This is the third story of yours that I've read and I've really enjoyed them all. Good to see such engaging short fiction on Substack. Can't wait for the next one.
This piece made me angry. At the world, not you to be clear lol but I feel like this is such a realistic possibility that a law intended to punish a system that should have never existed would result in people being punished for things they've always done. A human doesn't have the capacity to "be trained on" even a quarter of what AI systems are trained on in their entire lives and yet, I could absolutely still see AI laws being expanded to cover all "derivative works"
Good story. Reductio ad absurdum. I think, in the real world, the logical outcome is effectively to require trainers to purchase a copy of the work in question.
Oh yes, I noticed the same problem a while back. Again, make them pay to use any materials they would usually have to pay for, and it seems very similar overall.
Humans inherently curate the content they consume. No person can consume all that there is written, and that informs our writing. Not to mention that machines should not be treated like people.
This reads to me like a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of imposing laws on AI content generation. It starts from the assumption that humans and machine learning systems actually do "train" the same way. But I think it's more interesting to read it as a cautionary tale about the dangers of this assumption. We should protect our belief in human originality and creative value, even if it requires skepticism of AI.
So you're essentially saying that humans can be influenced by (trained on) what they see/hear, but AI can't? Just by calling it originality?
I am truly wondering, if to take a person, which has never heard a single song, watched any movie/series/TV, hasn't read books, never been to theater, and so on - can that person produce something we'd call art?
People like the one you have described here did produce art. There was at one point a world in which nobody had produced paintings, carvings, poetry, etc., and one day someone made the first.
My distinction is in the way that people learn vs. the way AI systems are "trained". People are not learning the statistical likelihood of a pixel of one value being next to another. They aren't ingesting and decomposing into data billions of images. They do not require a small city's worth of electricity to learn to paint. These might seem like trivial details, and perhaps in the fullness of time they will prove to be so, but I believe a story like yours should be taken as an indication that these differences, or some other unstated ones, do matter. Your story is indeed a reductio ad absurdam, and that should tell us something about the assumptions in the story. I think it would be wrong to read a story like yours and take away from it the idea that we should not regulate AI. Instead I think that we should listen to our intuitions and create laws that work to achieve the world we desire. We obviously don't want to live in the world described in your story, nor do we want to abolish the concepts of originality, art, and creative ownership. So I say we must discard the premise that human learning and machine learning are equivalent. At least in the forms we see today.
So the key question remains: if I reproduce someone's picture with 99.4% accuracy (same place, pose, lighting, even clothes of the model; just the model is different) - is it stealing or I have created my own art?
I don't think I agree that this is the important question in the story. The specifics of whether a piece of media rises to the level of copyright infringement is a legal matter. These questions have been debated for a long time, no AI complication required. The interesting question raised by the story, for me, is this: since this scenario seems ridiculous, where is the logical problem? Is it with the concept of intellectual property? With our concept of derivative art? Or, as I believe, with the concept that AI "art" and human art are analogous, and that humans are actually just "stochastic parrots". We should be precious about our humanity, and not be so quick to recast ourselves as machines.
I didn't realize I was reading fiction at first and wow, you pulled me right in. I was aghast and completely unsettled, nice job. Now, I'm just fretful because I can totally see this kind of ridiculous reach coming from legislators. So interesting.
A similarly fun thing happening IRL is people getting YouTube copyright violations for using a synthesizer “filter sweep” in their videos. That’s not far off someone claiming the money off your views because you also used the sound of a snare drum.
Stupid. I don't think the ridiculous stawmanning of this post is helpful.
Obviously one can conjure up ridiculous laws that harm society, but fundamentally, if you value the arts, then we do need to collectively think about these issues and create laws that protect and support (rather than hamper) artists. Implicitly this short story seems aimed at undermining the idea of such, in an incredibly moronic way (lacking the most basic understanding of the purpose and value of IP laws).
Training AI systems to replicate the work of artists exploits artists, and the law clearly needs to protect them. It's not about having president, or replicating previously done art work. It is about corporate owned algorithms (e.g., Disney) employing AI models trained on copywrited material made by human artists so that they can use GPUs cycle rather than pay actual human artists (using the works of artists, unlicensed, to replace the artist).
At a bare minimum, these companies should actually obtain a license for their training data - otherwise what happens is you eliminate the incentive for artist innovation (the protection and cultivation of which is the whole point of intellectual property).
I don't believe there is such a thing as copyright of photographs, anyone is welcome to take the same vista from the same angle at the same time in the same light season, etc... It is simply not seen as protected IP. (I am not an IP lawyer and none of these messages are legal advice, etc...)
Regarding other art, generally it is seen as scummy to repurpose someone elses work so as to monitize it, and depending on particulars, it may violate the law.
Just look up existing IP laws. They are extensive and include many many caveats aimed at ensuring they make sense and most benefit society.
It doesn't matter whether it is theft or inspiration or anything. It is about ensuring the system helps artists and society (e.g., we have copyright but allow sampling, we have fair use for parody, etc...)
In particular, IP law often includes the provision that an infringement must be economically damaging to the claimant (so one person taking the same photo or painting the same picture for personal use as another person's picture could only be damaging if the claimant could reasonably expect to sell their picture, and that the copying is replacing that sale). See how your manufactured conflict shimmers and disappears as soon as the basics of IP are sanity checked.
Obviously AI creates new issues (along with new opportunities). You seem to contribute nothing to this necessary conversation, instead you seem to be implicitly stawmanning the very idea of IP.
To be clear, you seem to be cavalier about a topic that for many is their whole livelihood and career (artists being replaced by AI) and that is why I find your story insensitive and crude.
Regards superior understanding, your story presents an incredibly distorted take on intellectual property law (a complete stawman). I have stated my understanding is merely basic, and perhaps you understand IP deeply. If so, you have actually *chosen* to intentionally misrepresent it (and I have explained why and how I find that offensive).
I was thinking the same thing as le raz man. As I’m reading I’m thinking is this Meta or XAI posting AI slop to convince people AI regulation is harmful?
To be clear, your 'core question' (when a random person makes exactly the same picture as seen online - is it theft or inspiration?) is a complete red herring.
But to answer, in terms of my (basic-if-seemingly-vastly-superior-to-yours) understanding of IP law, theft requires the person being wronged (e.g., copied) to financially lose out due to the act.
And frankly, given how many artists are rightly worried about their livelihoods being effectively stolen, I find your provocative 'thought experiment' / pseudo philosophising obnoxious.
But that is already in the law. It's been part of IP law for literal centuries. There's basically zero chance of your hypothetical over-reaction-to-AI-training IP law.
Your short story seems aimed solely at misleading people as to the dangers of regulation, and we sorely need sane and sensible AI regulation. Meanwhile, artist right now, living human being, are worried about their careers and future (and some of them, their ability to financial survive).
In that context, I find your story incredibly obnoxious.
In short, I don't find touching upon a complex nuanced issue (distinguishing imitation and innovation, how to best protect and incentize artistic innovation) in such an unnuanced misleading way adds to the conversation. Instead it just takes up headspace, and adds to the noise.
Looking forward to reading it!
This is the third story of yours that I've read and I've really enjoyed them all. Good to see such engaging short fiction on Substack. Can't wait for the next one.
Thank you. It means a lot to me, really.
gods be prsised! this one scribble de bibbled! sub'd
Now I’m overthinking what to comment….
I was going to say that your stories feel like Black Mirror episodes, but is that now an insult??
Also love the reference to he movie The Endless, if that was intentional. ;)
This was good.
This piece made me angry. At the world, not you to be clear lol but I feel like this is such a realistic possibility that a law intended to punish a system that should have never existed would result in people being punished for things they've always done. A human doesn't have the capacity to "be trained on" even a quarter of what AI systems are trained on in their entire lives and yet, I could absolutely still see AI laws being expanded to cover all "derivative works"
i've been dying to find some fiction on here and you've blown me away!!!!
Welcome
Good story. Reductio ad absurdum. I think, in the real world, the logical outcome is effectively to require trainers to purchase a copy of the work in question.
The main question still remains: aren't humans “trained” the same way?
Oh yes, I noticed the same problem a while back. Again, make them pay to use any materials they would usually have to pay for, and it seems very similar overall.
Humans inherently curate the content they consume. No person can consume all that there is written, and that informs our writing. Not to mention that machines should not be treated like people.
True. Nevertheless, it's a fact that we 'train' in a very similar way - by watching, reading, listening to content, produced by others.
I fully agree that we shouldn't be compared to the machines. This story is the "what if?"
This reads to me like a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of imposing laws on AI content generation. It starts from the assumption that humans and machine learning systems actually do "train" the same way. But I think it's more interesting to read it as a cautionary tale about the dangers of this assumption. We should protect our belief in human originality and creative value, even if it requires skepticism of AI.
So you're essentially saying that humans can be influenced by (trained on) what they see/hear, but AI can't? Just by calling it originality?
I am truly wondering, if to take a person, which has never heard a single song, watched any movie/series/TV, hasn't read books, never been to theater, and so on - can that person produce something we'd call art?
People like the one you have described here did produce art. There was at one point a world in which nobody had produced paintings, carvings, poetry, etc., and one day someone made the first.
My distinction is in the way that people learn vs. the way AI systems are "trained". People are not learning the statistical likelihood of a pixel of one value being next to another. They aren't ingesting and decomposing into data billions of images. They do not require a small city's worth of electricity to learn to paint. These might seem like trivial details, and perhaps in the fullness of time they will prove to be so, but I believe a story like yours should be taken as an indication that these differences, or some other unstated ones, do matter. Your story is indeed a reductio ad absurdam, and that should tell us something about the assumptions in the story. I think it would be wrong to read a story like yours and take away from it the idea that we should not regulate AI. Instead I think that we should listen to our intuitions and create laws that work to achieve the world we desire. We obviously don't want to live in the world described in your story, nor do we want to abolish the concepts of originality, art, and creative ownership. So I say we must discard the premise that human learning and machine learning are equivalent. At least in the forms we see today.
I do agree with you - someone made it first.
So the key question remains: if I reproduce someone's picture with 99.4% accuracy (same place, pose, lighting, even clothes of the model; just the model is different) - is it stealing or I have created my own art?
I don't think I agree that this is the important question in the story. The specifics of whether a piece of media rises to the level of copyright infringement is a legal matter. These questions have been debated for a long time, no AI complication required. The interesting question raised by the story, for me, is this: since this scenario seems ridiculous, where is the logical problem? Is it with the concept of intellectual property? With our concept of derivative art? Or, as I believe, with the concept that AI "art" and human art are analogous, and that humans are actually just "stochastic parrots". We should be precious about our humanity, and not be so quick to recast ourselves as machines.
I would say this should be a black mirror episode, but I wouldn’t want to infringe copyright
I didn't realize I was reading fiction at first and wow, you pulled me right in. I was aghast and completely unsettled, nice job. Now, I'm just fretful because I can totally see this kind of ridiculous reach coming from legislators. So interesting.
That’s a good photoshop. What a terrible story though
Keep 'em coming, Ellis. Amazing work 👾
You've sold me on this whole fining people for taking influencer pictures thing.
A similarly fun thing happening IRL is people getting YouTube copyright violations for using a synthesizer “filter sweep” in their videos. That’s not far off someone claiming the money off your views because you also used the sound of a snare drum.
I wasn't aware of anything like that. Quite an interesting piece of information. Thank you.
don’t give them any ideas…
seriously though, horrifying stuff. great job!!
Thank you!
Stupid. I don't think the ridiculous stawmanning of this post is helpful.
Obviously one can conjure up ridiculous laws that harm society, but fundamentally, if you value the arts, then we do need to collectively think about these issues and create laws that protect and support (rather than hamper) artists. Implicitly this short story seems aimed at undermining the idea of such, in an incredibly moronic way (lacking the most basic understanding of the purpose and value of IP laws).
Training AI systems to replicate the work of artists exploits artists, and the law clearly needs to protect them. It's not about having president, or replicating previously done art work. It is about corporate owned algorithms (e.g., Disney) employing AI models trained on copywrited material made by human artists so that they can use GPUs cycle rather than pay actual human artists (using the works of artists, unlicensed, to replace the artist).
At a bare minimum, these companies should actually obtain a license for their training data - otherwise what happens is you eliminate the incentive for artist innovation (the protection and cultivation of which is the whole point of intellectual property).
Somehow, you've avoided the core question: when a random person makes exactly the same picture as seen online - is it theft or inspiration?
I don't believe there is such a thing as copyright of photographs, anyone is welcome to take the same vista from the same angle at the same time in the same light season, etc... It is simply not seen as protected IP. (I am not an IP lawyer and none of these messages are legal advice, etc...)
Regarding other art, generally it is seen as scummy to repurpose someone elses work so as to monitize it, and depending on particulars, it may violate the law.
Just look up existing IP laws. They are extensive and include many many caveats aimed at ensuring they make sense and most benefit society.
It doesn't matter whether it is theft or inspiration or anything. It is about ensuring the system helps artists and society (e.g., we have copyright but allow sampling, we have fair use for parody, etc...)
In particular, IP law often includes the provision that an infringement must be economically damaging to the claimant (so one person taking the same photo or painting the same picture for personal use as another person's picture could only be damaging if the claimant could reasonably expect to sell their picture, and that the copying is replacing that sale). See how your manufactured conflict shimmers and disappears as soon as the basics of IP are sanity checked.
Obviously AI creates new issues (along with new opportunities). You seem to contribute nothing to this necessary conversation, instead you seem to be implicitly stawmanning the very idea of IP.
I am writing fiction. Just FYI. If you've missed the message.
Apparently, you did.
I will not engage in further discussion, as you've already established that you're the one with the superior understanding.
Under a piece of fiction. Lol.
Congratulations.
To be clear, you seem to be cavalier about a topic that for many is their whole livelihood and career (artists being replaced by AI) and that is why I find your story insensitive and crude.
Regards superior understanding, your story presents an incredibly distorted take on intellectual property law (a complete stawman). I have stated my understanding is merely basic, and perhaps you understand IP deeply. If so, you have actually *chosen* to intentionally misrepresent it (and I have explained why and how I find that offensive).
I write Uncomfortable Fiction. If you were looking for comforting stories - I am sorry, but Substack algorithm took you on a wild ride, my friend.
Welcome.
Ok
I was thinking the same thing as le raz man. As I’m reading I’m thinking is this Meta or XAI posting AI slop to convince people AI regulation is harmful?
I'm not entirely sure where did you read the part about “AI regulation is harmful,” but hey… I'm happy to hear this got you to think.
To be clear, your 'core question' (when a random person makes exactly the same picture as seen online - is it theft or inspiration?) is a complete red herring.
But to answer, in terms of my (basic-if-seemingly-vastly-superior-to-yours) understanding of IP law, theft requires the person being wronged (e.g., copied) to financially lose out due to the act.
And frankly, given how many artists are rightly worried about their livelihoods being effectively stolen, I find your provocative 'thought experiment' / pseudo philosophising obnoxious.
Good. That's the point.
But that is already in the law. It's been part of IP law for literal centuries. There's basically zero chance of your hypothetical over-reaction-to-AI-training IP law.
Your short story seems aimed solely at misleading people as to the dangers of regulation, and we sorely need sane and sensible AI regulation. Meanwhile, artist right now, living human being, are worried about their careers and future (and some of them, their ability to financial survive).
In that context, I find your story incredibly obnoxious.
In short, I don't find touching upon a complex nuanced issue (distinguishing imitation and innovation, how to best protect and incentize artistic innovation) in such an unnuanced misleading way adds to the conversation. Instead it just takes up headspace, and adds to the noise.