Submitted 3 days ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://htxt.co.za/2025/05/former-meta-exec-says-asking-for-artist-permission-will-kill-ai-industry/
- Nick Clegg, former Meta executive and UK Deputy Prime Minister, has reiterated a familiar line when it comes to AI and artist consent.
- He said that any push for consent would “basically kill” the AI industry.
- Clegg added that the sheer volume of data that AI is trained on makes it “implausible” to ask for consent.
Good.
Sounds like a plan!
Also Clegg
asking women for permission would ruin my sexlife.
probably.
There’s a thread of thought that pops up in pro-AI posters from time to time: technology can’t go backwards. The implication being that the current state of AI can only improve, and is here to stay.
This is wrong. Companies are spending multitudes of piles of cash to make AI work, and they could easily take their ball and go home. Extending copyright over the training data would likely trigger that, by the industry’s own admission.
No, self-hosted models are not going to change this. A bunch of people running around with their own little agents aren’t going to sustain a mass market phenomenon. You’re not going to have integration in Windows or VisualStudio or the top of Google search results. You’re not going to have people posting many pics on Facebook of Godzilla doing silly things.
The tech can go backwards, and we’re likely to see it.
And not asking for it will kill the creative industries.
What do you want, a few years of ai slop followed by the more or less rapid decline of the internet, that does afford the likes of Clegg (in his role of ‘meta’ executive) a huge payout, or creative people having any hope of a sustained ability to make a living?
Can’t they just write an ‘AI’ to ask an artist for permission then? I’ll bet they can. It’s just that most artists will say no unless they get paid. So, their business model, based on theft, is not sustainable. Got it.
AI is not just limited to these overhyped plagiarism machines. Will consent laws kill vision systems? Will they kill classifiers? Will they kill gradient descent? No, they won’t.
Honestly not a bad thing, I mean you’re not going to OpenSource your AI so this is a good alternative
So… what’s the down side to this bill?
I’m not a fan of intellectual property law. I’m down to abandon it, once we establish an artist stipend to pay a regular salary for artists to live a life of dignity.
Let’s hope it does.
My permission costs $2.50 for every time AI reads my text or uses it in the background. Thank you! Come again!
So?
If I had a gun with 3 bullets and I was in a room with Meta, Hitler and Bin Laden. I would shoot Meta thrice.
I would shoot hitler twice, then bin laden, then beat meta to death with the gun because it would hurt more.
What if you were in a room with Meta, Hitler and Nick Clegg?
But what if Toby was in the room?
Line them up, shoot Toby three times anyway
Is this going in for a vote? Where do I vote?
Rules for thee, not for me.
I thought copyright and patent laws were supposed to protect the little guy? Looks like as soon as they protect the little guy from big business, they stop mattering.
I guess the useful idiots were wrong, again. Color me not-surprised.
How did the media industey call pirates? Parasites?
“Don’t copy that floppy” funded by rich people, or the more recent “You wouldn’t download” with pirated song and font. Fucking hypocrites.
That’s a myth. The music was licenced, as was the font.
Well the AI companies should have understood that building an industry off of doing something questionable was risky and risks don’t always work out.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man on Wall Street; it belongs to the shareholders.
If an industry can’t survive without resorting to copyright theft then maybe it’s not a viable business.
Imagine the industries that could exist if only they didn’t have to pay copyright holders. What makes this industry any different?
I doubt it. With that $500 billion dollar grant, you can hire people to make art to train on. That’s a LOT of money.
What makes you think that they’d do that?
Oh I didn’t say they would do that. Nor do I think it would solve any big problem AI is causing society. I’m just pointing out that there’s a simple rebuttal to his argument.
He admit it!
Yay, kill it please.
[tardigrade_violin.jpg]
Ah, if it isn’t my old friend Mr. Nick Clegg, with a dick for a face and an ass for a head!
It’s implausible that I would pay for Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, etc.
When I can just build a server and buy a VPN connection.
Makes sense. Paying for all those services would kill my ability to support other industries. Fair game.
I’m not pirating, I’m training the LLM that is in my skull. Don’t worry, I won’t remember the whole thing in a week and won’t use it to create art out of what I saw.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Oh, so it’d be ok to get movies, pictures, books, etc. without asking the right owners for us too? GREAT.