The Big Y #109
Can AI create something truly unique?
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The hype over DALL-E and similar AI systems hasnāt died off yet as more people get access to the tech and share their results on the internet. DALL-E et al. are based on a combination of existing things that someone else created, scraped from the depths of the internet. If the outputs of the systems are lookalikes and a derivation of human work, is anything created by these systems truly unique?Ā
In the UK, an artistās union has launched a campaign to strengthen artistās rights as AI systems are using artistās work without authorization. An artistās livelihood depends on their ability to create and disseminate their unique outputs. But if a system like DALL-E has scraped work off the internet and has the ability to create infinite mimics of the work without attributing back to the original artist, that creates a problem.
While the output of these large AI systems continues to be impressive, we need to remember that the outputs are a mimic of something a human artist has already made and published. This also extends to the use of likenesses and voices in deepfakes for example. Last year, there was controversy when a documentary used a deepfake of Anthony Bourdainās voice, obviously unable to get consent since he had passed away several years before.
Facial recognition, identification and surveillance technologies are going to have real impacts on individual rights. Anti-choice activists are leading the charge in collecting identifying information outside of abortion clinics for surveillance and tracking of those visiting the clinics with the hopes of prosecuting them in a post-Roe world. Technology is enabling those who donāt have anything better to do than harass people for decisions that have nothing to do with them.Ā
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One has to wonder why humanity is fixated with replicating itself. Has anyone bothered to think it through or is this just a race to produce the first android because......science fiction? I have to admit I'm loathe to post anything on the internet these days for exactly the reasons stated in this article. I've noticed YT is now rife with people or bots (who really knows these days) lifting other people's content and 'curating' it without permission to basically syphon off that content creators views and revenue. For creatives this is a race to the bottom.