Remember the AI / copyright consultation? I'm having dinner with one of its principle authors on Friday. What should I say to them? Bear in mind, they aren't responsible for govt policy, but are involved in its execution, and they can frame how the response to the consultation is received. - ThreadSky

marshdavies.bsky.social • 58 days ago

Remember the AI / copyright consultation? I'm having dinner with one of its principle authors on Friday. What should I say to them?

Bear in mind, they aren't responsible for govt policy, but are involved in its execution, and they can frame how the response to the consultation is received.

Comments

atfruitbat.bsky.social•58 days ago

In 2023 the UK games industry was responsible for £1.3 billion in additional output, £760 million in GDP and £380 million in labour income, generating £250 million in additional tax receipts for HM Treasury. However generative AI poses a threat to creative work & workers in the industry.

atfruitbat.bsky.social•58 days ago

I would want to say that how the consultation is contextualised is important. That kind of context might help to emphasise the gravity of policy making around generative AI. We're talking about the future of the UK's distinctive richness in creative capital and all those future possibilities.

otternaut.bsky.social•58 days ago

the companies simply won't stay in the UK if people are allowed to copy their work without repercussions.

tinyowlworkshop.bsky.social•57 days ago

I’d love to know whether they believe copyright exists and, if so, for whom.

victor-el-dm.bsky.social•58 days ago

Look, I'm just saying there is a dinner, and pointy stuff like knives and forks are involved: an accident is an accident, no matter how implausible or contrived.

coldesign.bsky.social•58 days ago

Id like to ask what benefits training Ai on copyright material is going to have on Ai.? ai should be used for mundane tasks? no benefit to decimating the film/games industry so ai companies can makea quick buck. ai cant create it can only copy so why the need to hit these industries at all?

jarkman.bsky.social•58 days ago

You could ask them why, when there's a consultation on whether the AI companies can have our stuff for free, there isn't a consultation on how we can have the AI company's stuff for free?

theburnham.bsky.social•58 days ago

The focus should be less on working out a licensing fee and more on working out a prison term.

hauntedtypewriter.bsky.social•58 days ago

Tell them they are currently teaching advanced A.I. how to treat human beings. If they don't treat human beings with justice and fairness, A.I. will learn that from them and use their behavior to justify mistreatment of humanity.

nyewarburton.bsky.social•58 days ago

What constitutes “fair use” and how should education adapt to integrate its use?

pgmcgonagle.bsky.social•46 days ago

Where to start? 49 Qs after all.We want people who create to be paid and their work protected; total transparency reqs from those using AI so we can judge the value of work and honesty about how much energy the AI use will cost…

zaratustra.bsky.social•58 days ago

The gaming industry globally fired around 20% of its workforce in the last two years, and many major companies are running pilot programs to replace these jobs with ai

artofphb.bsky.social•58 days ago

I think it is a good idea to draw parallels with patents. There is no reason give diferent treatment to patents and copyrights.

Either it is a free for all market where everyone is free to use everything or the protection of law should be extend to everyone

artofphb.bsky.social•58 days ago

Why should a life saving vaccine be restricted but a personal form of expresion be allowed to be taken?

Also, is it fair that a brand or logo to be protected but that the likeness or voice of an individual can be reproduced?

gregstolze.bsky.social•58 days ago

Ask them what problem is solved by an immense, energy intensive machine that creates the shape of truth and knowledge, without any actual knowledge or truth.

habilain.bsky.social•58 days ago

I'd point out that as currently constituted, AI is not a learning system. It's trained, and then it "see's" the world framed by that training alone. That presents a problem because the world around the AI will change, and the AI will be ill-equipped to deal with it when it does.

habilain.bsky.social•58 days ago

Or in other words, if you replace a worker with AI, you *might* save money today. But you'll also store up problems for the future, when the AI cannot handle the world changing around it. And the workers who could fix the problems might not be around due to being replaced by AI to save money.

habilain.bsky.social•58 days ago

Also all of @mtrc.bsky.social's points are very good, so I'll second those.

kendersrule.bsky.social•58 days ago

Could you tell them to please put AI thieving pricks in prison for theft, thank you

byobattleship.bsky.social•58 days ago

Point out that the way companies have been selling AI is "you can get rid of 90% of your creative employees". This is bad for jobs.

gusharrisreid.bsky.social•58 days ago

Please just make them fully aware of how violently against gen-AI most of the British creative community are, and the potential global precedent it would set if the UK government prioritises the desires of big tech over real, living artists & creators...

diveamydive.bsky.social•56 days ago

Much of the consultation seemed to, in my most generous description, uncritically frame gen AI as a form of sentience capable of creating its own original works - could you please get into a discussion with them about the why no gen AI output can ever be “original art”?

marshdavies.bsky.social•56 days ago

I will try! Out of interest, if it was capable of original work, would you want it to be?

diveamydive.bsky.social•56 days ago

It just isn’t capable by its very nature, it’s a misunderstanding of what gen AI is that really frustrated me while reading - it is inherently an amalgamation of (stolen) human work!

diveamydive.bsky.social•56 days ago

A human can read and be inspired to create something new! A generative AI model can only ever swirl around existing components created by others

v21.bsky.social•58 days ago

I guess I'd say: like the whole situation with the Online Safety Bill, there's a large number of small creators who are hard to engage with long consultations because they don't have anyone paid to do that kind of thing. They are really what the creative industries are built on, not publishers etc

v21.bsky.social•58 days ago

and that there is a strong current of rejection within the tech world too, and again generally at a lower level than the ones running the companies. Tech firms might be neutral to positive (idk?), but tech workers are negative to positive.

marshdavies.bsky.social•58 days ago

This is really constructive. Thank you.

v21.bsky.social•58 days ago

good luck!

v21.bsky.social•58 days ago

actually, I'd add: with the addition of registries and opt out schemes, more power is given to those who manage large rights portfolios and power is taken away from "a person who draws a lot"

planesailinggames.com•58 days ago

I would like them to know that opt out as described in the consultation puts an unbearable burden on small creators. In order to work it must be opt in.

I would also like them to know that existing copyright law is just fine, and enforcement is better than letting tech bros say “doesn’t apply”

planesailinggames.com•58 days ago

As a tech bro grift it is reminiscent of all the Ubers and the like saying “oh no, we are not employers and the people who ‘work’ for us don’t have rights. Turns out application of existing law was good to resolve that in favour of the employees

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

So I had a think about this. It was a bit tricky because I feel so jaded and depressed about the whole thing that I really don't know what to recommend. But I think I have a few things you might or might not wanna think about:

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

First, this technology has absolutely not settled yet. No-one knows what the future holds. So this consultation has to be done with the understanding that it needs to be iteratively reviewed and redone. Now isn't the time to make long-term pronouncements.

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

Second, almost no-one talking about this technology has a full picture of the space. Consultation should be entered into under the assumption that basically everyone's understanding of AI is irrevocably fucked by the media and big tech PR - especially people invested in it.

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

Third, the creative/arts community is a fuzzy national asset, like green belt land or cultural heritage. Once you lose it, you can't get it back, but it's also not possible to directly consult or measure it. The things we're able to measure generally relate to commercial aspects of creativity.

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

The financial contribution made to the economy by creative people comes in two forms - immediate, from companies existing now, which we can tangibly measure and understand now; and long-term, through generations of creative exchange, which is fragile and hard to understand.

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

e.g. the games industry we have today is a direct consequence of the home computing boom of the 1980s. Recommendations have to be made with an understanding and caution about our capacity to damage the long-term creative health of the population.

mtrc.bsky.social•58 days ago

Oh god

willowsquest.co.uk•58 days ago

(The UK one I'm presuming) Between impending US changes and the new EU import requirements, a LOT of the small businesses in the UK are being pincered in the market. Allowing AI to unilaterally scrape their work would make it basically impossible to maintain any healthy domestic cultural arts space

willowsquest.co.uk•58 days ago

On the other hand, if they can guarantee protections for artists from (unproven, energy-depleting, data-ravenous) AI companies, the UK would become a creative HAVEN for small businesses (that can't protect themselves), and encourage more ground-up growth across literally all creative sectors

willowsquest.co.uk•58 days ago

It's a great opportunity to not only NOT hitch the horse onto a gas-soaked carriage full of dynamite, but have the chance to pull a sizable distance ahead of other markets that have already sunk millions/billions of dollars into Flammable Wagons Inc lmao

paranoidfactoid2.bsky.social•54 days ago

Hi. Amy-Leigh Shaw wrote a quote post to this comment. She preemptively blocked me earlier. I don't know her and think she used a block list. It's her right to block, but I'm looking into the use of weaponized block lists to have likely allies block each other by deception. I agree on risks of AI.

willowsquest.co.uk•54 days ago

Hiya! I saw your QRT you tagged me in. I dont follow her back so i have no way to know her decision-making on the matter, but i do know that even without lists, many people will use the block function as a preemtive protection with a "sniff test" rule if its hard to gauge an account at a glance

willowsquest.co.uk•54 days ago

Besides blocking any account following above 5k/7k/10k to curb possible bots, some people just have preferences for what kind of interactions they prefer to keep online. I will admit your QRT did have me worridly trying to figure out what you were doing, and screencapping her profile was Not Cool

willowsquest.co.uk•54 days ago

I ended up not blocking you after figuring out you weren't a bot and appear to mean well, but there will be people who simply don't want their posts being shared by larger "politics accounts", even if you agree with them. So maybe don't worry about figuring out how to have them unblock you too much

exofuture.graphics•58 days ago

The consultation starts with and never challenges the assumption that AI development is a positive and needs to be encouraged. That makes it difficult to engage with if you fundamentally disagree with that assumption, and it's an assumption the government should not be making on the evidence.

area6cgi.bsky.social•58 days ago

Ask him /her to name a single industry which can TAKE its raw materials from suppliers for free, while also helping put those suppliers out of business in the long run.

whatrobindoes.bsky.social•58 days ago

I think it’s right pointing out the GDP increase that the creative industries bring to the UK. AI isn’t simply adding money to the economy, it’s replacing and in some cases negating.

keithwdickinson.bsky.social•58 days ago

Point out that the questions were heavily skewed toward "how" to make the breach of copyright work, not "if" the breach should happen in the first place. All answers should be viewed with that in mind.

mudwiggler.bsky.social•58 days ago

AI is a threat to creativity, because it only takes and rearranges pre-existing work, without crediting or payment to the human originators. It creates and considers nothing, and in doing so devalues the act of human creation ( and, by extension, thought ).

unitled.bsky.social•57 days ago

One thing I've been pondering is does an exemption tacitly acknowledge that use of copyrighted materials from training *up to now* count as copyright infringement?

marshdavies.bsky.social•57 days ago

I think the implication is forgiveness for all past sins. Unfortunately!

angusmain.bsky.social•58 days ago

The Ministerial Foreword for the consultation repeatedly talks about the benefits of AI. I’d be interested to ask what the people behind the consultation felt those benefits were, specifically. In particular in relation to the creative industries (as opposed to medicine, say).

aaronhicks.bsky.social•58 days ago

Training data should be opt in. Websites have to ask permission to access your data, apps need permission to access your phone, people need permission to enter your home. These softwares rely on other people's labour to be valuable, it shouldn't be free to them. Consent first.

mystoragebench.bsky.social•58 days ago

By opt in, you mean you should still have access to a service if you choose to opt out, I take it?

aaronhicks.bsky.social•57 days ago

By Opt In, I mean: Data the software client wants to scrape from you needs to be approved by you first. Including data it's processing for their service or data to train itself. They can't have anything until first approved by the data/IP owner.
If no permission means no service provided, so be it.

mystoragebench.bsky.social•57 days ago

But that just creates a standard where you lose out on the choice to participate, except by not using the service. Which is already the present day situation.

aaronhicks.bsky.social•57 days ago

Perhaps we are talking about different models. But currently, training datasets contains people's work/information without permission. People are not using the services, but their labour is contributing to its success without consent or compensation. Opt in corrects against this.

mystoragebench.bsky.social•57 days ago

Ah yes, I'm thinking more of the way platforms and softwares will want a piece of your work as a user/ uploader, rather than the stuff already scraped. So you'd be asking all that to be dropped from the dataset, and to start over with the permission of the providers?

stjep.bsky.social•58 days ago

I'm curious about how using copyrighted work of large companies is to train datasets is indefensible, but doing the same thing with private persons' (and small creators') content is deemed necessary and perfectly acceptable.

stjep.bsky.social•58 days ago

I'd also like to know if it's okay for private persons to use the entire library of Disney films, to produce AI-generated films, and monetize the results. Because a company using generative AI arguably does the same thing with content owned by small creators (and used without their consent).

insom-anim.bsky.social•58 days ago

Please insist on restrictions on indiscriminate training. It is a great wrong to inflict on artists to train their replacement on their work without any prior consent.

As others have said, opt-in should be the only way forward, and even then with proportional compensation.

insom-anim.bsky.social•58 days ago

Also, above all, we cannot create an environment where the only creative work people can live off from is the one backed up by huge legal teams that pose a threat to AI companies. Any legislation with even slight democratic aim should protect small creators and contract workers first and foremost.

hot-sauce.bsky.social•57 days ago

Make sure that gen ai companies are happy that nothing they output can be copyrighted.

thelastohmu.bsky.social•58 days ago

That it is a massive issue of consent among other things. For instance, most of these schemes are opt out by default, but silence—or even ignorance that the option even exists—isn’t consent. I do not consent to the shows myself and countless others have worked long, hard hours over to be bastardised

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