Reply To: Here’s a good video to listen to concerning your AI-"art"

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It’s absolutely correct that posting something online doesn’t mean it’s free for people to copy, or for use in commercial purposes. But neither does it mean that it can’t be used for inspiration. Again, I turned to music rather than imagery and graphics, because it is in this field that we can make comparisons that most people would be familiar with.

For example, I might listen to some Metallica. I might decide I want to write a song that uses a “chugging” or “galloping” rhythm, chromatic chord progressions, and a heavy minor key. I might use the theme of nightmares and while it’s absolutely clear I might be heavily influenced by something like “Enter Sandman”, unless I use specific riffs, or combinations of lyrics, I remain “influenced by” rather than “copying” their song. This is not only perfectly legal, it’s also how almost all modern music is derived (I think the only person who recently composed an album of music without being influenced by modern music was famously Brian Wilson – and after about 45 years, his much-awaited release was a disappointing Beach-Boys-tribute-album, stuck in a 60s timewarp).

Metallica can do absolutely nothing to prevent anyone being influenced by their music. They are absolutely right to prevent anyone ripping it off, passing it off as their own, copying it (either partially or in its entirety) but if they hadn’t released their music to be played freely (note, not for free, but played freely) then nobody could write similar songs, in a similar style, or be influenced by it. But they choose to – they want their music to be heard. The same goes for “image artists” – nobody should have their work “ripped off”, but the only way to prevent others from being influenced it, is to not show it at all.
This is – of course – very different to the recent case of Robin Thicke, where he was (eventually) found to have plagiarised Marvin Gaye; it became clear that he simply copied sections of a track without noticeable modification – the equivalent of AI simply returning a Google image result in response to a prompt to create an image (something that AI clearly isn’t doing).

You or I are perfectly entitled to look at a picture, or a number of images then *recreate similar parts* of those images to create new ones – either for commercial or personal use. There is no law that specifically prohibits that; where copyright is infringed is  when the similarities between the images are too numerous (so one can be mistaken for being the other), or where content protected by trademark is included.

For me there’s a very clear difference between being influenced by and copying something.
This video refuses to acknowledge the difference. In fact, it appears to confuse the two, then gets angry, accusing AI of “copying” when that’s clearly not what happens.

SAW is the analogy I tried to make with AI art for the very reasons you point out. AI art is in danger of becoming self-reinforcing; at the moment it takes what it’s told matches the descriptions it’s been given from external references – just as SAW looked to what they were told would be popular in pop music (at the time, coming off the back of punk and the new romantics and electronica, it was a nod back to the soul/Motown groove that they exploited so well) then they created music that was commercially successful.
But they became a parody of themselves, because they started referencing their own songs when looking to what was successful/popular. So their output all started to sound like the same song, just with a different singer.

This is where AI art *could* head – if the AI algorithm starts referencing its own art then it could end up churning out generic, same-old same-old images in response to prompts.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how two people can watch the same video and hear completely contradictory messages?
I thought the point it made about legality was tenuous at best. I don’t think a very good point was made at all!
I thought the arguments that art is only art if the creator was emotionally invested were simply wrong. Like saying SAW didn’t create popular and enjoyable music.

I’m not saying I’m totally in love with AI art, nor that it is not without potential unexpected consequences.
I just don’t think the video in the original post made particularly strong (or sometimes even coherent) arguments.
This forum post is titled “here a good video to listen to….”
I just don’t think – because the arguments are so poorly presented – that it is.

FWIW, I agree that AI image creation could end up stripping artistic endeavour (if it becomes the only means for producing art). But that is different to arguing that the final imagery does not have artistic merit.