philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Artists Are Losing the War Against AI

... Not everyone is skeptical of the opt-out mechanism, which has also been implemented for future versions of the popular image-generating model from Stability AI. Problems identifying copies of images or challenges with enforcement will exist with any policy, Jason Schultz, the director of the Technology Law and Policy Clinic at NYU, told me, and might end up being “edge case–ish.” Federal Trade Commission enforcement could keep companies compliant. And he worries that more artist-friendly alternatives, such as an opt-in mechanism—no training AI on copyrighted images unless given explicit permission—or some sort of revenue-sharing deal, similar to Spotify royalties, would benefit large companies with the resources to go out and ask every artist or divvy up some of their profits. Extremely strict copyright law when it comes to training generative AI, in other words, could further concentrate the power of large tech companies.

The proliferation of opt-out mechanisms, regardless of what one makes of their shortcomings, also shows that artists and publishers will play a key role in the future of AI. To build better, more accurate, or even “smarter” computers, companies will need to keep updating them with original writing, images, music, and so on, and originality remains a distinctly human trait.

See the full story here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/openai-dall-e-3-artists-work/675519/