AI Hustle: News on Open AI, ChatGPT, Midjourney, NVIDIA, Anthropic, Open Source LLMs: Artists Rally in Open Letter to Congress: Generative AI's Positive Impact

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So the first thing to say is that artists are increasingly stepping into the conversation

about the impact of artificial intelligence on creativity and copyright.

So this is obviously a dialogue that's been largely dominated by tech companies, scientists,

and policy makers.

But recently, a consortium of artists released an open letter to Congress contending that

generative AI technologies are more benefit than they are negative to the creative community.

So furthermore, they also asserted that artists should be consulted in the regulation and

development of these technologies.

I think one thing that we may be seeing here is the fact that, you know, love it or hate

it.

AI is kind of here to stay so people can say we hate it, they can try to fight against

it or whatever.

But because it's here to stay, I think a lot of artists have actually started taking AI

and helping, like essentially using it in their workflows, helping them to develop cool new

art styles, cool new concepts, giving them inspiration and ideas and all sorts of things

that don't necessarily detract from their work art form, but maybe are actually helping

them to speed it up or to become more creative and do more things that they were not able

to do in the past.

So I think this is a really interesting narrative shift and I think, you know, the more AI advances

and the more we realize this is here to stay, this is probably the right approach.

The letter was signed by a broad range of creatives, you know, and they were essentially

saying that AI and machine learning are simply the latest in a long line of tools that have

influenced art, music and media.

So the core arguments that they gave artists who use these advanced tools should be an

integral part of the conversation and decision making process surrounding the regulation.

So essentially they want to sit at the table when regulators are regulating the stuff.

So a highlighted portion of the letter says, quote, just like previous innovations, these

tools lower barriers in creating art, a career that has been traditionally limited to those

with considerable financial means able bodied and the right social connections.

Unfortunately, this diverse pioneering work of individual human art artists is being misrepresented.

Some say it is about merely typing in prompts or regurgitating existing work.

Others derived our methods and our art as based on stealing and data theft.

Many individual artists are afraid of backlash if they so much as touch these important new

tools.

End quote.

So the appeal directly acknowledges lawmakers like Senator Schumer and various initiatives

aimed at crafting thoughtful regulation for general AI technology.

And by pulling in a wide range of experts, including, you know, scientists, advocates

and community leaders, the artists argue that any responsible and inclusive approach must

also feature voices from the art community.

So while the offer, while the letter offers, I would say like a fairly compelling perspective,

it's not without its critics, particularly in the characterization of artists' objectives

to AI technologies.

So there definitely are some people that argue that the letter kind of glosses over substantial

concerns around intellectual property theft.

The technologies in question have definitely been accused of kind of leveraging artists'

work for commercial purposes without consent.

And this is a significant issue that I don't think really can be ignored in discussions

about digital copyright and licensing.

The one other thing that I would like kind of personally push back on this is anytime

it's like artists send an open letter.

It's like, yeah, what artists?

Like a hundred artists, a thousand artists, like these artists, those artists, like artists

in this specific industry, like it's kind of funny because it just says like a bunch

of artists send an open letter and they kind of like, the goal is to make it appear like

this is the opinion of artists, like they're just one like monogenous and group of people

that all have the same opinion.

Really I'm sure you could get a similarly sized email or a letter written up by a bunch

of artists that completely disagree and think that AI should be banned altogether, yada yada.

So I mean, I'll throw that out.

They're also like what defines you as an artist.

I feel like my podcast is an art, right?

Maybe that's my thing.

So who is an artist?

What is an artist?

I can draw stick figures on a piece of paper.

Does that classify as art?

Some people might be selling that kind of art for millions of dollars.

I don't know, right?

I guess that's probably a silly argument, but like at the end of the day, I'm just skeptical

of like when people classify, you say like artists sent this letter, like it was one

group of people representing everyone.

So that's all I would be skeptical of, not to say their points are invalid, but definitely

there's going to be some broader perspectives from that specific community beyond just what

is in their letter.

So I think something else that a bunch of artists are kind of pushing back on is asserting

that companies developing AI technologies have done so in ways that exploit the artistic

community.

You know, whether one views AI assisted art as a derivative or original, the legitimacy

of the technology itself is kind of questioned when it appears to benefit from what many

would consider to be unethical or illegal practices.

And that's of course the fact that they just grabbed a ton of images and trained models

off of those without necessarily getting consent for the artists in question.

Now the thing that I will also say here to give credit to certain AI models, you have

people like Adobe that have created some really impressive AI models that are able to generate

images, and it's done completely on their own database of images that they have complete

licenses to people can opt in to get their images included or opt out if they don't want

it, they own, you know, the licensing and the rights to it.

So at the end of the day, like I know people are going to complain about that really, they're

just complaining about mid-journey because mid-journey is the biggest and the best.

But like, you know, Adobe has the complete rights to their AI model and all of the content

that went into it.

So at the end of the day, people are going to find a way to do it, and I don't think

that that's the argument, right?

Because inevitably mid-journey could go strike a deal with Shutterstock and some other people

and maybe retrain their models or fix it in the future so that it's like not based off

of other people's content, it's just based off of license stuff.

And the other thing is like, there's the whole question of like, well, if the AI kind of copies

like five different artists and mashes them together, like, isn't that what normal artists

do, right?

Like, don't we, like, I'm inspired by, you know, Van Gogh or anyone else and we'll try

to copy and like make some sort of similar look and feel or incorporate some elements

that I like from him into like a piece of art.

So I don't know, there's also that in my mind.

I think the debate around AI's role in the arts is definitely in its kind of infant stage

right now.

There's a ton of different room for both disagreement and collaboration.

And the open letter while a singular viewpoint stands is I think a fairly critical milestone

that's going to likely attract a lot of scrutiny, especially from artists who feel that their

concerns are not, you know, being adequately represented.

So I think as AI continues to evolve, one thing is definitely for certain and that is

that this whole conversation is far from over, both the technology and the artistic

landscape are continually shifting, suggesting that discussions about the ethical, commercial

and creative implications of AI in art is going to be a reoccurring theme for years

to come.

And that's definitely one that we'll continue to cover.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.