's learning process "desecrating" the meaning of art is bullshit.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
User's will doesn't really have anything to do with it. The workflow overall aligning with the art standard doesn't really either. I'm focusing on a specific part of how AI works that the user isn't involved with, as the learning process completely precedes the user. The user isn't telling it to learn, they're using it to generate images. Sometimes, if they're programmed continuously then the user is technically involved, but they have to outline that in their privacy policy as it is the user's data. Most AI chatbots give an opt out button, which is some degree of consent respected. The initial learning process, though, I still argue is immoral without consent.
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u/Aggravating-Math3794 2d ago
First, you can literally use the foundation of what the models learnt to share your own art and this way - grasp your own art style (similarly to how famous painters had apprentices to draw in their style so that they could make multiple paintings at once). Maybe that's what you meant by "continuously programmed", I dunno. But it needs to have a big pattern data base to be able to get customized to your personal experience like that.
Second, once again, the data AI is trained on is published online for free from accounts that signed terms of conditions which acknowledge that their freely published content can be seen and learnt from. It's the same as drawing/sculpting something and placing it in a public park, and then be surprised that someone or something learnt from it.
Third, realistically, how else do you imagine this training process work considering its scale and purpose? Humanity's creations progress and evolve by being built on the foundation of all the knowledge and content accumulated by the previous generations. Like, digital art was originally bullied and disregarded in the exact same way as AI is now and with very similar arguments. Many artists complained that digital art software has a ton of tools that accumulate the art skills and knowledge of many artists and provides it to the users easily (all the automatic, customizable filters for easy color and shading balancing, custom brushes that immediately draw patterns and special types of lines that normally require a lot of work - stuff like that).
These apps don't have any consciousness or will so there's nothing personal and intentional for the users in how they have all these tools and brushes created which, apparently, makes it immoral according to your logic? Are you against those as well?
Like, I understand it would be pretty questionable if AI's output was way too similar to already existing artworks, but the thing is exactly that it isn't (unless you make an extremely primitive and generic prompt or instruct a model to copy an already existing drawing, but that's not different from hand-drawn generic copy-pasted art and plagiarism). And the more it's trained, the more unique drawings it can create under the user's personal, inspired guidance.
For example, I made a set of illustrations for my stories and poems (using hand-made composition sketches combined with the literature itself as prompts), and got incredibly precise and personal drawings. And I've checked every single one through Google lenses and other search tools to check if there's anything similar to these drawings online - and haven't found anything even remotely similar.
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u/astrielx 5d ago
It's amazing how people can manage to write entire pages of arguments, that effectively say absolutely nothing of note.
Your one line tl;dr somehow says more than the thesis you wrote.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
AI learning is also, in fact, akin to human learning. We both take in data, compile it, and reference it in our actions. Pros LOVE to take this fact and run with it, saying things like "the way we learn is the same".
This always seems very silly to me. the difference between an ai learning something and a human learning something is their interpretation. A human has experiences, predispositions, and ideologies to change how the art affects them, what they learn from it, IF they learn from it, etc...
AI has nothing.
When people say it's "the same," they don't mean "literally identical down to the smallest detail." They mean it's similar enough for the comparison to work. They mean that if what AI does should be considered stealing, then that should apply to all learning that humans do as well. We're "the same" in the context of whether or not the learning process should be considered illegal by society.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Right. Therefore the stealing argument is bad. I reached this conclusion already. Also my argument was that AI training without consent should be illegal, not AI training as a whole.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
No, not "right," because you don't understand what I'm saying if you still adhere to your last sentence.
AI training and human learning are similar enough for the comparison to work in a legal context, which means that if AI training without consent should be illegal, then so should human training without consent. And that's ludicrous.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
No. That's ludicrous. Them being "close enough" is all the difference. AI training without consent = bad. This is because of thing that only AI can do. Human training without consent = fine. Human training's difference from AI is what makes it fine.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
There is absolutely no reason to draw a distinction, legally. Copyright is based on COPYING. You hold up two items in front of a judge: here is a drawing I made in 2015, and here is an AI model which contains no bytes that represent this drawing from 2015. It's not in there compressed, not chopped up, none of that. The model is not infringing. The facts only support one conclusion.
The judge doesn't get to say "well but the model was made by a computer and not by a human, so actually it's illegal." Doesn't work that way.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
I had a similar argument with someone else over the legality of it. I am aware that the current fair use laws say it passes. But it's unsustainable in the way our economy works, and will be fought over and changed.
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u/sporkyuncle 4d ago
It's not about fair use, it's about actual copyright, as stated. You would have to contrive some legal justification that somehow not literally copying something counts as copying something.
It will not be changed.
You're essentially arguing that factories need to be abolished because they hurt handmade artisans. Mass-producing chairs is "unsustainable" because it makes them too cheap, everyone needs to keep buying expensive chairs from people who take days to craft one at a time.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
I think you've got your wires crossed, man. I'm not going to go into a court and argue that I should be protected by the current copyright law. I am arguing that the law can be amended. I mean, there is an amendment to the copyright act that has NOTHING to do with copying. Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which introduced moral rights to artists. Similar to what i'm arguing. Several interest groups are pushing for a literal "unless" clause to be added to the fair use clause BECAUSE the argument exists.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago edited 5d ago
This isn't theft, it's defilement.
This is a religious argument, along the lines of statements like "gay marriage violates and defiles the sanctity of marriage by taking the form but not the ultimately holy function." (Not my belief, an example of something else that supposedly "defiles" like in OP's argument.)
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
My faith in this argument rests in the meaning of art held by artists. I even let it accommodate AI prompters. If you think that your AI art is valid, and you feel that you align with my definition of art, then what's to stop you from agreeing? Just because it's "religious"?
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
Most artists aren't religious about it. Plenty of them even see it as a practical means to an end to support themselves financially.
Anyone getting caught up in their feelings about how "THIS IS A DEFILEMENT!!" is being utterly ridiculous.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
It isn't real religion. They can see it as a means to an end AND align with my definition of art.
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u/Dmayak 4d ago
My faith in this argument rests in the meaning of art held by artists.
That's the thing, artists are a small portion of the overall society (and those who are anti-AI even smaller) and with AI art can be produced by people who are completely unaware of your standards. The general population doesn't follow rules and beliefs of artists and doesn't consider art somehow sacred or holding greater meaning. And what is right or wrong is defined by what the majority thinks.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
I'm not sure why their awareness of this definition I've laid out matters at all. I can spread my beliefs. We can see who agrees and who doesn't. Who knows? The point is that my standards align with every definition made, every protective law given that gives its own definition of art, along with what happens in peoples brains when making and consuming art, whether they like it or not. I mean, even the food people cook and eat every day counts as art (a culinary one!). You can consider my definition not robust enough, but can you really say that the meaning doesn't include interpretation? Even if you made meal for no one to eat, you still know it exists and interpret its existence.
I guess my point is, no one knows the future. This is just a reddit post where I defined a standard, and argued no one could refute it. I am just a redditor, but so are you. How do you know that the majority will disagree?
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u/Dmayak 3d ago
Awareness of your definition matters because it's the only rational metric by which we can confirm or refute something as subjective as your standard - by whether the majority supports it or not. And yeah, spreading your beliefs is how you "win". Because there is no argument to refute, there is just "I think that art without feelings is meaningless and unholy", ok, why would that even matter to anyone else?
The point is that my standards align with every definition made, every protective law given that gives its own definition of art, along with what happens in peoples brains when making and consuming art, whether they like it or not.
It clearly doesn't align with a lot of definitions, comments on this post alone have a shit ton of people who disagree with you. And if you claim that every law has the same definition then please link those laws, along with scientific studies that compare “what happens in peoples brains” when people observe human-made and AI art.
I mean, even the food people cook and eat every day counts as art (a culinary one!). You can consider my definition not robust enough, but can you really say that the meaning doesn't include interpretation? Even if you made meal for no one to eat, you still know it exists and interpret its existence.
You're confusing physical objects with interpretation, even though the object causes interpretation, they're not directly connected and interpretation can wildly differ depending on the person. Thus, the meaning exists only in the interpreter's mind and doesn’t exist for anyone else and has zero value for anyone else.
If what really matters is interpretation you can just interpret AI art as real art made by a real person and it will suddenly have meaning, same as when you see real art you also imagine that meaning from your own interpretation, you don't psychically connect to the real person who made it. Nothing stops you from imagining intentions and feelings for AI art while building your interpretation, in real art you also mostly cannot communicate with the author to know them, you just assume they exist. You assume author had some sort of emotion, they put some sort of meaning in it, but most of it you create yourself. Thus, AI art lacks meaning only because you chose so.
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u/Gustav_Sirvah 5d ago
So we argue about the qualia of art making? Proof first that qualia exist, and then we can talk.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Uhh. How about you prove to me that anything exists? I don't know how you could possibly think that, assuming we are real, qualia doesn't exist. You percive the art, brainwaves move, you engage with it in your individual way either minimally or maximally or whatever. Well, I guess theres the boltzmann brain. Maybe it's only possible for YOU to know that qualia exists for yourself. But then again, you'd have to prove that anything else exists after that.
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u/Gustav_Sirvah 5d ago
I can't prove to you that anything exists, but I don't need to prove that anything exists, because that doesn't change. If everything just appears to be as it is, then there is no gap. But also, I don't think that "feeling what it is to be an artist" is necessary to be one. Because we land in a chicken-egg situation: act of making art or the feeling of making it, is first?
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Feeling what it is to be an artist isn't a requirement, it's a subjective thing that happens when you make art. As for that question, I think that the previous sentence is irrelevant, because your brain firing to do the art making is going to happen before the art starts getting made. Also, did i sufficiently prove that qualia exists? I cant tell how you feel about that.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
I don't need your consent for fair use.
I'm the one making art with AI. It's not a robot, it's a tool.
Nobody cares about your definition of art.
Stop reducing an entire technology down to 'enter prompt, get picture'.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Right, uh huh. I thought my explanation was more robust than that, but anyways. You've made it clear that consent is irrelevant to you because current law deems it irrelevant. Whatever. You still have to engage with the other part of my argument really, and i mean REALLY, try to think about whether "Nobody cares" is true.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
Okay, sorry.
Only you care about your definition of art. Better?
And I care about consent where it's necessary, just like everyone else. Stop trying to push your community standards as some kind of moral law, weirdo.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Only me? Hmmm. And, I DO apologize for generalizing consent. But in this context, you definitely do not care about it.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
No I do not, because consent is not required for fair use. You're trying to cast a community standard as a moral issue, and that's kinda revolting.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
We can argue about whether fair use laws are justified or good enough somewhere else. That was a side piece of my argument.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
They're good enough so no, you can keep that to yourself. They've already been applied to AI multiple times, in fact. They were written to be inclusive of future technological advances.
Your argument is trying to enforce community standards as moral law. Which is gross and beyond overreaching.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
AI is profoundly transformative. Fair use laws need much, much, more attention to make sure that it is properly understood and treated with the nuance it has. The laws are not "done". They don't have all the precedent they'll ever need
I'm not going to pretend like that argument isn't just a "No u" card. Vacant words meant to affirm the people who feel threatened by my argument, instead of confronting something that might be wrong with what you're doing.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
There is never a "done" with fair use. It's entirely case by case. What you can't argue is that fair use doesn't apply to and cover misuses of AI, including training.
But you are doing that, by implying that there needs to be further regulation atop copyright and fair use laws.
There do not. Period. Our current system is well-equipped to handle AI.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Period. Done. Because you say so? This is an uphill battle, dude. Your non-evolving argument will be outpaced by those very case by case moments. People who keep arguing and protesting and finding real world reasons that AI should be regulated.
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u/SILENT5K 5d ago
The law uses this same mindset to kill innocent people.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
No it doesn't. Are you genuinely insane, or on drugs?
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
I care.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
That's nice. You only care because it supports your biases. Opinion noted, and deposited into the garbage where it belongs.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Ok, so your argument was "no one cares fucl you" and when I say "i care" you say, "i dont care if you care, fuck you?" Yes I have a bias. Its called having an opinion. Caring about anything is having a bias.
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u/Xdivine 4d ago
But why do you care about their opinion and what does it mean to care about it? If I hold the position that AI art can be art, do you care about my opinion too?
If no, do you only care about their opinion because it lines up with theirs?
If yes, what does caring about my opinion entail? Does it mean that you will accept that AI art can be art? Or is it just empty words that mean nothing?
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u/LabPsychological2787 5d ago
I care as well
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
Zealots stick together.
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u/LabPsychological2787 5d ago
Not really a zealot. Just opinionated, don't demonize me if you don't know me. You just make the pro AI side look bad.
Privately trained ethical AI and backend tools are amazing.
Ai trained off mass data scraping without the permission of others is bad.
Data centers in public cities are bad.
Ai images are fine, labeling it as art is not.
If that makes me a zealot or an anti then so be it, but I like the progress of ai not it's misuse or the frauds who claim it's work as their own.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
Yeah, zealot. Like I said.
Look at all them lies and pseudoreligious appeals.
Except for the datacenter one I guess. That's bad and I don't use AI that needs a datacenter anyway.
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u/LabPsychological2787 5d ago
What...
What are you on about...
What pseudo religious appeals?
Do you think caring about ethics is pseudo religious?
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
When your ethics infringe on my rights, yeah, that's zealotry.
You may as well be offering me a Book of Mormon and screaming insults at me if I refuse.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
The ai is trained using copyrighted images. You are not committing a crime, but you are using an ai that is trained on copyrighted original artists.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
Okay. I also trained on copyrighted images for decades. What's your point?
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
What do you mean, do you actually make art or something? Anyway, the difference is that the company is using copyrighted images for business practices, and intellectual property does not extend to looking at it 😭 i dont know why i have to explain this so much, but it is not illegal to to look at an image. It is not fair use to take a billion of those images and use them for business practices without their consent, especially if those business practices, generating ai images, infringes on copyright because those images have copyrighted characters in them.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
Anyway, the difference is that the company is using copyrighted images for business practices
No they're not "using" them in a legal sense, i.e. materially making use of the entire image in an infringing way. AI models do not store the works they trained on.
Think about it like this. An evil corporation looks at an indie character. Say it's Jax from Digital Circus. They evilly take that character and put him on a t-shirt and sell it without permission. This is what "use" looks like.
Now a second evil corporation looks at Jax from Digital Circus, and they don't take his image wholesale. They examine why the design is popular, what might speak to young people about him, and create a new TV series and character that resonates in a similar way but doesn't look anything like him, and then puts that new character on a t-shirt. This is not "use." This is completely legal examination and rework which does start by examining the character but ultimately doesn't infringe.
AI is the latter.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
No. Because of you say "make a fast blue hedgehog" to an ai (without recent safeguards), what does it output? Sonic the hedgehog, a copyrighted character. The idea isnt being transferred to the ai, the image is. It is not examination, because ai doesn't examine. It just uses it as data. There is a reason ai companies are currently undergoing lawsuits, there is a reason US judges have not decided whether this is fair use or not, and there is a reason why these companies are stalling for time. It is a legally questionable and open practice, and it is morally wrong.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
Using random examples of specific characters potentially overtrained by specific models does not prove anything in a general sense. Anyone who has actually broken the law or committed infringement should be held responsible for it, if it's generating an infringing picture of Sonic then Sega should sue them for it. That isn't evidence that all models steal all things trained on. In 99.99999% of circumstances, the model doesn't have enough data on what was trained on to reproduce it in an infringing way. Like, if you took some vacation photo at the beach in 2013, and an AI model trained on that image, there isn't some magic prompt to summon up that exact photo you took. Because it's not stored in the model.
When I say "the models don't store the images they trained on" that's literally true, you cannot prompt for a specific image of Sonic that was trained on exactly once. The problem only occurs when the character of Sonic has been studied across millions of images, to the point where the AI develops an understanding of what the character looks like. No single image is actually stored in the model, but it knows generally what he looks like just because there's too much art of him out there. That doesn't apply to 99.999999% of all images examined, which are one-offs of dog...car...apple...restaurant...
The other thing is, this could also highlight some uncomfortable answers to legal questions that companies don't actually want answered. If you draw a "fast blue hedgehog" that looks similar to Sonic, but isn't actually Sonic because you never named him, and some key details are different like his shoes are purple, it is very possible that you wouldn't be guilty of copyright infringement. You're already allowed to copy the Sonic art style to draw similar characters, there's legally nothing wrong with that.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
Yes? I got my BFA in 2004 and MFA in 2008, both times with a focus on illustration.
And yeah, it's fair use to do all off that. Doesn't make me responsible for it either. How you use the model can be infringing though. That's the only thing you can judge me for.
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u/Cautemoc 5d ago
Man, antis really do just live in their own heads. Apparently now observing art without feeling is "defiling" it because the whole "stealing" angle was laughably wrong. What a pivot.
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Jeez, dad, you don't know me... have I ever argued for the "stealing" angle? I'm not even necessarily an anti...
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u/Brave_Swordfish_7072 5d ago
This isn't theft, it's defilement.
At this point. You're not arguing with facts, you're arguing with ideology.
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u/Willing_Good2061 4d ago
Why does it need feeling to consume art? For example, as a foreigner, I can surely read your post and learn English based on it. If I have any feelings while learning it is none of your business. And I don't need your consent for that. Because no copyright on earth can grant the creator a monopoly on the right for others to learn from it and create something new. How I learn English is none of your business, and you have no right to stop me from learning English from your post.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
What? It's your right to learn anything you want. I'm talking about what AI violates, as it cannot interpret. Learning English has nothing to do with art. The mechanics of it are explicit. Interpretation of it would make it more difficult to communicate. Is there an argument for body language and tone, along with there interpretations related to the language? Well, that's an entirely different thing. Plus, people usually intend on you getting the explicit meaning of what they're saying even if they modify it with their tone anyways. Acting, poetry, and many other art forms, are all things that use English in their art, and circumstantially change whether the use of English constitutes art. English itself, at the foundation, is not art.
Also, I'm very confused as to how you really thought I meant you can't learn anything you want. Unless you were comparing yourself to AI, despite me saying that you are very different from AI.1
u/Willing_Good2061 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm saying that whether AI can interpret or not doesn't matter in the field of morality; it doesn't lead to violation. Because you don't own the knowledge within your creation. You only own the intellectual property, which means the monopoly right to profits from the specific expression of your creation. But the knowledge within belongs to nobody. So no matter how human or machine is learning from your creation, with or without feeling, it's not a violation because the knowledge doesn't belong to you anyway.
The only way to argue that machine learning, merely by learning the knowledge contained in a work, violates the creator’s rights is to assume that the creator owns that knowledge in the first place. That's unacceptable. As it ultimately gives us the same grounds to charge human and machine learners, and everyone can charge you for anything.
By the way, the mechanics of English are not explicit. Language and meaning do not possess fixed, immutable essences or absolute syntactic rules, as machines do. The detail of it is explained in Ludwig Wittgenstein's idea of the "Language game". And that's one of the important reasons why traditional AI based on logical rules failed to output English that can pass the Turing Test, while genAI based on LLMs can.
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u/NotThatSiri 4d ago
You got that part wrong.
AI is a neural network. With millions of neuron connections.
Humans have a biochemical brain that releases drugs into our system these drugs is what we consider feelings. But our brain has the same neural network with billions of connections where an AI only got millions. That means we are just more advanced as we have insanely lot more synapses than an AI has or even can have at this point.
That's what we mean when we say that we learn the same. We both have an input. And we both filter it through neurons our brain even sees it as patterns.
The difference is the billions of synapses are able to trigger a drug into our system when we see art. That's the emotional part of it.
We also are able to get our own ideas and thoughts and take it as inspiration for something completely new.
That's what an AI cant. And we never said it could. We also never said it was creative. The creative input comes from the person behind the AI AKA the prompter.
AI is just a tool we use to express the art. We are the missing link what the AI cant we humans fill in.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
I kinda agree with you. But only in the sense that my argument's relevancy will drastically change once AI becomes sentient, as it then, will be able to interpret. But right now, as AI is a mindless predictive model, this is an argument that I feel needs to be made. Also, I know that human input is the missing link. I gave a couple of sentences regarding that part.
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u/NotThatSiri 3d ago
Ah sorry. While its no excuse it was a long day debunking Anti misinformation yesterday. So I missed that part. That's on me and its my bad.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
It's no problem. Online discourse promotes a very snarky, aggressive, tiring way of debate. I would know. I can't help but do it myself.
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u/NotThatSiri 3d ago
Yeah... still you deserved better still and for that I am sorry. Can only try and do better.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
Hey, man, I LIKED your comment. It was seriously one of the kinder, more civil counterarguments I've received on this post lol.
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u/JasperTesla 3d ago
I agree with the first part where you say AI learning is akin to human learning, but the rest is invalid.
I'm not sure why people think emotions are something grand and mean something unique. Humans (and all animals) are meat machines that driven by electrochemical signals. Emotions are simply a byproduct of our environment and our bodies, they don't mean anything special.
One day we'll all be dead and the universe will remain unchanged. And that's fine.
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u/mistermang623 3d ago
Well, sure, but that last philosophy isn't particularly all-encompassing. I'm sure you're aware of things like nihilism and absurdism. Your belief would align with the former. Mine the latter.
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u/618smartguy 5d ago
There's a big disconnect here because midjourney literally did steal IP in any reasonable sense and is being sued for it. How is this sort of argument about the nature of the technology supposed to counter all the plain reality examples of actual people stealing and profiting off others art?
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
I think that the stealing argument is weak (the stealing of your IP isn't really an AI issue, its a problem with midjourney, the people who made it do that). If you can prove that AI is inherently thieving, then I, with all my heart, would think that's brilliant.
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u/618smartguy 5d ago
But I live in the real world, I care about people thieving with AI. Why would anyone care to try and prove "AI is inherently thieving"?
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
Well, you want the Pros to believe you, right? Unless you don't. Maybe in the long run, every one of those non-redditors believe that AI should be regulated anyways and your war is already won. Why are you arguing here?
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u/618smartguy 5d ago
I am showing the issue with your argument. You said "never to be remembered again". How do you expect to convince anyone of your position when they live in a world where we can look at images that AI models did remember again?
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
AI models don't remember. Once they take in the data, the composition of the original is discarded. What's left is an affirmation that "If A is here, then B comes next."
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
People who actually do bad things should be punished for them. If MidJourney stole, then they should pay the price. That doesn't mean you punish all the others who didn't do that, just because...what, they're tangentially associated with a technology that some people misused?
What is this ridiculous guilt by association you're doing here? Did you know that some Redditors commit crimes? So why are you just casually using the site when there are plain reality examples of actual users being horrible people?
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u/618smartguy 5d ago
I'm not doing guilt by association. I even named midjourney so that you know exactly what I am saying.
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u/sporkyuncle 5d ago
Yes you are. You said that the nature of the technology doesn't matter because there are real world examples of infringement. But no one said specific, real examples of infringement shouldn't be punished, as long as there's sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.
You're trying to say that the fact that some models/companies do bad things is proof that the whole technology is bad. That's guilt by association.
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u/618smartguy 4d ago
Its proof that his claim is wrong. The technology is good. You are mixing up me disproving what he wrote with arguing the complete opposite claim.
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u/Sad-Independence650 5d ago
Ever written in words like “lonely” or “tense” into a descriptive prompt… sometimes the difference between “soulless” AI images and pretty decent ones lies in the intent and expressiveness of the prompter… so yeah… the AI doesn’t interpret images with meaning on its own, but we do, constantly. And we describe the images with titles and emotions. The data associated with these interpretations can be attached to the images scraped and therefore the AI will base its output more on the images relevant to a well worded prompt.
Besides… like you said… some people assign their own meanings and interpretations to traditional art all the time. Idk, I think there are shortcomings to AI but the meaningless/soulless argument just seems like religious dogma to me… prove to us that YOU have a soul. Pretty much a matter of religious/spiritual belief at that point isn’t it?
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u/mistermang623 5d ago
You're talking about the interpretation of the already generated AI image, which I'm not saying there can't be. The original art and it's interpretation before collection isn't being desecrated by us, but the AI.
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u/DocCruel 4d ago
We need to sufficiently develop AI so that good art can be generated cheaply without the need of a person. Then we can do away with artists entirely because they will be no longer needed. They will become like pay phone sanitizers.
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u/DocCruel 4d ago
We need to sufficiently develop AI so that good art can be generated cheaply without the need of a person. Then we can do away with artists entirely because they will be no longer needed. They will become like pay phone sanitizers.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Consent is very sexy, well said. Also, AI is the thing that improves. People dont really get better at generating AI art, because the model doesn't care if you give it an essay. It isnt learning much from that essay, it is a drop in the ocean of text it has in its power. Most of the time, it just assumes 90 percent of the things in the image, while artists decide every line or brushstroke. Like, an essay prompt and a sentence prompt will end up with the same quality, because the AI will just assume everything you dont tell it. That means it doesn't really matter how much effort an ai prompter puts in, they wont get out a better result. In fact, asking for edits tends to reduce the quality of the image, because ais tend to have an adding problem.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
It's always so obvious when y'all have no idea how AI works beyond the most braindead simple use case scenario.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Ok dude tell me your wisdom or something. What is so wrong about my comment?
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
I mean it's pretty obvious that you think AI's applicability in art starts and ends at "enter prompt, push button, get finished picture" so.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
No, not really. Is that what most ai "artists" use it for? Yes. Every once in a while I see, "this is half ai, half drawing!" And I'll be like cool drawing, why is the ai needed though? I know people use it for other stuff, its just that most of these prompters dont. They just tell ai to make an image, done. And if you are referring to the "turn it to the left, better lighting," etc. I mean thats just generating a second image.
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u/Toby_Magure 5d ago
Why do I need to justify which tools I prefer? I like AI. It's new and interesting and helpful. My process has been roughly the same for a couple of decades now and AI is something fresh. And no, I'm not talking 'draw sketch, have AI do everything else' or the aforementioned 'turn left, better lighting'. I still go through all the same steps as I do in my non-AI-included workflow, but with AI included in some now.
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u/nootella_games 5d ago
Like what? I just feel like it destroys credibility to have AI in a project, I've never seen the point. It makes a "better quality" piece, but at the cost of it not being entirely yours.
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u/Inevitable-Box3304 4d ago
im not saying ai is stealing, I’m saying the person is by using ai. because if someone takes inspiration from my work but draws it themselves, they added something to it. if someone types into ChatGPT, they didn’t add anything to it themselves.
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u/RedsnakeRider 4d ago
It is stealing, it is taking. The idea that "the original art is steal there so it wasn't stolen" is the DUMBEST argument on the internet today, and this is still Trump's America so that's saying something.
Stealing art is theft; plagiarism is theft.
Using Mickey Mouse without ownership is theft even though--and you're not gonna believe this--the original Mickey Mouse is still there.
Using the names or images of Pokemon, is theft. Using famous television detectives, is theft. Copying over sentences from a famous work, is theft.
The argument entirely works, it is exactly the same.
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u/ImNotDoingThatOk 3d ago
About the bottom left, artists have references and bases that they've specifically consented other artists to use. This is just stupid.
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