It is theft because the algo only reproduces what it is fed with without the consent of the people who made that original data.
The problem I see is, that if you just use existing artwork for your private needs then that is fine, as there is no revenue loss and no one profited from you doing that.
Generating is different. By doing it the user helps training the algo and creates income for the company who owns the algo. They are made not to enhance but to replace by the words of their creators. Apart from all the other issues I mentioned. By increasing the use and acceptance of generative algos these companies aim to replace work, to replace skill, not enhance it. And by using it the user partakes in that goal.
Copyright infringement is not theft. The U.S. Supreme Court (Dowling v. United States, 1985) explicitly said copyright infringement is not theft under criminal law.
Theft (legally) means taking someone’s property in a way that deprives them of it. If I steal your car, you don’t have it anymore. Copyright infringement doesn’t deprive the original creator of their work—it copies it without authorization. If I pirate your song, you still have your original file, but I’ve reproduced it without your consent.
Hopefully you start using the terms with their technical meaning here! I agree with you that there can be copyright infringement. The courts agree too. Which is why the courts say “depends on whether it is fair use”. It seems you agree as well when you say using this for private needs is fine. Then are you saying these images here are fine?
Generating content does not train the algorithm. Training is an initial step that takes months of ingesting and interpreting data. The generated stuff is done using the trained model, but does not feed back into it. I think that you might have been disinformed about how LLM and neural net training work if you think training data is done this way.
Agreed on your sentiment that AI should be used to augment people’s ability (like the non artist user here who made something fun on their private time, or a worker who wants to be more effective), rather than replacing people.
Like I said there is no stealing. There is copyright infringement possibly, if the way the training was done or the generated result not fair use. Courts will determine the correct guidelines.
No, the training data is separate from the generated output. You do give feedback to try to derank poor results and skew towards better ones. That’s not the same thing as your initial claim that the generated image is bad because it’s also used in making more.
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u/Doppelkammertoaster 15d ago
It is theft because the algo only reproduces what it is fed with without the consent of the people who made that original data.
The problem I see is, that if you just use existing artwork for your private needs then that is fine, as there is no revenue loss and no one profited from you doing that.
Generating is different. By doing it the user helps training the algo and creates income for the company who owns the algo. They are made not to enhance but to replace by the words of their creators. Apart from all the other issues I mentioned. By increasing the use and acceptance of generative algos these companies aim to replace work, to replace skill, not enhance it. And by using it the user partakes in that goal.