Is AI theft?

[Ethos]

As AI as bombarded us with weird news all over the world I can't help but feel curious about the subject. I have noticed many people have just accepted it as it is and called it a technology marvel while others say is theft. The argument of the latter is based on how these AI function, probability, in a sense.

According to them, a AI is a database wich calculates the next word by probability. To make this database you need to feed it with A LOT of the subject in hand so it can predict in an understandable manner (to us) our search query. In other words, is made of the words of others. 

So you wanna talk to Allan Poe. The AI will crunch all the data collected about Poe and base it's responses in probability getting you an acceptable response that seems to come from Poe itself. I guess that's nice. But then it comes... consecuences. While Poe is dead, I bet he doesn't mind BUT how about if you make a book with J.K Rowling style of writing? Surely it won't be as nice, but you could have something interesting there!

And how about AI Art? Goes even worse! The AI crunches all the work of your life and get the taste of your style and then spit art with your partial essence with no aditional cost. 

So here's the thing. I think it is theft because the data crunched by these AI's wasn't taken by the approval of the artists or writters. You might argue that human mind works in the same way since actually we can't come up with anything beyond what we have experienced but I don't believe nature has a problem with us grabbing inspiration from it since we are nature itself. Nature doesn't lose it's survival capabilities by giving us inspiration, it rather gains it through us. So in a reduced case, we couldn't exist without nature the same way the AI couldn't exist without artists or writters. Does Writters or artists benefit from this as nature (or god) benefits from us? No, in the human world they don't! Their means of survival or rather the material motivation to create will severely diminish and as any other job, they will cease to exist as their essence will just get imitated and exploited. 

If this go on like this, humans will stop creating or rather do it off the internet. Right now even voices of singers are being recreated with AI's. Personally I am not against the development of new technologies but damn, reducing the art's originality or writting worldwide? I don't think that's worth the trouble. So, here's my bias, I enjoy being an story teller and I write some tales on Hive. To be honest I already don't earn anything by doing it. I do it because it feels... good to give birth something that others might benefit to. My selfishness tells me this AI is a threat because it will take this satisfaction from me but in perspective, I don't believe it's so bad to feel nice about "nice" things. 

What do you think? is it theft or not?

[Danioover9000]

@Ethos

8 hours ago, Ethos said:

As AI as bombarded us with weird news all over the world I can't help but feel curious about the subject. I have noticed many people have just accepted it as it is and called it a technology marvel while others say is theft. The argument of the latter is based on how these AI function, probability, in a sense.

According to them, a AI is a database wich calculates the next word by probability. To make this database you need to feed it with A LOT of the subject in hand so it can predict in an understandable manner (to us) our search query. In other words, is made of the words of others. 

So you wanna talk to Allan Poe. The AI will crunch all the data collected about Poe and base it's responses in probability getting you an acceptable response that seems to come from Poe itself. I guess that's nice. But then it comes... consecuences. While Poe is dead, I bet he doesn't mind BUT how about if you make a book with J.K Rowling style of writing? Surely it won't be as nice, but you could have something interesting there!

And how about AI Art? Goes even worse! The AI crunches all the work of your life and get the taste of your style and then spit art with your partial essence with no aditional cost. 

So here's the thing. I think it is theft because the data crunched by these AI's wasn't taken by the approval of the artists or writters. You might argue that human mind works in the same way since actually we can't come up with anything beyond what we have experienced but I don't believe nature has a problem with us grabbing inspiration from it since we are nature itself. Nature doesn't lose it's survival capabilities by giving us inspiration, it rather gains it through us. So in a reduced case, we couldn't exist without nature the same way the AI couldn't exist without artists or writters. Does Writters or artists benefit from this as nature (or god) benefits from us? No, in the human world they don't! Their means of survival or rather the material motivation to create will severely diminish and as any other job, they will cease to exist as their essence will just get imitated and exploited. 

If this go on like this, humans will stop creating or rather do it off the internet. Right now even voices of singers are being recreated with AI's. Personally I am not against the development of new technologies but damn, reducing the art's originality or writting worldwide? I don't think that's worth the trouble. So, here's my bias, I enjoy being an story teller and I write some tales on Hive. To be honest I already don't earn anything by doing it. I do it because it feels... good to give birth something that others might benefit to. My selfishness tells me this AI is a threat because it will take this satisfaction from me but in perspective, I don't believe it's so bad to feel nice about "nice" things. 

What do you think? is it theft or not?

   I think it's context dependent and based on many factors like SD stages of development, cognitive and moral development, personality types/traits, states of consciousness, life experiences and other lines of development in person's life-societal domains, and ideological indoctrination and upbringing, and what self biases and preferences and mind nature a person has that generalizes, deletes and distorts reality to suit their perspectives.

   Also, in specific context, we still need to know the ratio of which part is theft to which part is innovation. To me, if an A.I program derives about 50% or less of an existing artist's work, it may not be theft and is fair use. However, if it's above 50% or 80% of an existing artist's work, it's clearly theft to me. On top of that is who is controlling the program? If big tech companies, you'll likely see them trying to justify stealing billions of images online, from living or dead artists regardless of copyright issues due to sheer scale of images stored. Overall a very tricky situation, which I understand and empathize with the artists that feel like this thing is stealing their work.

[Danioover9000]

@Ethos  Another example is cheating using A.I programs, like in chess or other games, or cheating by copying. It's going to be a messy case in the future when this thing gets stronger and has more computation capacities.

[Ethos]

3 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Ethos

   I think it's context dependent and based on many factors like SD stages of development, cognitive and moral development, personality types/traits, states of consciousness, life experiences and other lines of development in person's life-societal domains, and ideological indoctrination and upbringing, and what self biases and preferences and mind nature a person has that generalizes, deletes and distorts reality to suit their perspectives.

   Also, in specific context, we still need to know the ratio of which part is theft to which part is innovation. To me, if an A.I program derives about 50% or less of an existing artist's work, it may not be theft and is fair use. However, if it's above 50% or 80% of an existing artist's work, it's clearly theft to me. On top of that is who is controlling the program? If big tech companies, you'll likely see them trying to justify stealing billions of images online, from living or dead artists regardless of copyright issues due to sheer scale of images stored. Overall a very tricky situation, which I understand and empathize with the artists that feel like this thing is stealing their work.

I would argue if an AI can derive things by itself then it wouldn't be an issue with that. You wouldn't feel violated if a disciple of yours learned from you and created an style on his own. But when it resembles yours to such extent that it blatantly imitates you and COULD effectively pass by yours then there's an issue. 

I mean, there are so many artist out there and each has it's own kind of footprint that makes their work feel special. I don't see the need of specifically using someone's footprint to "create" something that person would to gain money. Seems quite unconscious to me. Still, let's see how it develops in the future and how we humans are going to handle it. Sadly, the technology is already out there so I don't think there's a way back now. All you need is someone with ill intentions to have it in their harddrive and that's it. 

[Ethos]

3 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Ethos  Another example is cheating using A.I programs, like in chess or other games, or cheating by copying. It's going to be a messy case in the future when this thing gets stronger and has more computation capacities.

Artist don't have much say in mainstream culture. I don't think they might have much an effect... but singers? pop artists? They have a lot of money and influence. Maybe they stand a chance against these tech companies.

[Danioover9000]

@Ethos

1 hour ago, Ethos said:

I would argue if an AI can derive things by itself then it wouldn't be an issue with that. You wouldn't feel violated if a disciple of yours learned from you and created an style on his own. But when it resembles yours to such extent that it blatantly imitates you and COULD effectively pass by yours then there's an issue. 

I mean, there are so many artist out there and each has it's own kind of footprint that makes their work feel special. I don't see the need of specifically using someone's footprint to "create" something that person would to gain money. Seems quite unconscious to me. Still, let's see how it develops in the future and how we humans are going to handle it. Sadly, the technology is already out there so I don't think there's a way back now. All you need is someone with ill intentions to have it in their harddrive and that's it. 

   I would argue and add on that not only is it an issue to almost completely imitate, but also attempt to profit from that style and claim as yours when in fact it's derived from me, a living artist whose income comes from sales of my own artwork. This is one specific issue when companies try to profit from copyrighted material from other artists and try to legally justify ripping off other art styles and claiming them as their own.

   The positives and negatives here, from a big picture perspective, is based on so many development factors like SD stages of development, cognitive and moral development, personality types/traits, states of being, 9 stages of ego development, life experiences and other lines of development, and ideological indoctrinations from culture and upbringing. Also, due to self biases and preferences and ALL human beings being deeply biased it'll be a hard fought battle to try and establish ways for people to use A.I programs in ethical ways that minimally disrupt another's livelihood. I don't want to see this as another version of automation, and increase in unemployment due to how disruptive automation was, even if there's some benefit to the markets it's still short term volatile as some people can't work office jobs or knowledge based or technical based work. 

   Take this video for example, which may be too nerdy and geeky but Daniel Schmachtenberger does cover these relevant issues with A.I programs:

 

[Danioover9000]

   Even @Space had made a similar thread talking about the disruptive nature of A.I programs. My heart goes out to those who are negatively effected by this technological disruption.

[Space]

On 17/05/2023 at 5:51 PM, Danioover9000 said:

   Even @Space had made a similar thread talking about the disruptive nature of A.I programs. My heart goes out to those who are negatively effected by this technological disruption.

I initially had a lot of concerns about AI art but then fairly quickly corrected my thoughts after researching and understanding it more. The idea that it's going to replace traditional art is mostly false. Obviously, there are some trad artists who will be affected but most not. AI art is excellent - but in its own way. The main limiting factor with AI art is that it's *not* good at successfully responding to professional creative briefs which is precisely what the job of a traditional artist is. AI art can create incredible images, but this is not what's important. People miss this. The important metric is - can people use the technology to respond to real requirements and specifications from a client. It can't do this. Because you'd need to explicate so many details and nuances that a human artist will automatically understand. AI art can be used in the preliminary stages (idea generation, mood boards, initial ideas, etc) because there aren't specific requirements for the image to look a particular way. After the initial stages, AI art tech can't be used.

I generally consider AI art to be the next form of Fine Art, which has a very specific definition. Fine Art is art that has primarily aesthetic value and no functional value which, in general, describes AI art. And aesthetic value is very important (most expensive items in the world are works of fine art) so AI art is a very important evolution that I'm quite excited about. Lots of really amazing artists generating some awesome AI fine art. But it kinda exists in its own bubble away from trad art. There's some overlap, but not much. 

@Ethos

Edited May 23, 2023 by Space