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Mahlzeit

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Mahlzeit , (edited )

The situation today is that AI images are copyrighted (or not) just like any other images.

Given the power of the copyright industry, I doubt that this will be cut back. In the interest of society, it should be, but denying copyright to AI imagery is not the best place to do this.

The original intention of copyright was the same as that of patents: To encourage the creation of new works by making it possible to monetize them through licensing. AI images can be very expensive to make, depending on what goes into them. Without copyright on these images, we might miss out.

ETA: This purpose of copyright is given in the US Constitution (though it is older). US Americans could think about that. IP is property created to serve the public. That’s the only justification for property to be found in that document.

Mahlzeit ,

Not as far as I know. The continental European copyright-equivalent preserves feudal ideas.

Rulers granted monopolies to their cronies to allow them to extract money. These privileges were finally abandoned in the wake of the French Revolution. Ethical considerations aside, this was necessary to allow for industrialization/economic development. Except for “copyright”, which is democratized by automatically granting it to everyone, rather than being a special favor. The continental patent system works much like the US one, granting a “mere” 20 year monopoly. Copyright duration is tied to the death of the author, showing its nature as a personal privilege.

Small wonder then that the US copyright industry has come to dominate. Unfortunately, it has leveraged this power for rent-seeking so that much of the harmful, European model was adopted in the US.

You are right, though, that the European model has no regard for public benefit but is quite concerned with the “honor” of the creator.

Mahlzeit ,

The Statute of Anne 1710 gives this justification: […]for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books.

There are many precursors, but I don’t think they can be called copyright in the modern sense. All guilds had monopolies which they defended at the expense of society. It was a feature of feudalism that the elites sought to prevent change to preserve their positions.

But yes, copyright is the major remaining limitation on the freedom of the (printing) press.

(It’s interesting how many of the demands to regulate AI are parallel to the controls on the printing press, in the first few centuries after its introduction in Europe.)

Mahlzeit , (edited )

This is not a time for half measures. We need a complete ban on AI manufacturing paperclips now!

Just because fully automatic factories are complete sci-fi, does not mean that we have the luxury to take care of urgent matters.

Mahlzeit ,

If you generate images for an hour, it might be about the same as playing a game, depending on how fast you prompt.

But you’re quite right. For most end users it’s entertainment, so this is the proper context.

Mahlzeit ,

The model cards for Stable Diffusion 1.5 and 2.1 estimate the CO2 emissions as 11.25 tons and 12 tons for training. XL lacks the info.

A transatlantic flight (round-trip) is about 1 ton per pax. So, while every little bit helps, ML is not where you can make the big gains in lowering emissions.

Mahlzeit ,

Ironic, given that Krita came out against AI.

Mahlzeit ,

Copyright is, at its heart, about the right to make copies. If no direct connection can be made to another work then it is clearly not a copy and therefore…

Your fears don’t seem plausible, either. A person or company doing AI training only needs 1 single copy. It’s hard to see how that would translate to more than a few extra copies sold; at best, maybe a few dozen or a few hundred in the long run. I can see how going to court over a single copy of each item in their catalog is worth it for the larger corporations but what you fear just doesn’t make financial sense to me.

Mahlzeit ,

Isn’t it a challenge?

Mahlzeit , (edited )

So much this. Most people under 40 must have grown up with video games. Shouldn’t they have noticed at some point that the enemies and NPCs are AI-controlled? Some games even say that in the settings.

I don’t see the point in the expression “AGI” either. There’s a fundamental difference between the if-else AI of current games and the ANNs behind LLMs. But there is no fundamental change needed to make an ANN-AI that is more general. At what point along that continuum do we talk of AGI? Why should that even be a goal in itself? I want more useful and energy-efficient software tools. I don’t care if it meets any kind of arbitrary definition.

Mahlzeit ,

Yes. Or maybe you dreamt it and were a bit confused on waking up. Perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.

Maybe relevant: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Mahlzeit ,

After reading the whole article, I still don’t know what Uruguay wants to happen.

Mahlzeit ,

Thanks.

Putting the El Observador article through translate

When a song in Uruguay is played on radio, television or at a party, the rights are collected by the General Association of Authors of Uruguay (Agadu) which retains the 60% of what is paid. The remaining 40% is divided equally between performers and record labels.

Spotify says that it already pays for the rights. This understanding would mean that the players in Uruguay should work out how that is to be split.

Spotify fears that the new law turns what they pay currently, simply into one share of the total, implying an extreme increase of the cost.

Mahlzeit ,

Spotify is Swedish.

Mahlzeit ,

It’s a copyright management firm. Some countries have government-sponsored monopolists for that. This looks like one of those.

The author of a song and the performers may not be the same (most obvious with covers). Most of the money collected by Agadu is presumably paid out to the authors/songwriters (or whoever they sold the rights to?), minus management fees. Whether the pay-out scheme is fair, may be another point of contention. Think about a live band playing covers by various authors in some bar: How is it tracked what they play, and how much should be given to each of the many different authors? I don’t know how that works in Uruguay, but my country has a system of that sort.

Mahlzeit ,

I see that not everyone’s a cynic, yet.

What does that mean, though?

Mahlzeit ,

People say that AI will kill us all by ordering too many paperclips.

So people try to make AI safe by stopping it from making images of nude people.

WTF is wrong with everyone? Am I stuck in the most boring Lewis Carroll story ever?

A Spanish agency became so sick of models and influencers that they created their own with AI — and she’s raking in up to $11,000 a month (fortune.com)

A Spanish agency became so sick of models and influencers that they created their own with AI — and she’s raking in up to $11,000 a month::Founder Rubén Cruz said AI model Aitana was so convincing that a famous Latin actor asked her on a date.

Mahlzeit ,

You mean like:

Warning! You will never be in a relationship with this model.

Yes. That seems like something people should know.

Mahlzeit ,

The point of the joke is that it makes no difference if a persona is fake or “real”. I think the issues you raise are real. But it makes no difference to unrealistic beauty standards whether artists alter an existing human body or make one up wholesale. If anything, it’s more benign if people rationally know that it is all a fantasy.

Mahlzeit ,

They have all the imperfections that the artists want them to have. They age as much or as little as they are made to. That’s not so different from human celebrity personas. Sometimes we get a Paparazzi photo, showing how they really look, but is that occasional reality check so different from rationally knowing that it is all fantasy?

(I say “rationally knowing” because one criticism of unrealistic beauty is that it may be shifting our unconscious knowledge of what is normal. If that is true, then rational knowledge is not helpful.)

Even tho the influences project an fake front, you can still be them, as they are real.

I think this goes to the heart of the argument. I don’t think that is good.

Influencers (and other celebrities) typically portray themselves as being happy and well-adjusted, living exciting and fulfilling lives; all while being surrounded by luxury products with generous marketing departments. I don’t think that the idea that you could actually be such a person is psychologically beneficial to anyone (except those brands, obvs).

Mahlzeit ,

Just the fact that, because a human has done it, it is something actually attainable by a human.

I think I am misunderstanding something. It is not attainable to be a person like influencers typically pretend to be. It’s only possible to be a pretender, just like it’s possible to be a CGI artist creating AI imagery.

Mahlzeit ,

Can you give me an example of how that makes the difference? I mentioned Paparazzi pics earlier.

Mahlzeit OP ,

Thanks, I’m lining this up for listening.

Mahlzeit OP ,

So acquiring and distributing pirated materials like college textbooks and otherwise expensive software is one example.

That’s an interesting example, because in threads on AI lawsuits there are many calls for expanding intellectual property, without any consideration for public benefit. It’s such an outright doubling down on all the pathological aspects of capitalism. It made me look whether there are any equally concrete demands going the other way and eventually make this post.

Mahlzeit OP ,

Thanks, looks like a good resource.

Mahlzeit ,

Ideally, they wouldn’t be paying salaries? What?

Mahlzeit ,

There is a project (AI Horde) that allows you to donate compute for inference. I’m not sure why the same doesn’t exist for training. I think the RAM/VRAM requirements just can’t be lowered/split.

Another way to contribute is by helping with training data. LAION, which created the dataset behind Stable Diffusion, is a volunteer effort. Stable Diffusion itself was developed at a tax-funded public university in Germany. However, the cost of the processing for training, etc. was covered by a single rich guy.

Mahlzeit ,

“ooooh I can’t wait to see what they create”

My first thought was: “Isn’t that obvious?”

My second thought was: “Wait. You can do that cheaper in Japan.”

It’s just a scam. Every couple years, some guys sell a ship to some naive libertarians.

Mahlzeit ,

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? ‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’

How do Americans feel about this attitude?

Mahlzeit ,

I was really asking about that specific bit. The idea of the state doing much to help the poor seems a little dated, from what I see of USA politics on the internet. I don’t see much opposition to redistribution, but then, neither do I see much favor for it.

ETA: Thanks for the answer, though.

Mahlzeit ,

Looks like he wants to create a joint venture of several companies with a couple of independent consultants. Ok. Good luck. He doesn’t owe the world any free labor. He can try to negotiate any kind of compensation scheme for his intellectual property. That’s capitalism.

On a less capitalistic note: The EU provides a bit of government funding for FOSS development on account of the public benefit.

…europa.eu/…/Development of a Funding Mechanism f…

Mahlzeit ,

There’s no rational, scientific connection between the Caucasus and the American race term. I’m not even sure if Americans would consider Caucasians all that white, given that many of them are muslim; like the Chechen ethnicity.

Mahlzeit ,

The term comes from an old theory that said that humanity started out in the Caucasus and spread from there, people becoming darker as they were exposed to more sun.

Not quite. The guy who coined the term, Blumenbach, believed that the Caucasians (in particular the Georgians) were the most beautiful and therefore must have been the original humans. Maybe “old theory” means the biblical belief that “Noah’s Ark” stranded in the Caucasus Mountains. I don’t know that Blumenbach used that as a justification. Biblical race doctrines defined races as descent from different sons of Noah.

The Caucasians are certainly far from the palest people on the planet. The south of the region is part of Turkey and Iran. Those are maybe the most well-known countries and the region and I’m sure that no one pictures very pale people. I remember an article about the considerable diplomatic and PR efforts that Turkey undertook in the early 20th century to be made a white country under US law. I wish I could recall the details.

Mahlzeit ,

I have never been able to understand Uber. They never invented anything new. Maybe there weren’t e-hailing apps everywhere, but that’s not so much better phoning for a taxi. The main thing they did was to spend an insane amount of money only to brush aside taxi regulations in the US and maybe some other countries. I have no idea how anyone expects to see a return on that “investment”.

Mahlzeit ,

That may explain something about why Uber succeeded in the US. I have no idea what a pickup area is. Isn’t the point of calling a taxi that they pick you up where you are? Ring the doorbell? And if one dispatcher service is no good, why not use another?

Mahlzeit ,

The tech angle are the AI provisions? Can someone provide some context for that? Doesn’t sound like much of a win for the little guy.

Mahlzeit , (edited )

Must be nice being famous. Get paid for the work of the CGI people (and stunt/body/etc. doubles?), as if you were also doing something. The stars at the top can probably negotiate even better terms on their own, So I guess that this is basically a win for the mid-level guys, who do have a somewhat valuable likeness but not the negotiating power to get a good price on their own.

ETA: What’s with the downvotes? Do you all disagree that the mid-level famous win from this or what?

Mahlzeit ,

True, but I doubt there is a point in using a likeness if you can’t advertise it.

Mahlzeit , (edited )

Yes. I am sure the somewhat famous are paid well. I don’t understand how this could explain why I am downvoted?

Longer explanation of why I wonder about doubles: One will probably use AI to make them look more like the real thing. IF this means that the “likeness owner” needs to be paid, then that becomes an extra cost factor. So the incentive will be to avoid this. This may mean that the doubles either lose employment opportunities or have to take a pay cut. The CGI artists obviously lose out in any case (not to mention the viewers).

ETA: Is the idea that doubles and CGI artists are overpaid relative to famous actors? Actually, at this point, I’m thinking it was just a troll with a bot and there’s nothing much wrong.

Mahlzeit ,

In his book Zero to One, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel argues that modern scientific innovation is no longer groundbreaking.

I wasted a click.

AI companies have all kinds of arguments against paying for copyrighted content (www.theverge.com)

AI companies have all kinds of arguments against paying for copyrighted content::The companies building generative AI tools like ChatGPT say updated copyright laws could interfere with their ability to train capable AI models. Here are comments from OpenAI, StabilityAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft and more.

Mahlzeit ,

This thread is interesting reading. Normally, people here complain about capitalism left and right. But when an actual policy choice comes up, the opinions become firmly pro-capitalist. I wonder how that works.

Mahlzeit ,

That’s the thing. I don’t see how there is sacrifice involved in this. I would guess that the average user here has personally more to lose than to gain from expanded copyrights.

Mahlzeit ,

So this has been going around in my head for the last couple days. Why are opinions here, on this topic, so decidedly right-wing?

I’ll have to pick this apart.

Copyrights are a form of property. Where such intellectual property is used to make money, it is intangible capital. License payments are capital income. Property is distributed very unequally. Most of it is owned by rich people. Those who demand license payments here are literally demanding that more money should go to rich capitalists.

People who create copyrighted materials for their employers do not own the copyrights thereto. They are just like factory workers who do not own the product either. The people who worked on animations in the pre-CGI era were basically factory workers. When these jobs disappeared due to computers, where was the hand-wringing?

A brush-wielding artist has as much to do with the copyright industry as a pitchfork-wielding farmer with the agro-industry.

This isn’t even normal capitalism but the absolutely worst kind. The copyrighted material was uploaded to the net for many reasons, including making a profit. Some people used this publically available resource to train AIs. The owners contributed no labor. They were affected so little that they mostly seem to have been unaware that anything was going on.

The sole argument for paying seems to be mainly “muh property rights!”. I am not seeing any consideration of the good of society, public benefit, the general welfare, or anything of the sort. Those who say the trained AI models should be released for free, seem to imply that they should not be able to profit, because they looked at someone else’s property.

This is far more capitalistic than even US capitalism.

Consider patents. To get a patent, a new invention has to be registered, which involves publishing how it works in enough detail so that others can copy it. Then the government will enforce a monopoly on that invention for 20 years. During that time, the inventor can demand license fees. But also, other people can learn from it and maybe find other solutions. After those 20 years, the knowledge becomes public domain. This is often framed as a social contract: temporary monopoly in exchange for advancing knowledge. Scientific discoveries don’t get anything at all.

Compared to how copyright is treated by so many here, actual US capitalism looks almost like socialism!

US copyright used to work exactly like patents, with the same duration. Today, copyrights last until 70 years after the death of the creator. It’s just FUBAR. The US Constitution, far-left manifesto that it is, still it limits to the purpose of promoting intellectual output (to put it in modern terms). It is supposed to help society and not to enable capitalist grift.

People like to blame corrupt politicians or lobbyists for what is going wrong in the US but perhaps US politics is delivering exactly what people want. They may not like the necessary and predictable outcome of their choices, but it’s still what they want.

Americans left and right curse those evil corporations. Of course, Americans side with the individuals when some faceless corporation tries to bully money out of them. Well, a union is just such a corporation. Look up the definition of corporation if you don’t believe me.

Mahlzeit ,

It’s about respecting creators

Is it, though? Copyright holders and creators are completely different things.

Before you can pay those copyright holders their capital income, you have to know who they are. Which means you can’t just download random pictures of the internet. You need pictures with a known provenance. Well, it turns out that there are corporations dedicated to providing just such pictures. How lucky for them if society would choose to “respect creators” in this way. The payment to even a prolific stock photographer may be tiny, but they’d get a cut from each one.

It may not be about money for you, but the people who pay to push that talking point may have a different attitude.

Mahlzeit ,

Depends on your definition of “capitalism”.

This is not supposed to happen in a market economy, as you have in developed countries. Many people define “capitalism” as being, more or less, that system.

A narrower definition of “capitalism” is private control of the means of production. In that sense, “capitalism” is at odds with a market economy, which is one reason why that private control is limited in many ways in developed countries.

Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad | An AI-generated version of Scarlett Johansson’s voice appeared in an online ad without her consent. (www.theverge.com)

Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad | An AI-generated version of Scarlett Johansson’s voice appeared in an online ad without her consent.::Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her likeness in an online ad without her consent.

Mahlzeit , (edited )

Imitating celebrities is usually done for satire and very much protected free speech.

Why should it be illegal in this case? I can see that the rich and famous would be able to profit from licensing and endorsement deals, but what’s the public benefit?

ETA: So many downvotes. Where did all the eat-the-rich-people go, all of a sudden?

Mahlzeit ,

That’s a rather odd reply. I don’t think the ideology you express is very common. If you were to tell me more, I would read it.

I did not give any views on celebrities. I simply asked what the public benefit was. Do I infer correctly that, to you, the public benefit is beside that point, but that your view on this is determined by your views of celebrities?

Please note that fraud is criminal, which makes it hard to see what exactly you would want to be done about “shady scam artists”.

Note also that “massive corporations” can only benefit here if there is a kind of property right, similar to a trademark or a copyright. EG The Disney corporation still owns the rights to “Mickey Mouse”, created in 1928. That’s the same year in which Fleming discovered Penicillin, which is owned by no one. So if you have a problem with “massive corporations” extracting wealth, here, you very much need to rethink your position.

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