AI generated art

[Aknot]

Mo

I would expect that this is already happening

Most likely yes as many tech companies operate in ways that current legislation and authorities are still not ready to handle. That said, I would say more powerful interest groups are ready to protect such material (publishing houses, media companies etc), which probably helps. A startup being shown using the Harry Potter books to train an AI to churn out Hogwarts stories is very likely to have lawyers come knocking.

 

[Aknot]

So what you are saying is that the companies training the AI art programs are stealing the original artworks, rather than using reproductions which they will have bought from someone and who, presumably, will have paid the artist for publishing their work. I doubt these people are sneaking around taking illegal photos of the art for training the software.

This is entering into the public debate of copyright material around the heyday of Pirate Bay. They are not stealing an original piece of art. They are using the material for commercial purposes without consent or payment for it. And as you probably can guess: in the 2020s it’s not cloak and dagger with a hidden camera at the Louvre but scraping the net. This means billions of photos and art work taken from sites without permission.

 

[Vertigo]

Don't get me wrong; I am totally and one hundred percent against any form of pirating (a glamorous name for theft if ever there was one). I'm just not convinced the people training their art software is likely to be doing this any more than the people training their music software, or, for that matter, any more than a uni lecturer scrapping works of are for their power point presentation for that next class they have to teach. It goes on all over and it's wrong; I'm just not convinced (not from any particular inside knowledge I hasten to add) that this particular group of people are doing it any worse than all the rest.

 

[althea]

In the world of digital art, I certainly know there is a huge amount of theft of images. It has been going on for a long time.
Many people see an image and don't realise, that it belongs to the person who created it.
They think that anything on the 'net is up for grabs.
It's true that the Old Masters used to look at each other's works and use their ideas. They often met and discussed various techniques they used
and shared them with their friends.
I would say AI generated art is up for grabs. because a creation is the intellectual property of the creator and a robot has no intellect.
That's going into a whole different discussion though.

 

[Aknot]

I’m no expert but I’ve read up a bit and listened to those that are much more knowledgeable. There is a difference. Stable Diffusion for example (that now has made some acknowledgements regarding the use of copyright material), has to my knowledge treated music and art/photos differently, paying royalties or the like to record studios.

And it’s hard to grasp what technology does but the chef difference between human activities (a teacher using a PowerPoint based on material downloaded from the net - which also might fall under educational laws) and a scalable for profit tool is so vast that it boggles the mind.

 

[KGeo777]

Someone I know asked me to come up with an idea for the AI art generator--I said

how about a hedgehog standing on a cliff by the ocean and a Greek temple --realistic scene

and this is what it did:

 

[KGeo777]

I also said "giant gumby destroying the Golden Gate bridge" but it couldn't do Gumby
it did a gummy bear instead.

 

[Astro Pen]

Yes. Because I’m quite sure all proper school schools pay for the books and material they use. I’m not a legal expert but I would be surprised if most western countries don’t have laws that regulate how copyright material is used in education.

I think we are into the territory of 'fair use' clauses. These have to exist or we would live on an internet paralysed by copyright lawyers.
(They would have a field day with our 'makes you smile' thread for example.)

Exceptions to copyright

Private (commercial) colleges may find the fingers a little tighter around their necks.

 

[KGeo777]

Porn is going to be the most extreme area for this--because soon you can literally do anyone in a porn scenario that will be about as realistic as is possible and that will create a lot of problems legally and also expose the public to things that are extreme and probably better off not seen. If you try to limit the visual information available to the AI system, I don't know--I just think it is going to be scenarios like: Colossus, do the Last Supper as an orgy with current members of Congress naked and bloated, in place of the apostles. etc.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

As someone whose day job is in education, I can say that most teachers don't have the time or the energy to properly monitor their image/text use. However, in some repro offices the CLS scheme does operate, and is adhered to. Some authors therefore do get their just reward. The ALCS monitors and administrates such use.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I have flip-flopped in my position on AI so many times I'm beginning to feel like a yo-yo. The legal and ethical concerns over AI art generators as they stand right now are legit and need to be sorted out. Personally, I am back in to a holding pattern with AI until things are more settled. I find the technology both fascinating and disturbing, but can see how it could be a very useful tool if trained/used ethically. I'm not against the tech itself, just how it is set-up right now. The Concept Art Association is presently raising funds to begin lobbying about AI companies in the hopes of forcing it to adhere to copyright laws and ethically source its training data (something that the music AIs are already doing). I truly hope they are successful in bringing about a good solution for all parties involved.

 

[Astro Pen]

Just had this pop up on Windows 10 opening page.
(I'm trying not to go full on Luddite)

I looked up Walter Benjamin's book The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

It was supplanted in the search by this:

Art in the Age of Machine Learning

An examination of machine learning art and its practice in new media art and music. Over the past decade, an artistic movement has emerged that draws on machine learning as both inspiration and medium. In this book, transdisciplinary artist-researcher Sofian Audry examines artistic practices at...

books.google.co.uk

 

[Astro Pen]

A couple of youtubers grasp the nettle.

 

[THX1138]

Just had this pop up on Windows 10 opening page.
(I'm trying not to go full on Luddite)

I looked up Walter Benjamin's book The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

It was supplanted in the search by this:

Art in the Age of Machine Learning

An examination of machine learning art and its practice in new media art and music. Over the past decade, an artistic movement has emerged that draws on machine learning as both inspiration and medium. In this book, transdisciplinary artist-researcher Sofian Audry examines artistic practices at...

books.google.co.uk

View attachment 98448

I saw a bit on NHK that talked about just this kind of technology. All the artist did was type some words into a field and used it to make a manga from it. I forgot the name of the program, I got into it halfway. But it was interesting.

 

[THX1138]

@Astro Pen and @Laura R Hepworth.
Well, I couldn't fine the NHK segment I was looking for. But I did find this demo of the same thing. (You folks may already know by now)

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

@Astro Pen and @Laura R Hepworth.
Well, I couldn't fine the NHK segment I was looking for. But I did find this demo of the same thing. (You folks may already know by now)

Oh, I'm very familiar with the text-to-image AIs out there. I've experimented with 10+ AIs and been researching them (off and on) for the last year in order to understand how it is they actually work and what all the commotion was about. It's interesting, yes, and, trained properly in accordance with IP laws and ethics, it has huge potential. However, I would strongly advise anyone thinking of using them to shelve that idea for now as things are really heating up legally. A class-action lawsuit has just been filled against Stability AI, MidJourney, and DeviantArt and the Concept Art Association is very close to their GoFundMe goal for lobbying against the current set-up of AI using illegally sourced images as training data.

 

[THX1138]

Oh, I'm very familiar with the text-to-image AIs out there. I've experimented with 10+ AIs and been researching them (off and on) for the last year in order to understand how it is they actually work and what all the commotion was about. It's interesting, yes, and, trained properly in accordance with IP laws and ethics, it has huge potential. However, I would strongly advise anyone thinking of using them to shelve that idea for now as things are really heating up legally. A class-action lawsuit has just been filled against Stability AI, MidJourney, and DeviantArt and the Concept Art Association is very close to their GoFundMe goal for lobbying against the current set-up of AI using illegally sourced images as training data.

Good to know! I have no interest in doing AI art myself. I did find that in Japan, many manga lovers are very much against the use of AI used to make manga as it takes away from the traditional art and for many of the same reasons you also pointed out.

Edit:

And from what I saw on the NHK program, the MC of the manga they were highlighting looked very familiarly to me at first. I thought it was based on an amine I watch, but it wasn't and caught me off guard. So, I can understand the legal concerns going on. This type of 'art' is only the manipulating of someone else's work, then calling it an 'original' made by you...not.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

Good to know! I have no interest in doing AI art myself. I did find that in Japan, many manga lovers are very much against the use of AI used to make manga as it takes away from the traditional art and for many of the same reasons you also pointed out.

Edit:

And from what I saw on the NHK program, the MC of the manga they were highlighting looked very familiarly to me at first. I thought it was based on an amine I watch, but it wasn't and caught me off guard. So, I can understand the legal concerns going on. This type of 'art' is only the manipulating of someone else's work, then calling it an 'original' made by you...not.

It's not just other people's artwork that's in the training data either. It's been confirmed that the dataset being used also contains pornographic content (including child porn) and people's medical photos which raises even more legal concerns.

If they can get this all corrected so that it's trained only on legal/ethical material, I'd love to keep playing with the tech for creating references and doing just general brainstorming for artwork. It's not without potential uses, but it has to be done right.

 

[THX1138]

It's not just other people's artwork that's in the training data either. It's been confirmed that the dataset being used also contains pornographic content (including child porn) and people's medical photos which raises even more legal concerns.

If they can get this all corrected so that it's trained only on legal/ethical material, I'd love to keep playing with the tech for creating references and doing just general brainstorming for artwork. It's not without potential uses, but it has to be done right.

Good to know.

 

[THX1138]

Good to know.

Thanks for the insight @Laura R Hepworth !
Though I'm not interested in AI art, you have provided given me a clearer view of the world of AI art!