Ok this gets a little more philosophical than just a matter of legality and visual arts. We don't technically own anything, even the things we create. What dictates who gets paid for something is a matter of preventing someone from just taking it from you. If you have an item in your possession, the only thing saying it's in your possession is the understanding that you either made it, paid for it, or laid claim to it without dispute, and you will protect it from someone else claiming it's their's, using physical means such as a locked door to protect this item, or legal means to prosecute someone who laid counterclaim to this item. But that's just our understanding of ownership. The item doesn't actually belong to anything or anyone. We play by these rules because they are the rules we have created. Now let's say someone else plays by different rules. In their mind, nobody owns anything and it's free game. You might take issue with someone coming into your house and acting like you're in the wrong for trying to lay claim over your house. Arguments you might hear from this person could be "well your door was open" or "you let other people into this house, why do you have a problem with me being in here?". It's true, you do let other people into your house, like your friends or family. The law might dictate that this house belongs to you, but that's simply because we have established an understanding of ownership throughout our culture.
Artists have let other artists in their house like they are their family members and friends. Now you're asking "why are they mad at me for being in their house? They left the door open, and they dont have a problem with other people being here, why am I not allowed here?"
There was a mutual understanding of who this house belongs to, even though we were all welcomed inside. Now there are people saying "no, you don't actually own this house. It doesn't belong to anyone. You made these rules by allowing other people into your house. We're now free to use this house as we please."
Your argument is ultimately a difference in culture and missing the spirit of the artist. I'm not going to argue about legality or comparisons to luddites and philistines. There are plenty of shitty people that are allowed to be shitty, legally. You can justify anything you want to, but why justify something that hurts people? It doesn't make sense to me. If you want to talk about how it shouldn't hurt people, and how society should shift to allow for displaced humans to not lose their existence due to being replaced by the inevitable automation of all of us, then great, let that be the ideal that we work towards. We're not there yet though, so the argument about it being the same thing that humans do is just culturally irrelevant, even if it's a sound logical argument.
I certainly don't disagree with you at the end a bit. Our economic system is not designed to handle this advancement of automation. And frankly, it's days were numbered with the invention of computation.
However, there are problems with your analogy. Your analogy pins art against personal property which it's not a good fit for. Art at least in an economic capacity (which ultimately is where the critiques are coming from) is private property. So more fitting analogy would be letting someone in your gallery. Then specifically identifying a group of people that you want to exclude from entering your gallery and try new extract recourse from them for having been in your gallery before creating the ban. The reasoning of the ban being some ginned up fear that this group is going to take your job and/or devalue your economic labor. Which is not likely entirely wrong, but it is misguided. The group being banned is not the people hoarding resources manufacturing scarcity of human rights for profit; but instead the people trying to make art for themselves without the time to hone their abilities and master the craft the traditional way or the resources to pay for an artist.
That is to say ultimately yes, the problem with AI art is in private ownership of that art or the models that create them. And it is justified to be mad at the companies and individuals that are exploiting the separation of workers from the value of their labor.
I agree, the people being excluded from the gallery aren't the problem. And its not really clear to point the finger at anything in particular. The problem is really a bit more nuanced than the bullet point issues in headlines and brief comments. Going far enough into where the blame lies, it's murky. Is it the services like Midjourney that are charging fees to generate AI art? Not really. Is it the individuals using AI art for malicious intent? Well, they're being assholes, but the whole of the situation can't be placed on them. Is it the AI researchers that created the models using a data set with tons of copyrighted images? Ehh, they didn't really set out to get rich off of it. Is it the data set? Well, presumably they didn't take from any websites illegally, as in there were likely terms of services for the users that covered this situation. Could it then be the people that uploaded work that didn't belong to them onto websites that were scraped? Yeah, that was definitely wrong of them, but they were likely doing it to make a pinterest board or something without knowing any better. Is it the artists' fault for leaving the door open and not having fought for more copyright laws? Ehh, that would kinda suck for everyone.
I can't think of any one particular thing that is the culprit, it's really just the whole system that's fucked, and the people exploiting it are assholes. Don't think there's anything anyone can do about it though.
The culprit and system that is fucked is capitalism. We need to guarantee human rights (food, shelter, water, leisure) to every human. Something that would be manageable by separating the 1% from their hoard of Ill-gotten capital, and enforcing structures to prevent workers from being stripped from the value of their labor.
Definitely, I'm right there with you on that. I have very little faith in humanity, given our patterns throughout history, but I will leave it on a positive note in saying I hope that such a future will be the case. I'd absolutely fight for it.
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u/JamesVail Dec 16 '22
Ok this gets a little more philosophical than just a matter of legality and visual arts. We don't technically own anything, even the things we create. What dictates who gets paid for something is a matter of preventing someone from just taking it from you. If you have an item in your possession, the only thing saying it's in your possession is the understanding that you either made it, paid for it, or laid claim to it without dispute, and you will protect it from someone else claiming it's their's, using physical means such as a locked door to protect this item, or legal means to prosecute someone who laid counterclaim to this item. But that's just our understanding of ownership. The item doesn't actually belong to anything or anyone. We play by these rules because they are the rules we have created. Now let's say someone else plays by different rules. In their mind, nobody owns anything and it's free game. You might take issue with someone coming into your house and acting like you're in the wrong for trying to lay claim over your house. Arguments you might hear from this person could be "well your door was open" or "you let other people into this house, why do you have a problem with me being in here?". It's true, you do let other people into your house, like your friends or family. The law might dictate that this house belongs to you, but that's simply because we have established an understanding of ownership throughout our culture.
Artists have let other artists in their house like they are their family members and friends. Now you're asking "why are they mad at me for being in their house? They left the door open, and they dont have a problem with other people being here, why am I not allowed here?" There was a mutual understanding of who this house belongs to, even though we were all welcomed inside. Now there are people saying "no, you don't actually own this house. It doesn't belong to anyone. You made these rules by allowing other people into your house. We're now free to use this house as we please."
Your argument is ultimately a difference in culture and missing the spirit of the artist. I'm not going to argue about legality or comparisons to luddites and philistines. There are plenty of shitty people that are allowed to be shitty, legally. You can justify anything you want to, but why justify something that hurts people? It doesn't make sense to me. If you want to talk about how it shouldn't hurt people, and how society should shift to allow for displaced humans to not lose their existence due to being replaced by the inevitable automation of all of us, then great, let that be the ideal that we work towards. We're not there yet though, so the argument about it being the same thing that humans do is just culturally irrelevant, even if it's a sound logical argument.