GenAI tools ‘could not exist’ if firms are made to pay copyright::undefined

  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    So… This may be an unpopular question. Almost every time AI is discussed, a staggering number of posts support very right-wing positions. EG on topics like this one: Unearned money for capital owners. It’s all Ayn Rand and not Karl Marx. Posters seem to be unaware of that, though.

    Is that the “neoliberal Zeitgeist” or what you may call it?

    I’m worried about what this may mean for the future.

    ETA: 7 downvotes after 1 hour with 0 explanation. About what I expected.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s interesting as it’s many of the MPAA/RIAA attitudes towards Napster/BitTorrent but now towards gen AI.

      I think it reflects the generational shift in who considers themselves content creators. Tech allowed for the long tail to become profitable content producers, so now there’s a large public audience that sees this from what’s historically been a corporate perspective.

      Of course, they are making the same mistakes because they don’t know their own history and thus are doomed to repeat it.

      They are largely unaware that the MPAA/RIAA fighting against online sharing of media meant they ceded the inevitable tech to other companies like Apple and Netflix that developed platforms that navigated the legality alongside the tech.

      So for example right now voice actors are largely opposing gen AI rather than realizing they should probably have their union develop or partner for their own owned offering which maximizes member revenues off of usage and can dictate fair terms.

      In fact, the only way many of today’s mass content creators have platforms to create content is because the corporate fights to hold onto IP status quo failed with platforms like YouTube, etc.

      Gen AI should exist in a social construct such that it is limited in being able to produce copyrighted content. But policing training/education of anything (human or otherwise) doesn’t serve us and will hold back developments that are going to have much more public good than most people seem to realize.

      Also, it’s unfortunate that we’ve effectively self propagandized for nearly a century around ‘AI’ being the bad guy and at odds with humanity, misaligned with our interests, an existential threat, etc. There’s such an incredible priming bias right now that it’s effectively become the Boogeyman rather than correctly being identified as a tool that - like every other tool in human history - is going to be able to be used for good or bad depending on the wielder (though unlike past tools this one may actually have a slight inherent and unavoidable bias towards good as Musk and Gab recently found out with their AI efforts on release denouncing their own personally held beliefs).

    • CurbsTickle@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’d say the main reason is companies are profiting off the work of others. It’s not some grand positive motive for society, but taking the work of others, from other companies, sure, but also from small time artists, writers, etc.

      Then selling access to the information they took from others.

      I wouldn’t call it a right wing position.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Wanting to abolish the IRS is a right-wing policy that will benefit the rich. That doesn’t change when some marketing genius talks about how the IRS takes money from small time artists, writers, etc. Same thing. It’s about substance and not manipulative framing.

        • CurbsTickle@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          That isn’t remotely similar…

          The IRS takes a portion of income. This is taking away someone’s income, then charging access to it.

          Like it or not, these people need money to survive. Calling it right wing to think these individuals deserve to be paid for someone taking their work, then using it for a product they sell access to, is absolutely insane to me.

            • CurbsTickle@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              One is a percentage of income that everyone pays into.

              The other is stealing someone’s work then using that person’s work for profit.

              Recognizing that stealing someone’s work is not a right-wing position.

              How is this complicated?

              • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                I see. Thanks for explaining.

                This view of property rights as absolute is what right-libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, etc… espouse. Usually the cries of “theft” come when it gets to taxes, though. Is it supposed to be not right because it’s about intellectual property?

                Property rights are not necessarily right-wing (communism notwithstanding). What is definitely right-wing is (heritable) privilege and that’s implied in these views of property.

                ETA: Just to make sure that I really understand what you are saying: When you say “stealing someone’s work” you do mean the unauthorized copying of copyrighted expression, yes? Do you actually understand that copyright is intellectual property and that property is not usually called work? Labor and capital are traditionally considered opposites, of a sort, particularly among the left.

                • CurbsTickle@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  So… You think their art or writing was created by what then? Magic? Do you think no time was expended in the creation of books, research, drawings, painted canvases, etc?

                  Do you think they should starve because we currently live in a world driven entirely around money?

                  I don’t get your point even remotely.

                  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    I am just pointing out the meaning of words; originally just left vs right-wing.

                    Labor is not capital. The factories owned by Tesla were built by workers, just like the robots in them. Time was expended on their design. And yet, all that is still property. When some worker in such a factory takes a wrench home for personal use, then they are not stealing the work of Elon Musk or the other share-holders.


                    To make a point about policy: None of the owners of the NYT, or Getty, or others like them will starve because of fair use. They are rich people, they will stay rich, and I see no reason to give them more money simply because they own a lot of intellectual property. Anyone at actual risk of starving will only be hurt by sending more of the national income to the top.

                    US copyright exists “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”. The idea is that this can be achieved by introducing a profit motive. Requiring license fees for existing, publicly accessible works, can’t conceivably serve this purpose. It seems obvious that it will only hurt the purpose.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Every single poster here has relied on disruptive technologies in their life. They don’t even realize that they couldn’t even make these arguments here if it was not for people before them pushing the envelope.

      They don’t know the history of their technology nor corporate law. If they did they would just roll their eyes every time an entrenched economic interest started saber rattling about the next disruptive technology that is going to steal their profits.

      The posters here are the people who complained about horsewhip manufactures that were going out of business because of cars. They are ignorant and act like the few sound bytes they heard make them an expert.

    • Magical Thinker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      As an aside, when I browse TheGatewayPundit comments on AI articles, it is a lot more open, against legislation, and woke than I would expect!

    • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      I don’t know what you’re on about, the majority of the thread is pro open source AI and anti-capitalist, which is as left a stance as it gets, it’s not called “copyleft” for no reason. No one here wants to see AI banned and the already insane IP laws expanded to the benefit of the few corpos like the NYT at the expense of broader society.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        IDK. I have seen a number of pro-corpo copyleft takes. It’s absolutely crazy to me. The pitch is that expansive copyright makes for expansive copyleft. It seems neo-feudal to me. The lords have their castles but the peasants have their commons.