We desperately need a new term to orient the convo around.
Cuz I don’t think the main issue is the assignable right to prohibit unlicensed access. Nor is copyright well-equipped to solve the actual problems.
The real issues are:
Failure to cite the sources; and, on the flip side…
Possibly deceiving viewers into thinking the source created this instance
Alienating the labor of workers from the value that their labor creates
Adding excessive noise to the marketplace
Like the term “ecology” managed to align the interests of activists concerned about littering/pollution, animal extinction, and climate change, we need a term that aligns these concerns.
I’m with you in that copyright isn’t the issue. Creative dignity sounds better. Your point n3 is a big one for me.
But also part of the problem is that the arts are in essence human expression; it’s personal and there is a sense of identity attached to every work of art even if it is anonymous. A person trying to emulate someone else’s style will still add its own mark to their work. Some might call them a copycat and others may not care and love it. And at the end of the day, it’s their choice. They’ve put effort learning a skill and the proof is in the artwork. That’s not the case with AI fucking around anymore. If you are original, you will get ripped off in no time. And if you aren’t, then your skills are now worthless anyway.
I feel similarly about the impact to art. Though, art is one of those elusive things where as soon as you try to define it, someone will produce a counterexample that dares you to deny its “art-ness”.
In some ways, we kinda had a trial run of this conversation with Andy Warhol (and the various people pretending to be Andy Warhol).
I have no doubt that people will continue to have interesting things to say, and that audiences will continue to seek them out. But the degree to which it becomes difficult to successfully make that end-to-end connection is an open question.
I hope we see a more decentralized version of C2PA take off. I fear it’ll take some sort of catastrophe like a deepfake-driven coup before there’s a serious effort to mainstream it. If that happens, and C2PA is the only option laying around, we might be in for a new era of corporate control over media. I’m genuinely on the fence about whether that’s better than being boiled alive in AI soup. It probably is.
We desperately need a new term to orient the convo around.
Cuz I don’t think the main issue is the assignable right to prohibit unlicensed access. Nor is copyright well-equipped to solve the actual problems.
The real issues are:
Like the term “ecology” managed to align the interests of activists concerned about littering/pollution, animal extinction, and climate change, we need a term that aligns these concerns.
Creative dignity?
I’m with you in that copyright isn’t the issue. Creative dignity sounds better. Your point n3 is a big one for me.
But also part of the problem is that the arts are in essence human expression; it’s personal and there is a sense of identity attached to every work of art even if it is anonymous. A person trying to emulate someone else’s style will still add its own mark to their work. Some might call them a copycat and others may not care and love it. And at the end of the day, it’s their choice. They’ve put effort learning a skill and the proof is in the artwork. That’s not the case with AI fucking around anymore. If you are original, you will get ripped off in no time. And if you aren’t, then your skills are now worthless anyway.
I feel similarly about the impact to art. Though, art is one of those elusive things where as soon as you try to define it, someone will produce a counterexample that dares you to deny its “art-ness”.
In some ways, we kinda had a trial run of this conversation with Andy Warhol (and the various people pretending to be Andy Warhol).
I have no doubt that people will continue to have interesting things to say, and that audiences will continue to seek them out. But the degree to which it becomes difficult to successfully make that end-to-end connection is an open question.
I hope we see a more decentralized version of C2PA take off. I fear it’ll take some sort of catastrophe like a deepfake-driven coup before there’s a serious effort to mainstream it. If that happens, and C2PA is the only option laying around, we might be in for a new era of corporate control over media. I’m genuinely on the fence about whether that’s better than being boiled alive in AI soup. It probably is.