TwoCents | Rise of the Machines

My options were either "The Rise of The Machines" or "The machines are coming". Seeing as they are already here, the choice of title was an easy one. If you are a big movie buff, the title brings to mind the Terminator franchise, one of Arnold's many iconic lines, while being big and menacing. If you missed it? Well, you have a front-row seat to the possible beginning of how the concept of the film came to be, machines dominating every work of life, but with a twist. Take away the end of days a dystopian future, cool bikes, and weaponry. This is the part they leave out of the film, probably because it's the part nobody cares enough to want to know, except if it's a comedy or parody. So, if you have a smartphone you are no stranger to the term AI, short for Artificial Intelligence. It's something that has been in development for years actually, as early as 1951. Before this version we see that turns our pictures into cool paintings or cartonized form, composes melodies and music, or writes job applications and essays. We've been interacting with it every time we have to prove how human we are by selecting cars or boats on websites. You know, what follows after we reply "I am human". What artificial intelligence is in summary, is machines mimicking human intelligence. They can identify pictures, speech, shapes, complete sentences, etc. Respond and react to different forms of a query with the most appropriate answer based on gathered information, or programs. This leads to the main point of this post. For a while now, some creatives have complained about the use of AI, how it affects their jobs; why would people pay graphics designers when an AI can give you killer art for free? Well, this has led to some unforeseen legal issues. As I stated earlier, an AI learns off materials or data that already exists online, basically copying from works it's seen on the internet, and using it as a guide to responding to queries or requests. So, when you ask that AI to turn your picture into a cool animation, it goes and searches for different samples that can help it execute that task. It then combines or uses the best of them to give you a work an artist would take hours to create and then charge for. Here lies the issue, this thing called intellectual property. The protection that covers an artist, to make sure that his art is not being exploited without him getting the monetary compensation that he deserves because to be fair, the machine is using their work to generate the art it gives, which the company that owns the AI then profits from, one of which is the continual use of their AI. Three Artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz have come out in the class action lawsuit against stability AI, DeviantArt, and Midjourney. They allege that the text-to-image AI tools have infringed the rights of thousands of artists and other creatives "under the guise of AI". -INDIAai The lawsuit alleges direct copyright infringement, violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), vicarious copyright infringement related to forgeries, violation of class members' right of publicity, breach of contract related to the DeviantArt Terms of Service, and various violations of California's unfair competition laws, "without compensation or consent from the artists". With the popularity of such AI, their fear is understandable; especially as it threatens their source of livelihood, while stealing their work or art style. Now, someone can argue, how can they be sure who it took from? Especially when it mixes different styles or when the art it produces is something new. As we know there are always loopholes in the law, especially in the hands of a very savvy lawyer. This is still an ongoing issue and may grow with more artists' continual cries. There may be more lawsuits in the future as Getty Images has also sued Stability AI, another popular AI company behind the AI art tool Stable Diffusion, over copyright infringement. One thing is sure, the machines and companies behind them are already facing stiff opposition, but not for the reasons Terminator faithful like myself would expect. As they navigate through these unprecedented issues which will determine the livelihood of creatives for the foreseeable future, I can't help but marvel at how much work, legal tape, laws, and thought goes into something that the rest of the world just knows that at a push of a button, they get something that amazes and feeds our vanity. One thing is sure that the James Cameron got wrong, before they rise to conquer man, they most definitely first come after his job.

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