Phosphor [&]

I think the problem with most of those proposed laws would be catching and enforcing. I think you would need a way to analyze an image and prove like, cause for suspicion of a crime before you could force a company to turn over their database or whatever would show that they had in fact scraped NoAI images. (Does this piece look like Artist Bob's work because Artist Bob's work was used to make it or is that just a coincidence of similar enough artists being used? At what point is similarity enough to pursue a legal case?)

As an artist, I really just want more of the lazy fucks making money off of this is be honest that they are using AI. They are SO WEIRD about it. Either it's people blowing a smokescreem about being an Artist (while churning out an IMPOSSIBLE number of highly rendered digital works in a short time frame) or guys getting really aggressive about people stealing their super special secret recipe (i.e. the terms they put into the AI to make it generate something they think is cool) like......buddy......you cannot copyright what is functionally a google search word smash. If you want to copyright an idea (that is establish an IP) you gotta, yanno, be able to document something that you actually made that proves it's yours. Which. A handful of words is a start, but is not proof enough. We actually do have laws about claiming words. (You can trademark words for a brand identity, but you cannot copyright words. And even a trademark for a word can be hard to get. There's been a number of authors who have tried to block other authors from using a word in their titles (see: the infamous CockyGate)) So, like, I dunno....

A lot of complaints about AI edge into a weird gray area where you have to very carefully thread around like, combining things either deliberately or as part of how humans grow as artists is one thing, but there are a lot of complicated nuanced discussions about where to draw the line between "learned from" or "remixed" in such a way as to be transformed in a way that makes it clear that you are not just copying and you have....like....your own viewpoint and intent behind it. When is something "similar because drawing from the same pool of ideas and influences" and when is it "copying or stealing?" Is AI merely a tool for making images/sounds/words? How can you make a law that outlaws the use of this tool in ways that won't set a bad precedent against human artists?

Part of the issue with AI is scale. It is a tool that generates images at a scale an individual human cannot compete with. Which I think takes it out of the realm of a tool like Photoshop's advantages over traditional media and into something like....automated manufacturing. (Please do not even get me started on people who use AI to generate references or like a base drawing to start from. Why are you getting the hallucinating machine to tell you what things look like or run through ideas for you? Like. This is not convincing me that this is a valuable tool for making art. This is telling me you have underdeveloped art skills and want to rely on a tool that is just gonna cripple your development as an artist!)

Which is kinda why I am just sighing a lot and wishing we could enforce making people disclose AI work (the same way artists normally list tools. like. it's not a secret that I use Photoshop. Or watercolors. Or both. Talking about what you use and how you use it is Normal Artist Things.) But like.....in a way that doesn't turn into witch hunts. AI art looks the way it does right now because it was trained on the styles of real artists. There are tells because AI doesn't actually understand art or anything. But, like, people are really good at id-ing the styles AI folk are using rn, but not good at telling the difference between human and ai art weirdness (look. hands are hard, ok?) nor are they good at doing the actual work you have to do to be SURE you have found AI art and not just someone whose art is in the popular style or is yanno, a little off. In normal human ways.

Sorry about this WALL OF (inarticulate rambling) TEXT. I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this topic.

I do wish we could have UBI. Since the core of this issue really is a labor/capitalism issue, giving me enough money to be able to live (and not just survive) and kinda free folks from the stupid idea that being able to work and working proves that you have value as a person would just be so good. For people. But man, I do not know if we will get there in my lifetime since it requires a MASSIVE change in the status quo of how our society functions. Even when I try to pitch it in the most capitalist terms I can, it will have profound effects on society and the current systems....