The general consensus here is that if you generate AI art at all, regardless of whether you use it commercially or not, you are engaging in art theft and are in fact an asshole.
So why doesn’t that logic get applied to straight up turning someone’s digital art and/or photos into memes and having millions of people repost it with zero attribution? I’m not talking about things like wojaks or rage comic characters where the creator intended for it to be a meme and knew for a fact that other people will copy it, nor am I talking about screenshots of popular media franchises, but the random art and photos people post that just happens to resonate with the internet in a way the creator never foresaw, becoming memes without the creator even initially knowing. Think the original advice animal meme templates like Scumbag Steve or Bad Luck Brian where it’s literally just a random photo of someone, probably taken off their personal social media. Or the two serious and one goofy dragon drawing and others that were very clearly posts on art sharing sites that got reposted with new context. I’ve even seen some meme templates go out of their way to crop out names and signatures that the original creator put there so they are credited when their work is reposted. And no one slamming AI art seemingly has a problem with any of it. In fact, if you as the creator of an image tried to get the internet to stop using your personal work as a meme with no attribution, you’d be ignored at best and targeted for doxxing and harassment at worst for spoiling their fun, probably by some of the same people condemning the use of AI.
If you go on art sharing sites, the consensus among the artists themselves is that you’re not supposed to repost their work at all unless given a CC license or otherwise explicit permission. Whether it’s for commercial use or just as a random internet post doesn’t seem to change their stance in the slightest. This implicitly includes not just AI but memes as well, as in both cases you are taking someone else’s work and redistributing it without permission or attribution. So why is this okay if AI art is not? It’s even more blatant than AI because it’s not just stealing tons of people’s work, blending them all in a neural network, and spitting out a “new” work that still has fragments of the stolen work, it straight up IS just stealing a specific person’s specific work, full stop. I feel like the reason is circular, it’s okay because it’s been happening since forever and that’s what makes it okay. And AI art is not okay because it’s new and doesn’t already have a history of everyone doing it.
The majority of people condemning AI art are not themselves artists but cite things like “respect for artists” as a reason for condemning it. But most artists aren’t just against AI but against their art being reposted by anyone for any purpose, profit or otherwise. Even if they were never going to make money from that piece, they are still against reposts on principle while most of the non-artists seem to only talk about AI separating artists from revenue. So if we’re actually to respect artists, wouldn’t we adopt that stance for everything and not just commercial use or AI?
And if this is okay, what about AI art makes it different enough to not be okay?
Finally, it’s not like people never make money off memes so a binary “AI is for profit while memes aren’t” doesn’t work.
Not trying to defend AI art, but trying to go further with the discussion that has appeared around it and genuinely trying to tease out some consistency and fundamental values in subjects everyone ostensibly feel extremely strongly about and are not willing to budge.
The law mostly disagrees with the memes = theft. A lot of it is covered through freedom of speech and fair use. If you have taken a bit of content, changed it a bit, recontextualized, and reposted it, you are most likely in the clear. Especially if the original content was publicly posted. This gets less clear if you are using the likeness of a private person but this will also depend on context. Where in the world you are, if this content was captured in a public space or from something published - the list goes on, like some stuff can be trademarked as well, and I’m no lawyer. A lot of these things run under the legal doctrine of “no plaintiff, no judge.” I feel artists in general have accepted that anything they post online is just potentially gone. And if no one steals their content to make money off it, they’re not going to hire a lawyer, whom they cannot afford.
And I’m not saying any of this is great but that’s an established status quo.
The reason why so-called AI generated art gets decried is twofold. It’s new and we don’t like new things. And in order for it to be created, the models have to suck in all the training data they can. And they don’t tend to pay for it. So that’s where some people see theft happening. But that’s not settled law yet because it’s fairly new, there are plaintiffs but not enough judges have passed judgement yet. Do they have to pay for stuff that’s publicly available? Where is the line, if any? Is imitation of a style okay if there is more to the work than just copying something from Studio Ghibli or Disney? These questions are going to keep a lot of legal professionals in bacon for a long time still.
This shit is hard. It’s more gray than black and white.
I’ve been trying to think of a way to have a nuanced discussion about art and AI, but hesitant to do so since people online can get incredibly vitriolic about it if they suspect that I’m in favor of AI. For the record I dislike AI being shoved in my face, from the uncanny-valley line art to the shovelware game apps that I keep seeing ads for.
To get to the point, I’m struggling to understand the moral difference between an AI model scraping art to use as training data, or an aspiring artist studying it to learn how to make it themselves. In both cases, the original artist has posted their work to a public website fully knowing that people will look at it. What’s the difference between an AI model vs a human learning from it? And how is it theft when the product is demonstrably different from the original?
I want to be clear that I just want to understand the logical underpinning of the arguments, and not arguing for one side or the other.
I know a few artists and get their complaints against AI, but I feel they’ve been way too overblown.
I look at AI as what it is - a new technology. Everthing was one at some point.
For example - cameras. Do you think artists who learned painting were happy when cameras started displacing them?
Of course there was outrage. It’s natural to protect your interests. However, technology has to be allowed to progress and people’s rights have to be respected. Developments in technology such as photography or AI are a disruption of the existing legal framework, and the two sides’ rights (those of the users and if those displaced) must be balanced.
However, unlike photography, there’s a clear legal basis and precedent analogous to AI art - in most places recieving copyrighted material without permission isn’t punishable while distributing it to others is.
An AI model is in essence a retrieval system in the sense of the US DMCA. Most other places have substantially similar laws in spirit, and most places draw the distinction between distribution and “fair” uses of infinging material. A good rule of thumb is that selling access is a big no-no, distributing is a big risk, and merely using a much smaller one. All technically illegal (as are memes).
Just to throw something out there - AI does it on a much larger scale. Bad Luck Brian is one guy whose picture was appropriated, while AI systems suck up every piece of art they can access in all of existence and make copies of it. I also think it matters that memes are free expression while AI art is used for profit.
while AI systems suck up every piece of art they can access in all of existence and make copies of it.
While also destroying the planet and contributing to the class war
I don’t believe information can be stolen, just copied. Copying it doesn’t remove it from the original person, so it’s not theft and not bad.
If you’re a small family store that makes an amazing recipe and people love it, and you keep that recipe a secret. You’re honestly okay with a competitor stealing it? Not a competitor making a bad ripoff, but finding a way to get the recipe and using that to clone the meal for a profit.
Obviously with larger companies it’s easier to say fuck them but investing time in something and then having it taken is a hit even if its “information”, isn’t it?
That “small family store” uses intellectual property to gate and paywall that awesome recipe from the people. They’re bourgeois leeches.
You have a niece that’s a poor student but talented at art.
You clone her painting, sell for a profit, keep the money.
Same issue different specifics.
You’re still aggressively okay with this and would still use sophisticated language to slander the niece’s actions?
You are assuming we want a for profit system to exist. I am against copyright because i don’t believe for profit systems should exist cause i’m a marxist. Because it’s a tool of capital in an egalitarian society, communist society. copyright should not exist because it has no reason to cause it’s sole purpsoe would be to stifle creativity and cut off access of it for the people. The main purpose of copyright has always been to stiffle creativity and sharing something among people. As such it’s a capitalist system meant to protect profits.
For profit system!?
I’m pretty sure every time I’ve seen humans get together there’s someone trying to get more of something than the other people. Even in communes or communities without money like jails (and in the romanticised tribal past). Some parts of economic theory help predict these outcomes even in places that aim for these ideals.
Where are you seeing evidence of a system that’s close to what you’re describing that’s functional, stable over time, and more than a few isolated individuals?
Jails have money. Inmates get paid for working. Far under minimum wage, its horrible.
You are a replying to a ask lemmy ml (marxist leninist) post and acting surpised peopel are marxists? Are you aware this is where you are cause this is confusing me. I can’t have evidence of a systme that doesn’t currently exist, because we haven’t reached a stage in society where it can exist as we need to progress through socialism to get peopel to the point hwere they are socialized ina way that system like that could exist. What does people trying ot get more of something that others have any relevance. You just deal with that as a society by punishing that person. Further more evne if the advanced economic anthropological and sociological theory that shows that such a society could function in theory was wrong It is not relevant. This is about what we believe not what is currently in practice. If i was an anarchist i can think authority is harmful to society even if significant anarchist experiments dno’t really exist. as It’s my moral beliefs.
How am I supposed to “sell” a copy of someone’s painting? No one can “buy” that. Right click download is free. A copy of an unlimitedly copyable object has no worth.
Your example is set in liberal fantasy land.
The copyright oppressors are the real thieves. disney imprisoned the peoples’ fairytales inside their paywalls.
There is an art store in my city, they make fun little things out of sticks and woodwork, alongside original and commissioned art. Somebody decided they should just upload all of that companies designs to temu or some shit, and they actually had to shut down there online store in response. Does that seem fair to you? In the end it’s just information being stolen, that almost led to a family run art shop being shuttered. By copying it, they actually did take sales away from them, and when we’re talking designs, that is just straight up theft.
I’m happy with a person making money off their effort even when it uses someone else’s work as a basis (ip rules are shit).
I’m not ok with lazy fucks churning out slop with no effort and no soul, and at the same time accelerating an impending climate disaster AND inflating the biggest speculative investment bubble of all time
And AI art is not okay because it’s new and doesn’t already have a history of everyone doing it.
This has to be it. The fear of the new.
Combined with the fear that humans aren’t special. That something, that was previously thought to be uniquely human, can be replicated in machines, or is found in animals too.
Same was about photography, computer graphics etc. I bet even clay tablets and sculptures were bashed at some point because they werent real art, unlike cave wall paintings.
In my opinion this is too large of an attempt at reasoning memes as equal to an artist made piece of art but it is full of fallacies. The same images from memes being used can be traced and attributed to its original author with ease, AI cannot. So I’d argue that AI stealing is even more blatant as it attempts to hide its origin. AI makes people think they actually did something and partook in creating the piece, which is like taking an image off the internet and saying you made it. You can edit it, but it is not the same as saying you are the creator. AI blurs the line of ownership by including an algorithm in between, but it is being used to try and heavily commercialise its output in a way that memes never had. You say in italics a fallacy on the style of “memes occasionally can be profitable, therefore it is equivalent to selling AI art”, but I think you know how different the reality of both forms is. It is exactly the intent behind the majority of AI image generation to industrialise art, while it is not the case of memes, and you see the same pushback if a company tries to use someone’s photo commercially/politically without their consent. In a meme, the image is not the main product, but the context in which it is being used, so the image can be actually replaced but not the same can be done with the text.
And true, I’d argue there’s also a component of inherent rejection of AI generated images because it is clear it “destroys art creation” in the sense that artists experience the world and create from said experience in connection with their own perception and ideas, while AI “remixes” said work without any understanding or self input and steals people’s expression that is currently being aimed explicitly for commercial purposes. Meme makers do something far better than AI. If all art would be made by AI there would be no art. The only way I’d be ok with it is if you give the neural network sensors to perceive reality and process ideas and thoughts, to then create its own interpretation and expression. I guess it would be interesting to see “art” without emotion.
You pull out of nowhere that most people against AI are not artists, but that kind of claim needs some support behind it. Similarly to how you claim that people against AI art have nothing against using other people’s work for memes without their consent. That kind of whataboutism does not contribute to the discussion, as it is just pointing to a “but they do that so I can do this” lame excuse. Sure, people should be more respectful about other people’s images, so what.
Even with all of this, I do agree that using people’s images for memes without their consent is bad. Doubt it can be stopped but I’d not be surprised if they are strongly affected by it. Empathy is scarce these days and makes me act a bit more bitter on the internet.
Because fear and hypocrisy, and pretending we’re somehow special as humans. It’s okay for us to copy this style, and replicate this drug set, and sample these sounds. We’re okay torrenting stuff because screw the big rich studios. We’re okay buying knockoff stuff because it’s cheaper.
We only care because it’s started crushing small creators struggling to make a living, and AI can gobble up training data faster than any human reasonably can in a lifetime.
Intellectual property has always been broken, AI just exposes the problem more clearly. It’s always been a double-standard.
This is a well reasoned response. For sure the problem is just exacerbated by AI. The real problem is Intellectual Property in the first place.
Generally speaking, memes aren’t being used to make money…whereas AI is almost exclusively being used to profit off of someone else’s content.
There’s a funny thing about this: there is no profit in AI. Most AI companies write big losses.
Of course they try making profit, with AIaaS, but that just doesn’t work when I can go on huggingface or modelscope and download whatever I want for free and run it on my own computer.
If you can’t see the difference between people doing something and hostile metahuman entities doing it, I don’t know what to tell you.
Memes only have because they reference an original work. AI strips the connection between the original work and the final product deliberately.
“You”, the user of the AI model isn’t engaging in copyright infingement directly.
However, whoever made the model that you used did. Most using copyright protected works.
Some people are paying for these models. This is what’s the problem: financially benefitting off others’ work without permission (or royalties).
It’s like the age-old piracy dilemma: the person using direct downloads or streaming can’t be fined in most jurisdictions - it’s the duplication and sharing that’s forbidden.
This exact analogue exists with AI models: training a model and giving it to others to use is distributing access to copyrighted material. Using an AI model is not.
To adress the mems side of the question: Memes aren’t a large portion of the original work. Often times they’re screenshots of video material, so the “portion taken from the original” is minute. Some meme formats, however, are digital art pieces in and of themselves. (Note the word format - the “background” of the meme, for example the “If I did one pushup” comic)
But even with that consideration, a meme doesn’t bring harm to the original - it’s basically free advertising. And as the memes are usually low quality abd not monetized, it can be passed off as fair use or free speech in some jurisdictions, while others merely turn a blind eye. And why shouldn’t they?
As I said, memes have a multitude of points going against them being copyright infringement. They’re low-effort, short-form media, usually with a short “lifetime” (most memes don’t get reposted for years). Most often they’re a screengrab of a video (so a ‘negligible portion of the original’) and almost never bring harm to the original, but only serve as free advertising. Again, usually. This means most meme formats’ involuntary creators have no reason to go after memes. You could probably get a court to strike a meme, but probably on defamation grounds - and even then, the meme will most likely die (not the format!) beforehand, so such suits are usually dismissed as moot.
Compare this to an AI model (not an AI “artpiece”): It’s usually trained on the entire work, and they’re proven to be able to recreate the work in large part - you just need to be lucky enough with the seeds and prompts. This means the original is “in there somewhere”, and parts of it can be yanked out. Remeber, even non-identical copying (so takig too much inspiration or in academic speak, “plagiarism”) is copyright infringement.
And to top it all off, all the big AI models have a paid tier, meaning they profit off the work.
If you were to compare memes to individual AI “artworks”, then it is the same thing as memes. Except if the generation is a near-verbatim reproduction, but even then, the guilt lies with the one who knowingly commited infringement by choosing what to put into the model’s training data, and not on some unlucky soul who happened to step on a landmine and generated the work.
I don’t give a shit either way, fuck copyrights.
IP is helping strangle this world.
Even tho the legal team at my work claims it’s not true I know it is. Meme license.
That’s why.
AI companies are consuming all the electricity, and will destroy the economy when their bubble bursts, in their quest to eliminate millions of jobs and control the lives of everyone, to profit the global tech elite.
Memes are not-for-profit cultural detritus. They are not the same.
so your actual problem is with capitalism as opposed to the tech itself
I don’t believe in intellectual property
