The Pros and Cons of AI in the Legal Industry
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The rise of generative AI art has created a complex intersection of technology and copyright law. As artificial intelligence systems become more sophisticated, it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine the authorship of a work. This has led to various challenges for artists, creators, and stakeholders grappling with navigating this new landscape.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization that advocates for digital rights and freedom, has been at the forefront of this issue. In this blog post, we explore the insights from the EFF on how to tackle the complex intersection of copyright law and generative AI art.
What is EFF?
The EFF is a non-profit organization that advocates for digital rights and freedom. Founded in 1990, the organization has advocated for privacy, free speech, and other fundamental rights in the digital age. The EFF has been instrumental in shaping digital policy, including influencing the development of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The EFF has been particularly active in advocating for a collaborative approach to the intersection of copyright law and generative AI art. The organization argues that this approach is essential to promote innovation while ensuring fair compensation for creators.
Copyright status quo?
Copyright law has been a fundamental aspect of creative works for centuries. It provides legal protection to the creators of original works, giving them the exclusive right to use, distribute, and profit from their creations. However, the rise of generative AI art has challenged the current copyright status quo.
Currently, copyright law attributes authorship to human creators. This creates a problem regarding AI-generated art, as it becomes difficult to determine a work’s author. In many cases, the AI system is involved in creating the artwork, but it is unclear how much creative input the system has had and whether it should be considered the work’s author.
What is generative AI?
Generative AI is a subfield of artificial intelligence that involves creating systems that can produce new and original content. This includes everything from music, art, and literature to more complex applications such as drug discovery and scientific research.
Generative AI trains neural networks on large datasets of existing content, such as images or texts. The neural network then learns to generate new content similar to the training data. Over time, the system becomes increasingly sophisticated, producing content that is more and more original.
What is the status quo of generative AI and copyright?
The current copyright status quo is not well-suited to creating generative AI art. The main challenge is determining authorship as AI systems become more autonomous and sophisticated. While copyright law generally attributes authorship to human creators, it is unclear how much creative input the AI system has had in creating the artwork.
The EFF argues that generative AI art should be treated as a joint creation between the human creator who trained the AI system and the system itself. This approach acknowledges the role of human creators and AI systems in creating artwork.
Lawsuits and their possible implications
The rise of generative AI art has led to various lawsuits related to copyright infringement. These lawsuits have focused on issues such as the ownership of the copyright, the role played by the AI system in creating the artwork, and the fair use of existing content.
The implications of these lawsuits could be significant, particularly if they lead to a concentration of power in the hands of a few big companies. This could make it difficult for other artists and creators to enter the market, stifling innovation and creativity.
How synthetic content can be created cheaply using AI models
One of the benefits of using AI to create content is that it can be done relatively cheaply. Generative AI systems require large datasets of existing content to train on, and much of this content is available for free. This means that the cost of creating synthetic content using AI models is mainly limited to the cost of the hardware required to run the models.
Moreover, once a generative AI system has been trained, it can create new content relatively quickly and efficiently. This makes it possible for artists and creators to produce large amounts of content at a fraction of the cost it would take to create the same content manually.
Another benefit of using AI to create content is that it can produce more diverse and inclusive content. AI systems can be trained on datasets that include a wide range of cultural and historical references, which can help ensure that their content is more representative of different cultures and perspectives.
Why gatekeeping is not a genuine concern
There have been concerns that the use of generative AI art could lead to gatekeeping, where a small number of companies have a monopoly on creating and distributing this type of content.
However, the reality is that the cost of creating synthetic content using AI models is relatively low. There are no significant barriers to entry (except the costs of acquiring and running the hardware). There is currently no reason to believe that there will be a new monopoly; it is also unclear if there will be a „winner takes it all“ situation. LLMs can be run locally with 90% of the capability of GPT-4 (as of April 2023).
AI systems are widely available and can be used by anyone with access to the necessary hardware and software. Moreover, much of the content used to train these systems are freely available, so there are few restrictions on who can use AI to create content.
Furthermore, the use of AI in art is still a relatively new field, and no established players have a significant advantage over others. This means there is plenty of room for new entrants to enter and select themselves.
Conclusions
The rise of generative AI art has created a complex intersection of technology and copyright law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has advocated for a collaborative approach to this issue that recognizes the role played by both human creators and AI systems in creating artwork.
While the current copyright status quo poses challenges, the use of AI to create content offers significant benefits, including cost savings and greater diversity and inclusivity. There is no evidence to suggest that gatekeeping is a genuine concern in using generative AI art, and the barriers to entry are relatively low.
Overall, stakeholders need to consider these issues as the use of generative AI art continues to grow. A collaborative approach that recognizes the role played by human creators and AI systems in creating artwork is essential to promote innovation and ensure fair compensation for creators. The EFF’s work in this area is vital to finding a solution for everyone involved.