Dave Rahardja2d ago

One thing that continues to grate on my conscience about #AI is how artists and writers consistently feel that the technology has STOLEN from them. We all know that web scraping is (and should be) a perfectly legal and acceptable use, because preventing it also prevents all sorts of beneficial behaviors—the Internet Archive wouldn’t be able to exist, for one thing.

But yet, the very nature of AI takes scraped content and regurgitates it as a pink-slime extrusion that it feeds back into the web. And to creators, that just FEELS WRONG; it feels like stolen valor, it feels like exploitation.

And it’s something I can’t (and shouldn’t) shake from my mind each time I see something made by AI. Just because something is LEGAL doesn’t mean it isn’t ABUSIVE and UNETHICAL. Scolding people who complain about AI by telling them that web scraping is good, actually, doesn’t address the main complaint: that somehow, these AI assholes have EXPLOITED A COMMON GOOD and we can’t quite figure out how to stop it.

Show threadPeter O'Shaughnessy2d ago

@drahardja Yep and also - it's not just creatives who use the word "steal" in relation to AI training on their content. Eric Schmidt said the same in a behind-closed-doors lecture:

"Schmidt told the students to go ahead and download whatever they need... If the product takes off, “then you hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up,” he said. “If nobody uses your product, then it doesn’t matter that you stole all the content.”"

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/hypocrisy-ai-industry/686477/

The Hypocrisy at the Heart of the AI Industry

Tech companies believe in intellectual property, but not yours.

The Atlantic
Show threadDave Rahardja2d ago

@peter I think everyone in the industry understands that what AI companies are doing FEELS LIKE STEALING, so much so that Cloudflare makes a product that allows site owners to PREVENT scraping by AI-training endpoints.

Yet I think we all struggle with defining WHY it feels like stealing, and what set of rules or social contract we can put in place to DEFINE why it is theft.

Show threadbrib ​ 2d ago

@drahardja @peter My take (as a creator who generally values free culture) is that it's theft in the context of plagiarism. I have very mixed feelings about copyright as an institution and am generally happy for other humans to use and remix my work -- I think this kind of remixing is a big part of culture. But when AI remixes stuff, nobody knows that I wrote the piece, and if AI wrote something important because of me, it's not going to tell the user to go talk to me if they like it, it's going to take the credit for itself, and users are going to credit AI for the awesome work. That's why it rubs against me so hard: I lose any visibility I get as a creator, which not only translates to lost economic opportunities, but a loss of a big part of the social value of creating something (that is: to connect with other humans).

There's also an element of consent (or lack of it). I never consented for my work to get scraped and regurgitated, it just happened because techbros felt entitled to my shit. So it feels incredibly icky on that front too.

Of course, this is my own personal take, I cannot speak for all artists and creators on this matter.

Show threadMike Nelson Pedde

@brib @drahardja @peter

All of my posted images are covered by Creative Commons v. 4 license. You're welcome to share them but you can't use them commercially, you can't change them and you have to give me credit for them.

GenAI ignores all of this. It doesn't even bother to ask.

Mar 31 at 2:31amWeb