Oh boy, Travis Worthington comes off as such a selfish asshole in this interview. Paraphrased, and being a bit unfair to him, he just kind of says, “oh, we know fine well that we are benefiting from stealing art from others, and I’d really like if you believed that I cared about that, but the reality is that I don’t really give a shit, and if you’re an illustrator, just give up on your dreams of getting a job someday, because I certainly won’t be paying you”
Definitely gonna be avoiding indie games studios from now on.
I’m glad that you asked this question, because I also was like “wow, seems a bit extreme” before I saw people replying to you that that’s the studio name
Frankly, it’s an absurd question. Has Polygon obtained consent from all of the artists for the works used by its own human artists as inspiration or reference? Of course not. To claim that any use of an image to train or influence a human user is stealing is to warp the definition of the word beyond any recognition. Copyright doesn’t give you exclusive ownership over broad thematic elements of your work because, if it did, there’d be no such thing as an art trend.
Then what’s the studio having its name dragged through the mud for? For using a computer to speed up development? Is that a standard that Polygon wants to live up to as well?
People who use AI will create a better cheaper product and at the end of the day its use as a new technology is justified. You’ll be clinging to an ever smaller raft and eventually have to abandon your ideals.
And at the end of the day art is not stolen when used to train a machine. Copyright itself is an artificial legal construct, and it’s the right to redistribute, not the right to learn from art. You can’t invent rights out of thin air and get any when they’re broken
People who use AI will create a better cheaper product
i feel like this assumes that there will still be human produced art to train on to improve the genAI model when there isnt any incentive for humans to spend so much time to learn to make art when it can be used for training and when machines can churn out pieces at a faster cheaper rate
(c) Restrictions. You may not … (iii) use output from the Services to develop models that compete with OpenAI;
from section 2ciii of OpenAI’s Terms of Use
somehow while its justifiable for corporations to use human produced work to train a machine that competes with humans, using corporate machine produced work to train a competing machine is not
this assumes that there will still be human produced art to train on to improve the genAI model when there isnt any incentive for humans to learn to make art when it can be used for training
Fears like this never pan out. People don’t stop doing things just because of AI existing, and we still have people doing things like making vinyl records even though CDs exist or whatever, or taking old-fashioned photographs.
Artists are going to still exist and they’re going to still be drawing art and they’re going to continue to share it. It may take a chunk out of the number of people who want to learn art, but that’s life and the people training these AI will adapt to it.
And even if they somehow totally disappear, people will find plenty of new and exciting ways to continue to push the boundaries of what AI can do, because at that point being able to do that will be what gives you a competitive advantage in the world.
OpenAI’s Terms of Use
Open AI is a shitty unethical company. Never use them as a litmus test.
And unfortunately despite what is right or wrong, lawsuits still managed to determine how behavior happens in our modern system, and groups like the MAFIAA (the music and film industry association of America) are happily willing to abuse the law to get their way so that they can make as much money as possible as well.
just like vinyl and other vintage works, i do think it will be a shame that human produced art will become scarce and likely only for the rich to enjoy. i dont see why they would share it freely anymore
And even if they somehow totally disappear, people will find plenty of new and exciting ways to continue to push the boundaries of what AI can do
this assumes that genAI models can improve without any new input. but to be honest, it feels more like a, once they wipe out a generation of artist, they are free to increase the price of their “Skill as a Service” out of the reach of an average person for more profit. the GPU and water the genAI models run on arent getting any cheaper so no risk of anyone spinning up their own cluster
will become scarce and likely only for the rich to enjoy
Look at the other side of the coin, every single person on the planet is going to have instant access to an artist in their pocket, a little machine that they can give an instruction to and get a workable piece of art out of.
That is something that only the rich have access to right now, enable creative expression beyond our wildest imagination for all of the people who don’t have 5 to 10 years of their life to dedicate to learning art.
You looking at the negative, a relatively small negative, and totally ignoring the positive side of this coin which is going to change the face of human creativity as we know it.
It’s like being angry that only rich people are going to have bands playing in their restaurants because the poor people will be using records. Sure, but we quite enjoy having prerecorded music nowadays and we would never give that up in exchange for live artists.
The same principle applies, our lives will be improved by this and as long as that’s the case it’s a good thing, even if it means change.
From my perspective you’re fighting to keep this sort of self-expression in the hands of the few instead of the hands of the many. Your practicing elitism and pretending in the process that you’re fighting for the common person, but the common person will benefit more from widely accessible and easy to use tools than the rich will.
i dont see why they would share it freely anymore
Because humans like to express themselves and share that expression as widely as they can for no other reason than the active sharing and having their works seen by many.
The most pure and durable Art is Art as a hobby. Art as a form of self-expression?
this assumes that genAI models can improve without any new input
They can. Or at least, you can use things like human rating systems to guide an AI to produce outputs that people enjoy and train it that way instead of using raw works of art.
As a rule, if humans can do it, AI can do it too. It’s only a matter of figuring out how.
do let me know if im coming off as combative and this isnt the place for it, i do admit i definitely am a pessimist
Is something that only the rich have access to right now, enable creative expression beyond our wildest imagination for all of the people who don’t have 5 to 10 years of their life to dedicate to learning art.
isnt this possible just by commissioning an artist from fiverr or deviantart with your own prompt of an image you want. for the amount of times a person wished they had spent time learning how to draw, we would let many more companies get away with not paying artists for every piece of art available in a board/card game so they could make more money
Sure, but we quite enjoy having prerecorded music nowadays and we would never give that up in exchange for live artists.
would we give that up instead for genAI created music? no one has the time for 5 to 10 years of vocal training too
Because humans like to express themselves and share that expression is widely as they can for no other reason than the active sharing and having their works seen by many.
when genAI models can learn from art faster than a human can, art becomes a working professional artist’s only competitive advantage if they wish to live off of their work. while it may be shared, but possibly only behind a glass screen in a private gallery with metal detectors prohibiting cameras at the front, considering how futile anti-AI art filters may end up
Why do you doubt the most pure form of art? Art as a hobby. Art as a form of self-expression?
because people are unwilling to spend 5 to 10 years learning art as a hobby to express themselves when they can still earn some money from it as their passion now
Oh boy, Travis Worthington comes off as such a selfish asshole in this interview. Paraphrased, and being a bit unfair to him, he just kind of says, “oh, we know fine well that we are benefiting from stealing art from others, and I’d really like if you believed that I cared about that, but the reality is that I don’t really give a shit, and if you’re an illustrator, just give up on your dreams of getting a job someday, because I certainly won’t be paying you”
Definitely gonna be avoiding indie games studios from now on.
So because of one asshole you are dismissing all indies?
The company name is indie game studios. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/39914/indie-game-studios
This is definitely a time when it’s important to capitalize the first letters in the name of proper nouns.
No, it’s the name of the company, Indie Game Studios. Not all independent studios of course!
I’m glad that you asked this question, because I also was like “wow, seems a bit extreme” before I saw people replying to you that that’s the studio name
Frankly, it’s an absurd question. Has Polygon obtained consent from all of the artists for the works used by its own human artists as inspiration or reference? Of course not. To claim that any use of an image to train or influence a human user is stealing is to warp the definition of the word beyond any recognition. Copyright doesn’t give you exclusive ownership over broad thematic elements of your work because, if it did, there’d be no such thing as an art trend.
Then what’s the studio having its name dragged through the mud for? For using a computer to speed up development? Is that a standard that Polygon wants to live up to as well?
This is the beginning of the end friend.
People who use AI will create a better cheaper product and at the end of the day its use as a new technology is justified. You’ll be clinging to an ever smaller raft and eventually have to abandon your ideals.
And at the end of the day art is not stolen when used to train a machine. Copyright itself is an artificial legal construct, and it’s the right to redistribute, not the right to learn from art. You can’t invent rights out of thin air and get any when they’re broken
i feel like this assumes that there will still be human produced art to train on to improve the genAI model when there isnt any incentive for humans to spend so much time to learn to make art when it can be used for training and when machines can churn out pieces at a faster cheaper rate
from section 2ciii of OpenAI’s Terms of Use somehow while its justifiable for corporations to use human produced work to train a machine that competes with humans, using corporate machine produced work to train a competing machine is not
Fears like this never pan out. People don’t stop doing things just because of AI existing, and we still have people doing things like making vinyl records even though CDs exist or whatever, or taking old-fashioned photographs.
Artists are going to still exist and they’re going to still be drawing art and they’re going to continue to share it. It may take a chunk out of the number of people who want to learn art, but that’s life and the people training these AI will adapt to it.
And even if they somehow totally disappear, people will find plenty of new and exciting ways to continue to push the boundaries of what AI can do, because at that point being able to do that will be what gives you a competitive advantage in the world.
Open AI is a shitty unethical company. Never use them as a litmus test.
And unfortunately despite what is right or wrong, lawsuits still managed to determine how behavior happens in our modern system, and groups like the MAFIAA (the music and film industry association of America) are happily willing to abuse the law to get their way so that they can make as much money as possible as well.
just like vinyl and other vintage works, i do think it will be a shame that human produced art will become scarce and likely only for the rich to enjoy. i dont see why they would share it freely anymore
this assumes that genAI models can improve without any new input. but to be honest, it feels more like a, once they wipe out a generation of artist, they are free to increase the price of their “Skill as a Service” out of the reach of an average person for more profit. the GPU and water the genAI models run on arent getting any cheaper so no risk of anyone spinning up their own cluster
Look at the other side of the coin, every single person on the planet is going to have instant access to an artist in their pocket, a little machine that they can give an instruction to and get a workable piece of art out of.
That is something that only the rich have access to right now, enable creative expression beyond our wildest imagination for all of the people who don’t have 5 to 10 years of their life to dedicate to learning art.
You looking at the negative, a relatively small negative, and totally ignoring the positive side of this coin which is going to change the face of human creativity as we know it.
It’s like being angry that only rich people are going to have bands playing in their restaurants because the poor people will be using records. Sure, but we quite enjoy having prerecorded music nowadays and we would never give that up in exchange for live artists.
The same principle applies, our lives will be improved by this and as long as that’s the case it’s a good thing, even if it means change.
From my perspective you’re fighting to keep this sort of self-expression in the hands of the few instead of the hands of the many. Your practicing elitism and pretending in the process that you’re fighting for the common person, but the common person will benefit more from widely accessible and easy to use tools than the rich will.
Because humans like to express themselves and share that expression as widely as they can for no other reason than the active sharing and having their works seen by many.
The most pure and durable Art is Art as a hobby. Art as a form of self-expression?
They can. Or at least, you can use things like human rating systems to guide an AI to produce outputs that people enjoy and train it that way instead of using raw works of art.
As a rule, if humans can do it, AI can do it too. It’s only a matter of figuring out how.
do let me know if im coming off as combative and this isnt the place for it, i do admit i definitely am a pessimist
isnt this possible just by commissioning an artist from fiverr or deviantart with your own prompt of an image you want. for the amount of times a person wished they had spent time learning how to draw, we would let many more companies get away with not paying artists for every piece of art available in a board/card game so they could make more money
would we give that up instead for genAI created music? no one has the time for 5 to 10 years of vocal training too
when genAI models can learn from art faster than a human can, art becomes a working professional artist’s only competitive advantage if they wish to live off of their work. while it may be shared, but possibly only behind a glass screen in a private gallery with metal detectors prohibiting cameras at the front, considering how futile anti-AI art filters may end up
because people are unwilling to spend 5 to 10 years learning art as a hobby to express themselves when they can still earn some money from it as their passion now