I heard about C2PA and I don’t believe for a second that it’s not going to be used for surveillance and all that other fun stuff. What’s worse is that they’re apparently trying to make it legally required. It also really annoys me when I see headlines along the lines of “Is AI the end of creativity?!1!” or “AI will help artists, not hurt them!1!!” or something to that effect. So, it got me thinking and I tried to come up with some answers that actually benefit artists and their audience rather that just you know who.
Unfortunately my train of thought keeps barreling out of control to things like, “AI should do the boring stuff, not the fun stuff” and “if people didn’t risk starvation in the first place…” So I thought I’d find out what other people think (search engines have become borderline useless haven’t they).
So what do you think would be the best way to satisfy everyone?
You had some great points, but then glossed over the biggest issue we have, as artists, with AI. People’s entire portfolios were scraped to train these things without their permission.
First thing I learned in art school is that theft and forgery are the most lucrative careers in the arts. (In hindsight, maybe a red flag there.) If an AI developer came into an artist’s studio, grabbed all their paintings and ran out, you can clearly see that’s theft. Just because the art theft is automated and largely unseen, doesn’t mean it isn’t still theft. People don’t like having their life’s work stolen from them.
Generative AI could have been a great artistic tool, but it’s been tainted for a lot of artists by the blatant, egregious theft at its very core.
Yeah sorry, I just don’t know enough about the technology and copyright law; I didn’t want to make uneducated statements. I’ll read the article you linked though, and thank you for your input!
Just one thing...
With this, the artist is losing possession of their art. AI doesn’t take art away, it creates more art based on original works, right? It’s more akin to plagiarism than physical theft, though of course plagiarism is very much theft so I think I get your point.