Apparently, stealing other people’s work to create product for money is now “fair use” as according to OpenAI because they are “innovating” (stealing). Yeah. Move fast and break things, huh?
“Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression—including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents—it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” wrote OpenAI in the House of Lords submission.
OpenAI claimed that the authors in that lawsuit “misconceive[d] the scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence.”
Personally I think the claim that the entire contents of ArtStation will lead to working technology that fixes climate change is the bolder claim - and if there was any merit to it, there would be some evidence for it that the corporations who want copyright to be disapplied to artists would be able to produce. And if we’re saying that getting rid of copyright protections will save the planet, then perhaps Disney should give up theirs as well. Because that’s the reality here: we’re expecting humans to be obliterated by AI but are not expecting the rich and powerful to make any sacrifices at all. And art is part of who we are as a species, and has been for hundreds of thousands of years. Replacing artists with AI because somehow that will fix climate change is not only a massive stretch, but what would we even be saving humanity for at that point? So that everybody can slave away in insecure, meaningless work so the few can hoard everything for themselves? Because the Star Trek utopia where AI does all the work and humans can pursue self-enrichment is not an option on the table. The tech bros just want you to think it is.