Well said, this thing is here to stay. When I first played around with gpt-4 I was filled with immense dread. I, as many others have, immediately understood what kind of enormous societal impact this would have.<p>But I put the question to myself, if I could magically wish this thing away, would I? I wouldn't. I understand the many that would, this thing completely upends the status quo. Massive swathes of people will have skills they have built up their entire lives become worthless. But the potential for good that can emerge from this, can <i>potentially</i> benefit everyone and the people that are not benefitting from the status quo the most.<p>If you think AI is a disaster, think about the potential for medical breakthroughs that can emerge from this. Doctors will spend fewer hours writing charts and more time with patients. Every underprivileged child could have a personalized tutor. The number of discoveries and ideas that can be generated are endless.
Presumably in response to this; <a href="https://petergabriel.com/news/diffusetogether-ai-video-contest-launches-today/" rel="nofollow">https://petergabriel.com/news/diffusetogether-ai-video-conte...</a>
There's a massive piece of the music scene that I can't imagine AI ever replacing. Some genres are formulaic by design, but the draw for so many others is the human experience and the inventiveness. Many people follow artists because they connect with material that could only have come from the artist.<p>One reasonable concern is that tech supplementation will lead to a deluge of derivative work, nullifying the efforts of the actual creators. That's always happened in some form or another, and does it really lead genuine fans away from artists they care about?<p>There's a comment in another thread about generating a song that includes Kurt Cobain, which is such a weird example because a computer could not have dreamed that up in a thousand years. A computer couldn't write a punk song, and <i>mean it</i>. It will never replace the open mic, the buskers, the songs passed across generations, the Zappas of the world, and millions of others.
> there should be a right to choose to refuse it<p>Even out of the context of AI, I think this isn't stressed enough in general copyright discussion, especially around piracy.<p>People often say that piracy doesn't actually reduce the sale -- which I fully agree -- but that's not the only concern artists have, especially <i>some</i> indie ones. I have seen both illustration/musical artists explicitly stating they don't care if "their work is enjoyed and known by more people because of piracy", they only want paid users to get it. I don't even agree with this sentiment, but I respect it since it's their choice to make, not mine.
"When an artist's work is copied for commercial gain, there should be [(a)] a right to choose to refuse it or [(b)] to participate financially.<p>If anyone legitimately feels their copyright has been infringed by this competition, we and Stability AI will work to take down the video until the dispute has been resolved."<p>StabilityAI and Gabriel are providing (a) but not (b).<p><a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66788385/13/getty-images-us-inc-v-stability-ai-inc/" rel="nofollow">https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66788385/13/getty-image...</a><p>If Getty wins, is Gabriel committing contributory infringement.<p>Even if what happens after text is entered into a prompt is not infringement, mass copying for "training" is done for commercial gain and it is done without consent. Google gets away with copying websites en masse into a cache for the purposes of running a commercial web search engine. Maybe copying for purpose of commercial "AI" will get similar treatment.<p>That said, consider what happened when Google tried scanning books. It seems that some of these training sets have used hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works from "pirate" sources on the web.<p>IMO, this is just another example of so-called "tech" companies, e.g., Uber, that can only operate if they are free from existing laws and regulations.<p>Does StabilityAI have a commercially-viable plan if "training" requires obtaining consent.
Peter Gabriel is fucking courageous. I love it. I'm a 50+ programmer. I can absolutely feel this shit pressing on me. Good. Are people right that there are ethical concerns, absolutely. We need to get busy realizing the potential and dealing with the issues.
This wave of AI has the power to be incredibly transformative for good, but not given any of the current economic or copyright systems we have now.<p>I don't know how any of the proponents can pretend that this isn't an abject disaster on the horizon for anybody who depends on copyright to make their living.<p>This is the natural progression to the unnatural properties of the shared delusion of pretending like ideas are property or that it every was natural to keep them artificially scarce. If we lived in an ideal system where ideas are free, copyright didn't exist, and artists and programmers could survive and thrive without the ability or need to hoard their work as if they were physical goods, this would be a non-issue. The system was antiquated for the needs of the modern world for multiple human generations already, and this is the dam breaking.
I think it's only natural to think of AI as the enemy no? Sure theoretically it means better healthcare, scientific improvement. However what nobody has really answered well is what happens to the artists, writers, programmers, scientists, maybe even doctors and lawyers. As we become potentially obsolete what happens to us. Saying that you can do art as a hobby or programming as a hobby really isn't an answer people want to hear. If you want people to not see AI as an enemy then perhaps you should have that discussion. Just to give an anecdotal sob story, my mother passed away from cancer and if AI means a solution to cancer that is amazing, that no other person has to go through the anguish my mother and family had to go through would be amazing. That still doesn't change the point that what will millions of people do in this new industrial revolution? I've said in other threads that my visa is a working visa, if (when?) AI takes my job without that permanent residence what do I do? I don't have anything that ties me to my home country anymore. For me I can only see AI as a future enemy who can do a lot of good...
Is it not crazy, asks Mr Senior, that the piano maker is a productive worker, but not the piano player, although obviously the piano would be absurd without the piano player? But this is exactly the case. The piano maker reproduces capital, the pianist only exchanges his labour for revenue. But doesn’t the pianist produce music and satisfy our musical ear, does he not even to a certain extent produce the latter? He does indeed: his labour produces some- thing; but that does not make it productive labour in the economic sense; no more than the labour of the mad man who produces delusions is productive.<p>— Karl Marx in Grundrisse (1857-61)
if society is going to collapse it is going to collapse. Even if we did pause AI development, bad actors would just ignore the rule and continue anyway.<p>It's easy for me to say, I am young and healthy and can move away from programming after it bought me a house. Maybe I'll work in a brewery...<p>Either way, the dirty words everyone seems to be avoiding is UBI and socialism.<p>If AI sincerely destroys every white collar job, well... that will be interesting.
>I have added my name to a letter written by Max Tegmark, Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk amongst others to pause on the release of new AI for six months while we try and figure out what we should be doing, but if we don’t use this time to play with and learn from what we have already created how can we hope to understand it?<p>this is a great point, and i think represents a really good attitude. it seems like there's a whole lot of people who think if they pretend hard enough, AI will go away. and that's obviously not going to happen - it's a useful tool, and so let's all try to figure out how it can be useful in a productive way, not a world-ruining way. and that means using it.