Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldpie | Hacker News Reader

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> It makes zero sense to me at all that it's suddenly a problem that art is derived if, instead of artist directly painting something, artist sets up some device that paints something.

I think a big difference in how this tech makes people feel is the amount of effort required. It's a problem we see with technology in other areas, too: it's not (much of) a problem if a cop sits outside a suspect's house for a few hours to monitor their behavior. Most people think it would be a problem if the cops pointed a camera at the house 24/7 for months. Pretty much everyone agrees canvassing society with cameras and creating a public space surveillance panopticon is bad. Where's the line?

Similarly, if some artists spend years learning the craft and mimicking a couple of styles with a relatively small output, it's not a huge problem. The scope is small. But if everyone on earth can do it to anyone on earth at massive scale just by typing "in the style of ..." to an AI, does that start to be a problem?

The line is pretty simple for me, because it's the same line that applies to people. It doesn't matter what the training set is so long as it is not reproducing either the same thing or too similar to the thing it's trained from. Somebody else linked that you can't generally copyright style for instance, and if I recall you can't copyright algorithms or things of general knowledge either. So you can copyright "a specific instance of a thing", but not "the general idea of a thing". Here, near as I can tell, these algorithms generate some general idea of the things it's trained on and produce something specific different from the specific things. What should matter is only if it is different enough, same as it matters for people.

We've got much bigger problems though but if we, we as people generally not specifically you, can't even agree on something I see as so fundamentally basic bringing up things I think are problems would start war

> so long as it is not [...] too similar to the thing it's trained from

Aye, there's the rub ;) How do you define "too similar"? If I invert the colors of Munch's The Scream, is that an original work? What if I pass it through a computer program I wrote to swirl it around in a spiral? I think those are clearly derivative works--you put the image in as input, put it through a mechanical transformation process, and get the same output for the given input. That description also applies to AI.

> these algorithms generate some general idea of the things it's trained on

Well, be careful here. AIs don't generate ideas. They take inputs, do some mechanical work on them, and output something derived from the inputs. There are no "ideas" involved here, it's a(n extremely complicated) mechanical transformation.

(To repeat myself, I don't know where I stand on the issue. I think there's good arguments on both sides.)

>Aye, there's the rub ;) How do you define "too similar"?

... Same ways I do for humans. That's why I wrote "the same as for people" that line was supposed to contextualize everything else I wrote and somehow it hasn't.

edited to fix a screwup. because somehow I swear I hit "copy" but it didn't copy

> It just seems obvious to me...

> The line is pretty simple for me...

When things seem so obvious and simple, it can be a good mental exercise to try to put yourself in the shoes of the "other side" for whom it also seems obvious and simple.

While never my main thing, I've worked as a professional artist and know people for whom art is their livelihood. The holy grail in that world is to create a unique style that will command a premium: an art director decides your style is perfect for their new campaign, a building designer decides your style fits the lobby of the new building, etc. This style is the result of years and years of refinement, false starts, watching trends, etc. And this style is why they get paid, and how they feed their family.

When you tell such an artist that now any schmuck can create art in their style just by writing "In the style of..." you should understand that —especially to a non-technical person—the end result is just a slight deviation of from a copy machine. To them it seems "pretty simple" and "obvious" that this is just a fancy way of stealing.

(And I'm not taking sides here, just saying that step one is to realize that the issue is not simple, and is thus super interesting.)

>When things seem so obvious and simple, it can be a good mental exercise to try to put yourself in the shoes of the "other side" for whom it also seems obvious and simple.

I would if I could but as I keep tryin to explain I can't because it requires I believe something that's a contradiction.

Just because it's a contradiction that makes ya more money don't mean it isn't a contradiction. Also I am that non-technical person.

Laws are compromises. And fair use was never simple.

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