AI's aren't sentient. They can't "steal."
Programmers and institutions select the data with which to train the model. They take art and writing from artists and authors without credit or payment. The software then remixes and mimics what it is given.
Displacing agency by attributing intent to the AI is exactly how people and institutions erase human action in the creation of technology. It also leads to further perceptions of technology as acultural, unbiased, and, in essence, magical.
@Manigarm This is an interesting point, and certainly correct.
It's also exactly how humans learn to become artists and writers - by studying, mimicking, and eventually adding to the existing body of work. We don't generally consider that theft, unless the copying is exact or deceptive.
Yet AI feels somehow different, much more like plagiarism. Perhaps it's that the ONLY input an ML system has is others' art, with no real-world human experience of its own to contribute.
@Manigarm It seems relevant that similar discussions seem to have occurred throughout history every time a new artistic medium is introduced, especially those involving some kind of automation.
Is photography art? What about music played on synthesizers? Acrylic paints? And so on. Much impassioned hand-wringing about the "end of art" with all of these, all of it seeming very silly in retrospect.
Dr. Holly Walters
Matt Blaze