My thoughts on digital intellectual property reminds me of an excerpt that I had written for another class last semester. IP is an ever-changing legal battleground for change, as new technology emerges, so do new gray areas for what is considered to be owned by someone. Take for instance AI - I am sure other classmates will discuss the same topic on their blogs as well, because it is a clear example of why our policies need to change around copyright. How do we establish ownership and give credit on an image that has been constructed using training data of a million more images.
Take a look at
This article explaining the IP issues with AI, it essentially just covers the same points I have stated but goes into more depth.
The image above is pretty ironic, as it gives a false representation for what AI really is. As one professor who teaches operating systems for a living notes, "AI is just a really fancy statistcs engine." As I quickly learned more about how large language models work, and saw through the facade of Chatgpt and realized that he was right. But I do not want to be a complete pessimist like him, as one should not overlook the great feat AI has accomplished so far. AI is based on the human mind, and was discovered when trying to understand how brains work. From what I can understand, AI will continue to be developed until its able to rationalize problems through logic, and so far it has only proven to be a really good word guesser. I see a future in AI, but a very distant one.
The Harvard Business Review mentions a structure that can mitigate the Intellectual property rights that AI infringes upon. AI companies that scrap the internet for training material should allow artists to opt-in rather than involuntarily be a part of a robot's masterpiece. But there is probably a good reason why these companies silently ignore this option, and it is because they know most artists will refuse to share.
The general artist community despises AI art, and the argument against the creation of AI art emphasizes the artificial nature of such content. If it is not created by a human, then how can be labelled "art"? Art is an expression of the human mind after all.
Pink Floyd recently hosted a competition where participants submitted their artwork and animation pieces to be featured on Pink Floyd's youtube channel as a music-video. Fans were shocked when they discovered that one of the submissions that won was completely generated by AI.
https://twitter.com/pinkfloyd/status/1776278627790782656 Here's the video listed on youtube.
