KaralynJan 19, 2023
C. L. Polk

Hey did an AI steal your art

Did an AI steal your buddy's art

Saddle up, first class-action suit i've seen

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/class-action-filed-against-stability-ai-midjourney-and-deviantart-for-dmca-violations-right-of-publicity-violations-unlawful-competition-breach-of-tos-301721869.html

Class Action Filed Against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt for DMCA Violations, Right of Publicity Violations, Unlawful Competition, Breach of TOS

/PRNewswire/ -- Stability AI Ltd.; Stability AI, Inc.; Midjourney Inc.; and DeviantArt, Inc. have created products that infringe the rights of artists and...

Jan 15, 2023 at 8:42pmWeb
Show threadPatrick Johanneson 🚀 🇨🇦Jan 15, 2023
@clpolk I've found some of my photos in the training data via haveibeentrained.com but I don't know what that means as far as actual usage in the wild.
Show threadThe Mo Jan 15, 2023
@clpolk I hope more people fight back against these unethical AI image generators. AI has its benefits and can be an amazing tool, but ONLY if it is used ethically and fairly.
Show threadAstridJan 16, 2023
@clpolk Its going to be funny when they find out fair use covers data mining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Text_and_data_mining
Fair use - Wikipedia

Show threadAstridJan 16, 2023
@clpolk Like the very premise of the suit makes assumptions about the technology that simply are not true and are easy to prove they arent true. This is going to be a comical waste of time and money.
Show threadJ.M. HelfrichJan 16, 2023
@clpolk Yes. They scraped a portrait of my late father, along with most of my art, from my own personal website without my knowledge or consent: https://universeodon.com/@JudyHelfrich/109496160489322889
Judy Helfrich (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images I painted this #portrait of my dad ages ago, before he died unexpectedly late last year. I never dreamed that his portrait would be scraped from my own personal website, without my consent, and dumped in a dataset used to train AI art generators. But that's what happened. My dad, a woodworking artist, would have hated his likeness being used to threaten the livelihood of fellow artists. I am gutted. AI "art" is unethical. #MastoArt #AI #Art #artist #painting #MastoArt #ArtistsOnMastodon

Universeodon
Show threadaliceJan 16, 2023
@clpolk the lawsuit is fucking stupid, dude makes some insanely inaccurate claims like saying the stable diffusion model keeps images in a database and calling stable diffusion a "21st century collage tool", he should at least learn how the tool works before filing a lawsuit
Show threadMattJan 16, 2023
@lexd0g @clpolk If I was a suspicious type, I might suggest that such a poorly constructed lawsuit is in the interest of the "AI pushers" or not in the interests of disgruntled artists, as it's inevitable dismissal will set a precedent and undermine the bigger case, and therefore I'd question the motives of those bringing it forward; if I was the suspicious type.
Show threadC. L. PolkJan 16, 2023
@forelioned @lexd0g i would never dream of calling you a suspicious type. the very idea.
Show threadKryptykPhyshJan 16, 2023
@clpolk Ooh! Following this one with interest.
Show threadRui MalheiroJan 16, 2023

@clpolk
"AI image products are not just an infringement of artists' rights; whether they aim to or not, these products will eliminate "artist" as a viable career path."

Any ungreedy rational being can understand this, so it should be a easy case. Unfortunately the greedy ones have the upper hand.

"... this lawsuit seeks to prevent that outcome and ensure these products follow the same rules as any other new technology that involves the use of massive amounts of intellectual property. If streaming music can be accomplished within the law, so can AI products."

See? My guess is this will fail and later we'll get the greedy bastards sponsoring laws to protect AI Art from being "stolen" by art loving pirates.
@aral

Show threadElio CampitelliJan 16, 2023
@clpolk Non consensual use of images for training is skeevy and needs to be addressed (although it legally it seemed to fall into Fair Use). But this particular lawsuit is nonsense. These models do not store the images and don't do collages. That's just factually wrong and easy to refute.
Show threadC. L. PolkJan 16, 2023
@eliocamp well it sucks that this lawsuit sucks. grrr.
Show threadRonak | ‘In Search of Starlight’ out now 💫Jan 17, 2023
@clpolk Yo @Philosophy! Check this out. 👀
Show threadC. L. PolkJan 17, 2023
@ronak @Philosophy people who have read it are saying that the suit's argument is flawed. but that's as far as my knowledge goes
Show threadRonak | ‘In Search of Starlight’ out now 💫Jan 17, 2023

@clpolk @Philosophy I see. That's okay. :)

Personally, I think it isn't right that one can just take the digital works of other people and train their AI on those works without permission.

I don't know about this lawsuit in particular, either. But in general, bad-faith activities of this nature should be brought to the public's attention.

Going forward, I think we are going to have to re-think a lot of ideas that we take for granted.

Show threadC. L. PolkJan 17, 2023
@ronak @Philosophy honestly if these things had been strictly and scrupulously trained on public domain art and had hard stops built in, we'd be overrun with Deepfake Waterhouse paintings and wait am i still complaining or not
Show threadEl Diablo Roboc 😈🤖Jan 17, 2023

@clpolk Machine learning is fair use and the works obtained with it are transformative.

You can spend money on changing the laws, but for that you'll have to buy some senators first.