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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
  • Nick Clegg, former Meta executive and UK Deputy Prime Minister, has reiterated a familiar line when it comes to AI and artist consent.
  • He said that any push for consent would “basically kill” the AI industry.
  • Clegg added that the sheer volume of data that AI is trained on makes it “implausible” to ask for consent.
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[-] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 187 points 2 weeks ago

If abiding to the law destroys your business then you are a criminal. Simple as.

[-] Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

But the law is largely the reverse. It only denies use of copyright works in certain ways. Using things "without permission" forms the bedrock on which artistic expression and free speech are built upon.

AI training isn’t only for mega-corporations. Setting up barriers like these only benefit the ultra-wealthy and will end with corporations gaining a monopoly of a public technology by making it prohibitively expensive and cumbersome for regular folks. What the people writing this article want would mean the end of open access to competitive, corporate-independent tools and would jeopardize research, reviews, reverse engineering, and even indexing information. They want you to believe that analyzing things without permission somehow goes against copyright, when in reality, fair use is a part of copyright law, and the reason our discourse isn’t wholly controlled by mega-corporations and the rich.

I recommend reading this article by Kit Walsh, and this one by Tory Noble staff attorneys at the EFF, this one by Katherine Klosek, the director of information policy and federal relations at the Association of Research Libraries, and these two by Cory Doctorow.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 17 points 2 weeks ago

They want you to believe that analyzing things without permission somehow goes against copyright, when in reality, fair use is a part of copyright law, and the reason our discourse isn’t wholly controlled by mega-corporations and the rich.

Ok, but is training an AI so it can plagiarize, often verbatim or with extreme visual accuracy, fair use? I see the 2 first articles argue that it is, but they don't mention the many cases where the crawlers and scrappers ignored rules set up to tell them to piss off. That would certainly invalidate several cases of fair use

Instead of charging for everything they scrap, law should force them to release all their data and training sets for free. "But they spent money and time and resources!" So did everyone who created the stuff they're using for their training, so they can fuck off.

The article by Tory also says these things:

This facilitates the creation of art that simply would not have existed and allows people to express themselves in ways they couldn’t without AI. (...) Generative AI has the power to democratize speech and content creation, much like the internet has.

I'd wager 99.9% of the art and content created by AI could go straight to the trashcan and nobody would miss it. Comparing AI to the internet is like comparing writing to doing drugs.

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[-] technomad@slrpnk.net 86 points 2 weeks ago

Good, then it should die

[-] ProfessorScience@lemmy.world 61 points 2 weeks ago

If I ran the zoo, then any AI that trained on intellectual property as if it were public domain would automatically become public domain itself.

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 2 weeks ago

That's the only correct take

[-] mustbe3to20signs@feddit.org 56 points 2 weeks ago

The audacity... If our technology isn't allowed to break the law, it will fail. Therefore we should change the law.

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[-] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 51 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago

Indeed. Simply that. If a business is not sustainable without breaking the law, it is not a business, it's a criminal organisation.

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[-] Flickerby@lemm.ee 46 points 2 weeks ago

If your industry can't exist without theft then your industry doesn't deserve to exist, pretty simple.

[-] Brotha_Jaufrey@lemmy.world 39 points 2 weeks ago

Good, I think it should be killed.

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[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 38 points 2 weeks ago

if something so simple can kill an entire industry, that industry should not exist.

[-] DrownedRats@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

If being declined concent is going to kill your industry then maybe your industry deserved to die.

Fucking rapist mentaility right there.

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[-] Zanshi@lemmy.world 31 points 2 weeks ago
[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 2 weeks ago

Pure entitlement mindset.

If your business is not able to stay afloat while providing fair compensation to those whose labor is used, whether employee, co-owner, or third-party, you are not entitled to keep running it. Society doesn't have a duty to prop up wealthy thieves.

[-] vane@lemmy.world 30 points 2 weeks ago

I have a proposition. Raid them with police and search their computers for stolen data like you would do with your citizens.

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago

Bank robbers say laws against bank robbery will kill bank robbery.

[-] phlegmy@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 weeks ago

Cool, so I'll get started on building an automated business that sells cheap access to all the music, movies and shows on the streaming services.

Getting consent for each title would basically kill my business and would be implausible, so I'll just assume it's ok.

[-] FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

oh noes

Look, these goddamn assholes have got in their head that they have a right to profit.

NOBODY HAS A RIGHT TO PROFIT.

You have a right to try to create a profit and there are rules to that. You're gonna lose your billions in investment if you can't plaigerize content?....fuck you, your loss, and you shoulda fucking known better when the idea was presented to you.

Assholes

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago

If a business cannot survive without breaking the law, then it is not a business but a criminal organisation.

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[-] palordrolap@fedia.io 26 points 2 weeks ago

Using the same logic, it is "implausible" that we would not take money from those who have it and give it to the sheer volume of people who need it.

Oh. Suddenly it doesn't work that way. Huh. Funny how that is.

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[-] DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 25 points 2 weeks ago

Fuck Nick Clegg. Fuck that guy into the fucking sun.

Back in 2010 he managed to surf a wave of genuine optimism from young British voters who wanted something less shit, and found himself in a position where he could have brought about some genuine change for the better.

Instead that cunt hitched his wagon to the fucking Tories, who straight away announced an increase to university tuition fees. And who then went on to spend 15 years raping and pillaging the country like only fucking Tories can.

So yeah, fuck Nick Clegg.

[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 25 points 2 weeks ago

So they want to be able to benifit from free art while the rest of us have to pay to access it? Seems fair. /s

[-] Flukas88@feddit.it 25 points 2 weeks ago

I'm ok with "ai" dying

[-] neclimdul@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

If you're giving me the choice of killing the AI industry or artists it doesn't seem like a hard decision. Am I missing something?

[-] laranis@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago

Bet you're not worth $100+ million. Then you'd get it.

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[-] misterdoctor@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Susurrus@lemm.ee 21 points 2 weeks ago

Same thing for most of billionaires' income sources.

"Respecting [insert human right] would kill [insert industry]."

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[-] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 2 weeks ago

AI is not just limited to these overhyped plagiarism machines. Will consent laws kill vision systems? Will they kill classifiers? Will they kill gradient descent? No, they won't.

[-] yesman@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

Also Clegg

asking women for permission would ruin my sexlife.

probably.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 16 points 2 weeks ago

There's a thread of thought that pops up in pro-AI posters from time to time: technology can't go backwards. The implication being that the current state of AI can only improve, and is here to stay.

This is wrong. Companies are spending multitudes of piles of cash to make AI work, and they could easily take their ball and go home. Extending copyright over the training data would likely trigger that, by the industry's own admission.

No, self-hosted models are not going to change this. A bunch of people running around with their own little agents aren't going to sustain a mass market phenomenon. You're not going to have integration in Windows or VisualStudio or the top of Google search results. You're not going to have people posting many pics on Facebook of Godzilla doing silly things.

The tech can go backwards, and we're likely to see it.

[-] MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The AI industry not asking artists for permission will kill the art industry.

[-] Don_alForno@feddit.org 15 points 2 weeks ago
[-] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I’m not a fan of intellectual property law. I’m down to abandon it, once we establish an artist stipend to pay a regular salary for artists to live a life of dignity.

Maybe introduce a tax on AI to pay for it.

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[-] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 weeks ago

Great, let's do that.

[-] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

correction: will kill people's attempts to make billions out of other people's art. Otherwise inquisitive people will continue to do non-profit research this way or another.

Actually here is a question to you: Would you be ok if the law stated you don't need permission if it is non-profit and open source? Yea I thought so bitch.

[-] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

Sounds like a plan!

[-] PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

So I can steal all their shit too, right? It would "Implausible" for me to do so.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 weeks ago

How did the media industey call pirates? Parasites?

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[-] ryper@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Well the AI companies and investors should have understood that building an industry off of doing something questionable was risky and risks don't always work out.

[-] ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago
[-] MiyamotoKnows@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Kill the AI industry? Sweet. As an artist I do not consent.

[-] cley_faye@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Oh, so it'd be ok to get movies, pictures, books, etc. without asking the right owners for us too? GREAT.

[-] redwattlebird@lemmings.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Can't they just write an 'AI' to ask an artist for permission then? I'll bet they can. It's just that most artists will say no unless they get paid. So, their business model, based on theft, is not sustainable. Got it.

[-] ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 10 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Soapbox1858@lemm.ee 9 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

So… what’s the down side to this bill?

[-] HakunaHafada@lemm.ee 9 points 2 weeks ago
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this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
541 points (100.0% liked)

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