Artistic Advocacy: Open Letter to Congress Supports Generative AI

0:00So the first thing to say is that artists are increasingly stepping into the conversation about the impact of artificial intelligence on creativity and copyright. So this is obviously a dialogue that's been largely dominated by tech companies, scientists, and policymakers. But recently, a consortium of artists released an open letter to Congress contending that generative AI technologies are more, you know, they have more benefit than they have, than they are negative to the creative community. So furthermore, they also asserted that artists should be consulted in the regulation and development of these technologies.

0:34I think one thing that we may be seeing here is the fact that, you know, love it or hate it, AI is kind of here to stay. So people can say we hate it, they can try to fight against it or whatever. But because it's here to stay, I think a lot of artists have actually started taking AI and helping, like essentially using it in their workflows, helping them to develop cool new art styles, cool new concepts, giving them inspiration and ideas and all sorts of things that doesn't that don't necessarily like detract from their their work art form, but maybe are actually helping them to speed it up or to become more creative and do more things that they were not able to do in the past.

1:10So I think this is a really interesting narrative shift and I think you know the more AI advances the more we realize this is here to stay this is probably the right approach. The letter was signed by a broad range of creatives you know that and they were essentially saying that AI and machine learning are simply the latest in a long line of tools that have influenced art, music, and media. So the core arguments that they gave artists who use these advanced tools should be an integral part of the conversation and decision making process surrounding the regulation. So essentially, they want to seat at the table when regulators are regulating the stuff.

1:44So a highlighted portion of the letter says, quote, just like previous innovations, these tools lower barriers in creating art, a career that has been traditionally limited to those with considerable financial means, able-bodied, and the right social connections. Unfortunately, this diverse pioneering work of individual human artists is being misrepresented. Some say it is about merely typing in prompts or regurgitating existing work. Others deride our methods and our art as based on stealing and data theft. Many individual artists are afraid of backlash if they so much as touch these important new tools, end quote.

2:23So the appeal directly acknowledges lawmakers like Senator Schumer and various initiatives aimed at crafting thoughtful regulation for generative AI technology. And by pulling in a wide range of experts, including, you know, scientists, advocates and community leaders, the artists argue that any responsible and inclusive approach must also feature voices from the art community. So while the offer, while the letter offers, I would say like a fairly compelling perspective, right? It's not without its critics, particularly in the, you know, characterization of artists objectives to AI technologies.

3:00So there definitely are some people that argue that the letter kind of glosses over substantial concerns around intellectual property theft. The technologies in question have definitely been accused of kind of leveraging artists work for commercial purposes without consent. And this is a significant issue that I don't think really can be ignored in discussions about digital copyright and licensing. The one other thing that I would like kind of personally push back on this is anytime it's like artists send an open letter. It's like, yeah, what artists like a hundred artists, a thousand artists like these artists or those artists like artists in this specific industry.

3:35Like it's kind of funny because it just says like a bunch of artists send an open letter And it kind of like, the goal is to make it appear like this is the opinion of artists. Like they're just one like monogenous group of people that all have the same opinion. Definitely, I'm sure you get a similarly sized, you know, email or, you know, letter written up by a bunch of artists that completely disagree and think that AI should be banned altogether, yada, yada. So, I mean, you know, I'll throw that out there. Also, like what defines you as an artist? Like I feel like, you know, my podcast is an art, right?

4:08Maybe like that's my thing. So, you know, who is an artist? What is an artist? I can draw stick figures on a piece of paper. Does that classify as art? Like some people might be selling that kind of art for millions of dollars. I don't know. Right. I guess that's probably a silly argument. But like at the end of the day, I'm just skeptical of like when people classify, you say like artists sent this letter like it was one group of people representing everyone. So that's all I would be skeptical of, not to say their points are invalid, but definitely there's going to be some broader perspectives from that specific community beyond just what is in their letter.

4:42So I think something else that a bunch of artists are kind of pushing back on is asserting that companies developing AI technologies have done so in ways that exploit the artistic community. You know, whether one views AI assisted art as a derivative or original, the legitimacy of the technology itself is kind of questioned when it appears to benefit from what many would consider to be unethical or illegal practices. And that's, of course, the fact that they just grabbed a ton of images and trained models off of those without necessarily getting consent for the artists in question. Now, the thing that I will also say here, to give credit to certain AI models, you have people like Adobe that have created some really impressive AI models that are able to generate images.

5:24And it's done completely on their own database of images that they have complete licenses to people can opt in to get their images included or opt out if they don't want it. They own you know, the licensing and the rights to it. So at the end of the day, like I know people are going to complain about that really, they're just complaining about mid journey, because majority is the biggest and the best but like you know Adobe is has the complete rights to their their like AI model and all of the content that went into it so at the end of the day people are going to find a way to do it and I don't think that that's the argument right because inevitably majority could go strike a deal with Shutterstock and like some other people and maybe retrain their models or fix it in the future so that it's like not based off of other people's content it's just based off of licensed stuff.

6:10Then the other thing is like, there's the whole question of like, well, if the AI kind of copies like five different artists and mashes them together, like, isn't that what normal artists do, right? Like, don't we like I'm inspired by, you know, Van Gogh or anyone else, and we'll try to copy it, like make some sort of similar look and feel or incorporate some elements that I like from him into like a piece of art. So I don't know, there's also that in my mind. I think the debate around AI's role in the arts is definitely in its kind of infant stage right now. There's a ton of different room for both disagreement and collaboration.

6:45And the open letter, while a singular viewpoint, stands as I think a fairly critical milestone that's going to likely attract a lot of scrutiny, especially from artists who feel that their concerns are not, you know, being adequately represented. So I think as AI continues to evolve, one thing is definitely for certain, and that is that this whole conversation is far from over, both the technology and the artistic landscape are continually shifting. I'm suggesting that discussions about the ethical, commercial and creative implications of AI in art is going to be a reoccurring theme for years to come.

7:16And that's definitely one that we'll continue to cover.