this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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It doesn't matter if actual copies of the original images exist, reproducing copyrighted concepts like characters is still infringement. It's the same whether it's done by a human or a machine. The real question is who is liable. Obviously whoever distributes the images is liable (except for those exempted by section 230) but there's no president for the trainers.
I think there are arguments to be made for fair use with open models run by end users where there is no profit motive, but for closed models where use is paid the trainers are potentially profiting directly from the creation of infringing work.
You can't sue the paint and brush manufacturer because they made it possible for John Doe's replicas or style. Generative AI and LLMs are a tool not a product. It is the exploitation of them as a product that is the problem. I can make the same stuff in Blender or some shit program from Autodesk, and you won't sue them. No one tells people what to prompt. Current AI is like the internet, it is access to enormous amounts of human knowledge but with more practical utility and a few caveats. AI just happened a lot quicker and the Luddites and Lawyers are going to whine as much as the criminal billionaire class is going to exploit those that fail to understand the technology. Almost all of these situations/articles/lawsuits/politics are about trying to create a monopoly for Altmann and prevent public adoption of open source offline AI as much as possible. If everyone had access to a 70B or larger LLM right now, all of the internet would change overnight. You don't need search engines or much of the internet structure of exploitation any more. If a company can control this technology, with majority adoption, that company will be the successor of Microsoft and then Google. All the peripheral nonsense is about controlling the market by any means necessary, preventing open minded people from looking into the utility, and playing gatekeepers to the new world paradigm of the next decade or two.
Paint making companies typically don't have massive databases of illegally obtained copies of other people's copyrighted images. Nor does paint fundamentally requires the existence of said database for the manufacture of paint itself. That's where the "it's just a tool" argument falls apart.
I love your enthusiasm though, to think that giving access to a massive llm for everyone would rid the internet of exploitation is extremely naïve and hopelessly optimistic.