Legal challenges mount over ethics and legality of #Ai art
A twice-weekly, curated roundup of the most interesting stories in the world of AI-generated art.
Putting the genie back into the bottle
The ethics of how generative-art platforms train their AI will get its day in court, sooner rather than later. This past week, two separate legal actions began in the U.S. and the UK, naming some of the more popular AI-art generators as defendants.
A trio of artists filed a class action suit against Stability AI (maker of Stable Diffusion), Midjourney and Deviant Art. From Nicole Clark of Polygon:
The suit alleges that these companies “violated the rights of millions of artists” by using billions of internet images to use train its AI art tool without the “consent of artists and without compensating any of those artists.” These companies “benefit commercially and profit richly from the use of copyrighted images,” the suit alleges. “The harm to artists is not hypothetical,” the suit says, noting that works created by generative AI art are “already sold on the internet, siphoning commissions from the artists themselves.”
Meanwhile, Getty Images, one of the world’s largest stock image providers, filed an intent to sue in the UK against Stability AI, accusing the company of illegally scraping images from its database to train its AI. Those images were protected by copyright, according to a press statement that Getty provided The Verge.
What’s next: It’s not surprising that the ethics of AI training methods have spurred legal action. A lawsuit felt inevitable. These cases could lead to major changes in how AI-art platforms operate. Allowing artists to opt-out of data sets could become an industry standard, along with the possibility of intellectual property licensing agreements for artists who allow their work to be included.
However, trying to litigate the technology out of existence isn’t realistic. We’re going to see ever-increasing uses of AI in all aspects of our daily life but it’s also important for us to realize there are still many problems with ethics, biases and disinformation that need to be addressed.
ars technica: Artists file class-action lawsuit against AI image generator companies - Benj Edwards
The Verge: AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit - James Vincent
For discussion
TIME: Exclusive: OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic - Billy Perrigo
CBS News: Art created by artificial intelligence: "Frightening and fascinating all at the same time" - David Pogue
New York Magazine: The AI Magic Show - John Hermann
Just for Kicks
Tech
McKinsey: Artificial intelligence in strategy - Yuval Atsmon
Forbes: What Jobs Are Available In Artificial Intelligence? How To Make A Career In This AI Boom - Q.ai
NFTs and Digital Art
Kotaku: Bored Ape Flexes That $450M It Raised For Its Metaverse Empire With Poop Game - Sisi Jiang