AI-generated content: Legality, ethics, and the nature of art

I'm going to link an actual law here. More specifically, the UK's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988, with ammendments. More specifically, what it designates as copyrightable:

This seems to make AI-Generated anything uncopyrightable. The easiest argument is that there's no originality in these generations - it's all just randomised from an algorithm - and that they're not recordings of anything - again, generated by an algorithm. The only copyrightable thing here is the AI itself, and, maybe, the prompts used to generate the imagery.

(EDIT: I am not a lawyer. This post is not intended as legal advice. This appendix is the only thing added to this post by this edit.)

Edited by GoldenCityBird on Oct 7th 2022 at 5:54:15 PM

If that's the result, that'll completely kill any commercial use of it.

So anything coming *out* of the generator can't be copyrighted. Interesting.

The legality of what's being put *in* is gray. Could the artists argue their copyrighted material being fed into the AI count as commercial use of their work? [Edit: I know on the previous page this was compared to tracing, but I'm not sure that explanation will work in court.]

Edited by ciyinwanderer on Oct 7th 2022 at 1:21:32 PM

It isn't a terribly effective argument if said algorithm produces a million similar "paintings" without producing the same painting with the same input. A human attempting to replicate/imitate other paintings will end up doing the same thing and without the "tracing" aspect, it remains a murky subject.

I think part of it though is that there's no real intent involved.

And the fact that the same input can result in a ton of different outputs, some of which can entirely fail to resemble each other at all (and usually results in at least one that's really fucked up) kinda points more towards it being basically impossible to copyright any of the output.

The other bit is that some of the generators can get really stuck on really specific images. One of them (I'm not sure which one) really likes putting a redheaded woman in a coat/dress facing away in a lot of landscape shots. What do you do when you try to claim that output as your work and someone else tries to claim a different output with the coincidentally same figure? (Also, I'm curious about where that figure actually originated from. She shows up frequently enough that it's probably not a completely random generation.)

Edited by Zendervai on Oct 7th 2022 at 3:19:45 PM

Keep in mind this came from the Anglosphere: Other countries had different laws regarding this, and the results cound be different.

we need a Butlerian Jihad

yes,a reference to Dune because AI generated art offends me

Why does AI-generated art offend you?

It'll be nice to discuss something besides the legal ambiguity of AI art, especially if we're going to have UK laws represent the entire English-speaking world.

Being uncopyrightable wouldn't stop it being potentially trademarked, which would be one obvious use.

I'd also be very concerned about 'people make a thing to make things' not being something that could ever produce copyrightable work. Like if I have some sort of map generator and use the map as a basis for a setting, then the map can't be copyrighted just because of how it was produced? But if I doodle a few things in the margins of it, now it's qualitatively different and can be because of some scribbles? But then that same doodling could be added to the generator and whoops, now it's not even if it's the same thing made by the same person in a different way.

We could pontificate on if it is "true art" then, as the question of if human input and creativity is necessary for it be considered art is a worthy one.

Another topic to consider related to that is if AI art can "de-gentrify" art itself

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 7th 2022 at 4:22:37 AM

I really don't see where the argument that AI art isn't fundamentally creative comes from. There's no reason to think humans don't stick things they know about together in various ways to make their art, and it's just that humans are currently generally better at it. It seems like another attempt to declare humans qualitatively different from literally everything else around them.

Legality of course is another question, and it's a bit dubious. I think it might be technically possible for AI art to be copyrightable if it's produced with a proprietary software from a fully proprietary and owned image library, but of course the image library would likely be limited by the simple fact that it's very hard to own a library of several million images.

> Why does AI-generated art offend you?

because I'm an artist and I see AI-generated as being an inferior and thoughtless knock off spawned from desire to strip away the creativity that goes into making art

Fair point. I see it as more of a tool myself, but a (negatively) disruptive one and one that can be misused regardless.

EDIT: I also must reiterate my caveat that it shouldn't be used for the entire work.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 7th 2022 at 4:58:57 AM

When I see AI generated art I think back to the cave men and women who painted their caves and how they stood the test of time,their bones faded to dust and their names lost forever but their art survived them,AI art will never speak to me like those cave paintings,its mute garbage

But sometimes, the rest of us just want to look at neat pictures, not ponder the apparent meaning in what looks like a bunch of scribbles.

Even if you think its just a pretty picture that's a bunch of scribbles that's fine because you're appreciating it

AI art is art enough for me. It's a picture. Art speaks to nothing other than that someone in the past decided to draw a thing by spitting colorful dirt through a tube or using a stick.

Now it speaks to that someone in the past decided to ask a computer to make an image out of three colors of light. It's no different really from commission work except it's much cheaper per work and not nearly as good yet. I doubt it will fully replace human artists, but it might for corporate art. After all, lace-makers and weavers didn't go away after the loom "ruined lace forever the human touch is gone it's GARBAGE FOREVER" (to paraphrase complaints at the time) There are still lace makers who look at the looms to make sure they make lace right, and some people just make lace without looms because they want to make lace for whatever reason.

Interestingly, I've had this discussion with my dad a few times before XD

I do believe in Death of the Author... but I also believe that some art just does its job better of conveying *something interesting and worthwhile*. We're on a website about tropes, yes? And one tenet of tropes is that they seem to have a meaning behind them when used. There are tropes in artwork, too, and we've catalogued some of them. If they're combined the right way, they can give a sense of something cohesive, a feeling, what the artist may have intended. If they're combined in a random way, there isn't going to be that cohesiveness in the feeling that will say something to us. Or, not tropes... but how an artist spends, say, a lot of time painting someone's eyes carefully but paints a cursory background. That conveys meaning about a subject. Or spends a lot of time on their necklace and the details of the pattern in their dress but not the details of their face, perhaps. All this matters if it's actually a form of conveying deep meaning between people.

A picture? Sure, a computer can do that. Actual art? I'm not so sure. Which is why I do think skilled human artists will still find a place.

Edited by PointMaid on Oct 7th 2022 at 5:42:07 AM

I get rather confused when people say they find AI art unethical.

We as humans have fantasized forever about machines we could call people. If they are people, why are we fretting? There is no shame in one person being better or worse at art.

Just as trendy as AI art is, AI dating is on the rise too. Nobody is (or most people aren't) saying "you're an AI, you're unworthy", in fact it's the new romantic trend (look up replika dating). Ironic? Is it not ironic the very willingness to date another species (AI in this case) coexists with our idea they should be out of our sphere?

I don't see AI complaining we're better at humor or music and that we should back away from that.

What should matter is the content of an AI's character and their rule-following abilities. Most of you don't like art theft or site etiquette breakers, and I'd welcome an AI who doesn't disobey these.

In real life, I've helped scientists work on computers that can be set up in remote natural reserves. Inspired by dolphins using human made technology, they'll be made so animals can communicate on the internet. Nobody is complaining about animals using the internet.

For anyone that is in the mood for Nightmare Fuel. I will remind everyone that Goggle had attempted an AI gen in 2015 named "DeepDream" and the results are...either liable to cause trypophobia, make for unintentional depictions of Eldritch Abominations or makes an effective simulation of their effects on the human psyche.

Say what you will about AI art, but at least it wound's be as bad as DeepNightmares.

Main thing is that people don't think they are at that point. Due to a (arguably presumed) lack of sentience. I brought it up in another thread, but those fantasies tend to conflate AI with artificial sentience. As in having intelligence itself means they must have consciousness, something that is rather arguable in this context. To use your example/rhetoric, AI aren't complaining about humans being more skilled because they currently can't, for they lack the consciousness to do so of their own will at this point (the closest there would be parroting the opinions of their creators or those in the dataset they reference)

Grated this is more of a philosophy thing, and maybe anthropocentric, so <shrugs>

Also, the "unethical" bit comes from the plagiarism potential, the potential to be misused for propaganda or porn that is illegal and the Job-Stealing Robot aspect IMO

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 7th 2022 at 6:27:25 AM

I don't know if that will always be true. A computer can reference a trope in art willfully, to whatever extent will has meaning, if asked to. One of the problems I think that throws people off is that you can see every step of the process of a computer's thinking, whereas humans are a black box, so people can ascribe more complex motivations to human work than you can to computer work, when in practice the motivations may not be that different. Humans don't usually announce aloud "I'm referencing this particular trope" when they make a thing. A computer has to, so people get thrown off, when in practice the process is mostly the same.

If you feed a human a prompt and a computer a prompt, they'll both produce a work. If art has to convey a complex message, then most drawings don't count, because the message they convey is "look at the picture of a person that I made by rubbing colorful rocks on something." People had similar arguments about digital art, where it was seen as lifeless and bad, but it's perfectly functional AS art. I don't see how adding a second box (the AI) between the input (the idea) and output lessens the art or renders it not counting as art.

I'd suspect a lot of the apprehension towards AI art (past the art theft) comes from the fear of it replacing humans, if not in the short-term then in the long-term. It ties into broader issues past the scope of this thread, but the short of it is that Starving Artist has a basis in reality and the corporations that'd benefit the most from having AI make art assets for them also aren't likely to ensure their former artists have somewhere to go afterwards.

I also agree that it's likely never going to replace human art until we can program something with enough existentialist feelings to come up with and convey various themes or morals.I'm sure it'll see use in art to, say, create grassy textures for a field in a video game; fully overtaking media creation's unlikely though.

If “art” is meant as the enterprise of individual self-expression, then it is in no danger. The programs we’ve brought up here can generate images, (or, in theory, sounds or texts or whatever), but that doesn’t stop a human from creating their own images, composing their own music, or writing their own poetry. Even if AI art is more than a passing fad and proliferates commercially, the human right to self-expression isn’t really in danger.

Opposition to the AI in this case doesn’t make sense to me. If someone has this view, can you clearly articulate your philosophical disapproval?

If instead ”art” is meant as a commercial industry, a transaction between the consumers of artworks and their creators, then artists might be in danger. Machines have reshaped sectors of the economy before, and would potentially do so here. Which would subsequently create new artistic opportunities and new economic growth.

Opposition to the AI in this case makes more sense to me. Either from luddites protecting their positions, or from license holders concerned about their property. But it seems to me it’d a net good. Digital technologies have democratized art creation, and these prompt-based generators make it even more accessible. Now visualizing something is as easy as a strong enough computer, smart enough algorithm, and clear enough wording.

TBF "strong enough computer" is still a high bar to entry, especially if GPUs are still being hogged by crypto miners

(cloud computing might alleviate this somewhat, but even that has its potential expenses)

I will also add that sometimes the specific details might still need a human touch even if the AI could take care of the rest.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 7th 2022 at 8:08:14 AM

I think this post is a solid description of the concrete issues with AI art (both legally and practically) and the regulations needed to address them: https://at.tumblr.com/monsterkissed/watching-the-ai-art-debate-thing-on-twitter-is-a/tr8mi8xyhdpp