This episode is the “Users are creators - is AI blurring the lines of creativity in the copyright framework?” panel from the Generative AI & the Creativity Cycle Symposium hosted by Creative Commons at the Engelberg Center. It was recorded on September 13, 2023. This symposium is part of Creative Commons’ broader consultation with the cultural heritage, creative, and tech communities to support sharing knowledge and culture thoughtfully and in the public interest, in the age of generative AI. You can find the video recordings for all panels on Creative Commons’ YouTube channel, licensed openly via CC BY.
Scott Sholder (CDAS) moderating a conversation with Kayvan Ghaffari (MakersPlace), Jennie Rose Halperin (Library Futures), and Heather Timm (Artist)
Announcer 0:03
Welcome to engelberg center live a collection of audio from events held by the engelberg center on innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law. This episode is the users our creators is AI blurring the lines of creativity in a copyright framework panel from the generative AI and the creativity cycle symposium hosted by Creative Commons at the engelberg center. It was recorded on September 13 2023. This symposium is part of Creative Commons broader consultation with the cultural heritage creative and tech communities support sharing knowledge and culture thoughtfully and in the public interest in the age of generative AI. You can find the video recordings for all panels on Creative Commons YouTube channel license openly the SEC by
Scott Sholder 0:57
Hi, everyone, thanks for sticking around for for the last panel. My name is Scott shoulder. I'm a partner with Cowan debates Abraham's and shepherd boutique entertainment media and art law firm here in the city. I head up the litigation practice. So lots and lots of questions floating around about generative AI and copyright these days. So here I am. I've got a really awesome panel today to talk about some various issues concerning users and creators, the blurring lines of creativity and the copyright framework. So two of my favorite things art and copyright we get to talk about today. So that's awesome. So a brief introduction of the panelists. I'll let them talk a little bit about their respective practices and professions and then we'll get on to the meat and potatoes of the discussion. So To my immediate right, Jenny rose Halperin. I am going to read part of her chat GBT creative bio, according to chat GBT, she is a versatile expert at the crossroads of Information Policy librarianship and technology. As Director of Library futures at NYU engelberg center Jenny Foster's the convergence of law policy and equitable information access. And the funny one liner. Funny one, oh, yes, funny one sentence January's Howard, a tech savvy librarian who can merge laws, books and bytes, delivering speeches, writing articles and saving the world in her spare time. So thank you, Chet GBT for that wonderful summary. Next in line, we've got Heather Tim, an interdisciplinary artist who began using generative AI in her process two years ago. And her work lies at the intersection of art and science, exploring aesthetics, power structures and bias. And last but not least, all the way down there cave on fra from makers place. He is the general counsel of makerspace, a premier digital artists and NFT marketplace. Prior to that he was a copyright and cybersecurity attorney at two global law firms. And he serves as an advisor for a number of organizations, including co to inspire a nonprofit committed to educating female students in Afghanistan. So very, very cool panel here. So thank you all for being here, I was gonna go down the line and talk a little bit about what you do. So that I'm not making it up for you. I'm going to start with you, Danny,
Jennie Rose Halperin 3:24
thank you so much. So I primarily work on libraries and contracts. And that's not really what we're going to be talking about today. Although both of those things have very much come up over the course of the day. And so I just kind of want to highlight maybe as a summary, some of the things that have come up today as a way to to prompt a discussion that will close things out in a way that feels sort of like a like coalescing, so So one of the things that Stacey brought up yesterday is that she fears that we are going to be entering the worst possible version of what AI could look like in which everything is monetized. And there's sort of this this scarcity model, or as Dave has also said, the second grade enclosure of the comments. And so one of the things that that came up that I really like is that this concept that if we put something online, we lose control, and knowing that most artists are utilizing platforms, very few artists are actually you know, utilizing their own tools in order to control their own work or putting like a robot set text on it. They don't call my my work, you know, artists are using Instagram and they're using the deviant art still a thing but you know, and we saw even, you know, five to 10 years ago that there was a lot of bad backlash from artists about large scale scraping of these materials. Back when I was at Creative Commons in 2018. There was a large skin involving the diversity in bases, AI data set in which large numbers of Flickr, public Flickr photos were scraped by Microsoft, in order to create an academic database that was then used by an AI company. And so one of the things that people have talked a lot about is this idea of consent is this idea, you know, if if people kind of knew what nor know what their materials are going to be used for, that's enough. But the other thing that we hear a lot about is remuneration. Molly crab, Apple, and a variety of other artists wrote a letter in the new in the LA Times a few months ago saying, we are artists, please do not use our work for AI. You know, Molly crab, Apple was an early artists who adopted Creative Commons and has now in some ways come back on her statements about Creative Commons and her use of Creative Commons, due largely to a position on AI. And I think it's really worth kind of considering, you know, what does it look like for us as people who care about copyright and also care about artists to say at the output of AI is fair use. But at the same time, we care about artists is very difficult in a precarious labor market, to kind of, to kind of say both things. So one of the things that I maybe want to put out as a provocation that hasn't come out as much as much as I know that, you know, Creative Commons is consistently considering and reconsidering their licenses, in particular, the non commerciality and the non commercial licenses. So I'm wondering if there is a role for Creative Commons to play in terms of user choice when it comes to commercial licenses, and a reconsideration of what it truly means to be commercial or non commercial in order to support a growing Commons of both cultural heritage materials as well as artistic materials? I think that's it.
Scott Sholder 6:57
Great, thanks. So Heather, you want to tell tell everyone a little bit about your practice and where AI kind of fits in with your you know, your process and your thoughts around?
Heather Timm 7:12
Well, I consider myself a conceptual artists first. So the medium has never been terribly, you know, as important as the ideas that I'm trying to convey. That's changed a little bit with generative AI, actually, because for the first time, I have a medium that's using me. And that's interesting. And because it also is tending to this norm, it's a place that I can explore and interrogate those biases and those structures and those norms. And, you know, it's been fascinating process and where it's taken me in my work
Scott Sholder 8:05
Kimani want to talk a little bit about your experience and your your role at Makers place and kind of makers places. spot in this ever growing debate about generative AI?
Kayvan Ghaffari 8:19
Sure. So, as mentioned, makerspace is a digital art marketplace. We sell we don't pursue this level, we're marketplace where artists can sell art mented on blockchain and blockchain. So it's an NFT marketplace. I try to stay away from the phrase NF t because it's like sometimes clouded with negative stereotypes and judgments. And I just believe that it's hard. So I'm just gonna call it art. I actually do believe that someone standing next to me creates art on chain, Sasha creates art on chain. And one thing that's been really fascinating over the past several years, I mean, first place is just the use the seeing the increased type of art from artists that use AI technology. And understanding how this art comes to be understand the process behind the artists using AI because a lot of times in the public view like AI is dominated with policymakers, big corporate governance, big corporate food corporations talking about AI commerce, it's really limited to hear in a public way how artists are actually using it and how it's actually enabling an input and an often sometimes often allowing artists to improve their craft. And I think AI is just a tool, just like the paintbrush that one can use to express themselves. I also think AI is really interesting and its ability to kind of democratize the way that art is created because of someone is for example handicap and can actually pick up a paintbrush. They can still use AI technology to assist in expressing their artistic vision. But as a marketplace, we are grappling with a lot of issues. On Ayar? Is it a derivative? Is it an improper derivative an unauthorized derivative? Is it art that is just generated straight from the algorithm? Or is the hardest adding more to it? And where does that process come in? And how do we conceptualize that as marketplace but also as an ecosystem on where that fits in, in the artistic history of the history of art in that timeline. So I've been grappling with those questions. And it's a fun area to be in and get to work with artists on a daily basis. And their assumption, I get to work with incredible people like us.
Scott Sholder 10:39
So speaking of this, you know, the use of AI and the process and whether it's, you know, you're entering a prompt and just using the output or whether you're in painting out painting glitching, you know, creating a collage. I want to throw to our resident artists on the panel. How in your experience, and you can Heather, you can talk, you know about your own use of AI and in creating your digital art and your experience in the art community about how other people are using it, and how is it really changing the creative process? In general?
Heather Timm 11:19
Well, I think in some ways, it's it's not, you know, I think a lot of the same things are the same things over and over again, it's just different, different tools being used to explore them in different happy accidents in the process. I think there's a lot of fear around AI and a lot of judgment around it. And so I think that makes it particularly interesting to prove out whether those things are true, right. Like, if this is soulless, right, is it more or less soulless than my cobalt blue paint? Right? Is it what I do with it? Right, like I think it, it begs these deeper questions. I think art always does. And I think good art is always blurring lines. So
Scott Sholder 12:19
it's so it's interesting, you talk about kind of the same things over and over again. The the nature of anything creative is to build on previous works, you can't have new art without having influence having been influenced by prior art, whether you're writing, whether you're painting, whether you're creating digital art. Jenny, I want to I wanted to ask you if if creativity inherently built on the past? How is this kind of manifesting in the AI environment? And is it actually any different from the creativity? That has always been in the processes that have always existed? You know, I'll let you start and obviously brought out to the rest of the panel to weigh in as well.
Jennie Rose Halperin 13:05
Yeah, I mean, isn't it Isn't it so cool that we get to see the variety and the velocity and the and the volume of what learning really can look like, in so many ways? I think that's, that's a really, really interesting and unique spot that is placed that we have right now, even if the inputs aren't always clear, even if the outputs aren't always obvious, there was the case that came up or the paper that came up. I think this, I think today that said, Well, we actually can't tell the difference between AI written text and human written text, in many cases in an educational context. And in many ways, that's, that's very cool that like, you know, we get to see the ways in which machines that have been trained over many years on on a large variety of human knowledge can really mimic you know, it's the original Turing test, right? It's like that, you know, a computer that can mimic a human. But even further, I think from from artists, one of the things that I am concerned about, is that there's this idea that it's somehow it is very different than the acquisition of human knowledge. But I don't necessarily know if it's different outside of, again, the labor conditions that we have the necessarily artists, certain artists seem to think so. You know, I know that the sag after strike has come up a couple of times. Today, so one of the there was a recent discussion on a great listserv that if you're not on, you should be on there's some really good conversation about AI on it called reader 20. And on that, and in our discussion, somebody brought up an article that featured David Simon, the author of The Wire And the interviewer asked him, you know, how would you feel about an AI written script? And he said, I am a unique creative genius, and I do not build on anything. And if AI wrote my script, it would not be any good, because I would, you know, is nothing, nothing like anything I've ever created has ever come before. And of course, you know, of course, I'm exaggerating. That's not exactly what he said. But I think it's, it's, it's, there is a level, particularly for artists, particularly for collaborative artists, like David Simon, who, you know, writes as part of a writers room, for example, and does not write in complete isolation, no one does. There is a level of education of what these tools can do, and also a level of, of almost letting go of some elitism of that, you know, for some commercial artists, the ability to edit an AI generated piece, rather than having to spend an enormous amount of time outside of their own work might be something that's interesting. And I do think there is within sort of some some level of public discourse, a level of elitism that that might not be as legitimate a form of art. And I also, last thing, do you think that there is both an opportunity to collaborate with machines? And also, that's, that's unique, and that's cool. And that's interesting. And I think that there is an opportunity to collaborate with each other, whether that's through the very human act of editing, or if that's through the very human act of co creation. There's one other conversation that's been happening a lot, which is, as Martin brought up the original, the case around originality and photography, who should hold the copyright on a photograph? And, you know, why is it that someone who writes an algorithm should have should not have copyrightability more than somebody who just takes a click? Right? There's just there's there, you know, it is changing landscape and laws and norms and values do need to catch up?
Scott Sholder 17:06
Heather, okay, I'm gonna win.
Heather Timm 17:08
Well, I think this I agree with the notion that there's no original thought it's our interaction with each other, that creates the emergence of the ideas I, I think we're all dipping from the same well of creativity, and that well of creativity is the original AI, which has ancestral intelligence. And yeah.
Kayvan Ghaffari 17:39
We're influenced by everything, consciously or not. And that has an impact and what we our outcome, right, whether it's lead laws, whether it's working with people, as a lawyer, working with people and seeing how their brains work, they influence how my brain works in terms of thinking out of the box for legal strategy. Right. And, and I just think everything is a derivative. Now, I think the problem that the fear of AI is that it's scaling it at a an incredible pace that I think is understandable. And having this kind of push back as like, well, what what well, how are you doing that? Why are you doing this fast? Is it straight up just like copying, but in my mind, it's just another method of being influenced by things like we think about like chess, right?
Speaker 6 18:28
Humans are playing into computers for decades. That's all AI. Right?
Kayvan Ghaffari 18:34
If you think about Photoshop, Photoshop is AI as well. But that doesn't somehow get grouped together with these generative AI algorithms. But we've been using and experiencing a technology throughout our entire lives. And that and there's a part of me that's like, Well, why is a little bit different when all those are taking prior information. Prior plays in chess, chess legends or chess masters for them, like, created a thought of
Heather Timm 19:06
one thing to add, there's a tool that was created called the clip interrogator. And right, intended to interrogate images generated by AI. So that you could create similar images, right, or similar styles. And I've used that to take paintings that I did when I was a teenager and snap a photo and put it in the clip interrogator to interrogate those influences, right. And so it's interesting to do that for what it's intended to and not intended.
Jennie Rose Halperin 19:47
And I do want to also say, you know, like, just to sort of maybe adds at some level of like, some level of nuance building on some of the conversations politically about decolonization, that of how weapons that have been that have come up all across today. As you know, 20 years ago, the conversation around decolonization and digital collections was very, very different when Creative Commons was founded. And in certain ways, the open movement, which was about sharing for everybody, and remix, and everything's so cool, and isn't it awesome that all art is free online, had to catch up. And we really did have to play catch up, for those of us who have been involved for a long time. And I really do see this as being an opportunity in which we don't have to necessarily play catch up, we can interrogate and engage with these questions early and not have to layer on you know, if an Indigenous artists is not okay, with their work being included in a in a dataset, the power differential is very major, if an artist who doesn't necessarily have the same economic power, as Shepard Fairey is concerned about the work being included in a data set, there is a power differential. And I think that that level of both market power and also cultural power does have to be interrogated when we consider new when we consider any new technology, but also, particularly when we're considering cultural use of AI technologies that have also been, you know, by organizations like the algorithmic Justice League engaged with at a fundamental level as well, for many years.
Kayvan Ghaffari 21:24
Anyone taking a toll as to how many times we're interrogating has been said today?
Jennie Rose Halperin 21:28
I just said it five times. There's,
Scott Sholder 21:31
there's two, two lawyers on this panel. It's totally okay. So came on to your point earlier about, you know, why is this different from other advances in technology like, like Photoshop, I think that it has to do with the scale, and the ease of use. And Photoshop is, you know, not dissimilar in the sense that it uses computer software to augment images in a way that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do by hand. But you still had to learn how to use Photoshop, I think the ease with which that one can just type the prompt in and come up with something, even if they don't do any editing, they don't touch it at all, you still get something that passes for probably something better than I could draw. Definitely something better than I could draw. So I think it's I think those two things put together that makes it so it makes it different from the other the other things, but then that kind of begs the question about if you're just putting the prompt in and coming up with an image? What are the copyright implications of you know, when we're where are we drawing the line between who's an author and who is just a user of the platform? D. So, you know, from a copyright standpoint, and in a legal standpoint, I'll throw the question to you, I will, I probably should have given my standard disclaimer at the beginning of the panel. And any anything that I say here with respect to the legal, you know, aspects, or moral or ethical aspects of this stuff is not as my opinion and not that of my firm or my clients. So I'll have you start off the discussion on the copyright piece of it. And then I will tread carefully into those waters if I need to,
Kayvan Ghaffari 23:15
I guess have to follow suit and give a disclaimer as well, because I'm a lawyer, don't interrogate because I think the copyright questions are fascinating. And I don't think the the photograph is National Geographic, it was the case that like an ape in Africa, can appear soon. And he Neruda was his name. He's my favorites, my favorite, my favorite copyright celebrities. So at a preliminary level, I think a lot of issues of like, creativity ownership are going to be dictated by the terms of use, I would definitely look at those terms like whatever AI system you're using to see who is the actual creator of the output, because those terms may actually say that the algorithm that the company that is providing you that technology is the actual creator. So as a threshold level, I would encourage everyone to, to look at the terms whether they're crafted eloquently or negatively is for the lawyers to decide. But I think beyond that, but assuming that's not the case, that I think it becomes, in many ways an issue of the the amount of input or influence you as an artist are providing into the actual output. For example, if I write the word nurse and mid journey, and I get four images of a nurse, I don't know how much like there's human involvement in that. Now the counter argument is, well, that algorithm would not put out that output if it wasn't for me. Introducing the concept or a word or then clicking generate. And so I think there's gonna be a lot of discussions and courts about well, is that just clicking Submit enough of a human interaction to have that? I'm not confident that will be the case. I think what the courts will likely. And I think this will take years to, if not more to think about is the level of input at the post output, like manipulation and just kind of a case going on right now in the copyright office with Chris I can never pronounce their last name. But castronova. They created a comic book from AI. And it's a pretty incredible book, both the images, the writing, I believe, as well, the only thing that they did, they created the inputs. The US Copyright Office claimed it wasn't copyrightable because it was created by an algorithm and not a human, they are pushing back. claiming that there is creativity in this I believe the most recent procedural posture is that the Copyright Office rescinded its denial and hire in the like organization of the comic book because Chris organized it in a in a in a way that only data, right so the structure sequence and organization of it was created by them. And Copyright Office found that that was a human creating that structure, sequence and organization. That's so but I think they are continuing the claim that comic book is in fact still human generated, even though it had a technological medium by which the output was generated. Yeah, the copyright
Scott Sholder 26:45
and in this spawned the recent guidance from the copyright office that came out in writing in March about authorship of AI generated works and how to properly register and work that has AI content. Yes, the tone of the whole comic book itself as as a compilation was copyrightable. The text was copyrighted, well, the images were not. And that brought the copyright office to give guidance on what you need to do when you register works. You have to disclaim that there are AI, it's you have to disclaim things anyway, disclaim things that are in public domain displaying things that were previously registered, you have to disclaim. So you have to there's no, I'm sure people are going to not do it. But technically, you're supposed to write, you know, this work has some AI generated images or something like that. And then your per your protection is limited to only what, what is human human created, but again, begs the question of what is the level of creativity that needs to be added by a person to make those images copyrightable. Until the court says, otherwise, the Copyright Office is not going to honor non human authorship. And it's it has to be more than de minimis. And that in and of itself has to be independently copyrightable. I think, at least according to the webinar on their webinar on registration, I take their I take them at their word, any input from from our other panelists on the copyright issues?
Heather Timm 28:12
No other other than just a comment that this, you know, the law is such that it just makes me want to go CC zero with everything. Right. And there are artists, there's an increasing number of artists that are doing that, and I aspire to do that partially to explore what there will be unintended, there's a law of unintended consequences, right? I think control commodification have had their time and I'm really interested in what radical openness and radical sharing what sort of unintended consequences come from that? Do I really loot make less money as an artist? Is that possible?
Jennie Rose Halperin 29:11
Well, I mean, I mean, that's always the joke that if you want to strengthen copyright to make more money, it's not like it's doing such a good job right now. Like it, you know, it's it's basically like Disney every time just wins. So, but I also again, you know, I hate to just keep beating the same drum, but when when we're talking about copyright issues when it comes to AI, really, it's, I feel like every, like a lot of the conversations that I have around this kind of ended almost like a shrug emoji of like it's labor. But because, you know, again, in absence of the precarity, of being an artist in taking an abundance mindset, and one of the things I'm actually interested in hearing about from our of analysts is, you know, the intersections between, you know, the chain, which almost creates a kind of scarcity and AI, which is all of which is based on an abundance models based on the number of inputs it needs to have and sort of the differential in responses from artists or similarities in responses from artists and kind of how you all are working on these on these two sort of cutting edge in certain ways cutting edge technologies in certain ways, older technologies and themselves together. And I'm sort of wondering like, how, how does that work for artists? Does it? Is it a different kind of, did you see a different kind of response during the couple years ago, where everything was about the chain and everything was about NF T's. And now everything's about inputs and AI, kind of what are the responses that you're seeing from artists?
Kayvan Ghaffari 30:53
In terms of like, the interplay between Ayar, minted on like a blockchain,
Jennie Rose Halperin 30:58
or are you are you seeing just in terms of like, are you? Do you see a resume? Do you see resistance? Or do you see or because of the communities that you're working in? Do you see that it's does it does it feel like it's being embraced as a new form of creation and sharing? Yeah, yeah.
Kayvan Ghaffari 31:16
So um, before I answer that, I'm also going to touch point on the CC zero, love CC zero, but you can also go to England and create art with AI technology, because that will be copyrighted. But UK copyright laws does claim that, you know, creations from a technology can be copyrighted. So hack, go travel, create, comeback, international laws. So I'll be back to the question of like the blockchain, digital art ecosystem, an AI artists Absolutely. And a pretty like, there are two things that are actually are quite embraced in my mind that I'm going to be interested in Heather's perspective as well. And Scott Scott is also an artist. As absolutely embrace everyone pretty much uses a I don't know, like differing levels, right. And what I'm seeing is not just like they're minting minting is placing it on the chain, maintaining the output, but they're using those outputs to further augment and enhance their artistic creation. So I kind of like what Sasha was saying earlier, she puts her phones and continues training, these artists are, are are using are taking a ton of time to create one AI based artwork, because they were using mid journey. And they're constantly prompting, revising their prompts, changing filters, using different technologies, so then enhance it some more. And you're seeing this, in my mind, quite beautiful process of creating art through a new medium. Right. And I think what we're also seeing is trends and like actually showcasing the process, I think there is starting to see some like, well, is AAR too much, is it too easy? Is it art. And so a lot of artists are now showcasing their process, which is fascinating. And I think it's pretty revolutionary thing as well, where you're seeing videos of like them actually using the journey and you're seeing the problems and you're seeing that attacks. And it's a pretty fascinating insight into the artistic mind. And the other thing that I really love about the web through space is the derivatives, like people are creating derivatives of each other, like every day, and no one's really batting an eye. It's a pretty remarkable thing that there's trust that I'm going to create a derivative and not necessarily commercially exploited. But I'm just using it as a method of, you know, memes, because you know, the web three has a lot of meme culture, but also like understanding my own process and what I want to do as an artist. And so the like, there is an ethos of CCS zero that's kind of embedded in the web through ecosystem because of that kind of derivative, playing with each other kind of
Heather Timm 34:02
community. Yeah, I think what I see is artists as collector as well. So both acknowledging people who inspire you artists that have inspired your own work, that have supported your your thinking, your growth, and your challenges. When you have success, you're often now how you're paying that forward is literally being a patron of their art, right? And so it's creating these virtuous cycles of value, right? If culture is more important than capital, then put your capital in your culture, stick your capital up your culture
Scott Sholder 34:51
the perspective of the conceptual artists
Kayvan Ghaffari 34:56
so use AI to create an output for that
Scott Sholder 35:00
Okay, so in. However, I may have slightly different presenters, I am very amateur in terms of being an artist, but I, you know, stuff a makerspace and some various other platforms. And I do this in my spare time, when I have spare time, which isn't much and find it to be very, a lot of fun. I don't use AI. AI, for a number of reasons, I think most of it is a test for myself to see if I can do things without it, because it's almost it's almost being contrarian on purpose. Because when I first got it, you know, started dabbling in this space, the market was just flooded, everything was was was aI generated. And I, as part of me started thinking, well, there's no competing with this, because it's so much like I mentioned before, it's so much better than anything I can do. So, you know, if you can't beat them, join them, I don't know, I decided I want to try to be by doing something else. So my process is different. I don't use AI, at least not yet. And, and so I try to push myself using other technologies. And it's not all that different, you know, using things like procreate which studio and stuff that is computerized but not as a it doesn't involve prompting and the creation of an image by something else. So I do it almost as a resistance to the flood in the market. And I really liked your you know, you're kind of drawing a dichotomy between the scarcity of NFT, the NFT, art in crypto art marketplace, and the massive volume of AI generated work, because it's, you know, at least perceived as easier, right? And it may not be because to you know, to cave on point, there's a lot of editing and iteration and ideation and other types of work that goes into it. And I'm curious to see some of those creation videos, so I can have a better understanding of what that process looks like, because there are a lot of misconceptions, and I probably still have them. So it's, you know, the use of the tool is, is is it should and can be used as a tool. And, you know, where we get into the questions of labor is, is it a, is it a market replacement? Is it going to replace people's work? Are people's works being used to train it to then replace them? And we don't, we don't have time, we will take questions in a few minutes. We don't have time to get into the I don't know, I don't think we need to get into the questions that are used in the legal arguments over scraping and output. But it's it really is a labor question. And so just from an ethical or moral standpoint, I'm curious to know that, you know, everybody's thoughts very briefly on, you know, how do we kind of counter the problems that may may or may not arise? And are, I think, arising in certain industries where concept artists are being not getting as much work or, you know, there's they feel as though they're being replaced, which which may, which may be true, I don't think it's too early to, to really tell how big of an impact on the economy it's going to have, but I love everybody's input on on the kind of labor issue and the they're going to take our jobs kind of fear that's out there. Whoever wants to start?
Heather Timm 38:20
Well, it kind of ties. That statement with the previous thing is, I would say, you know, although there's a lot of welcome newness to using generative AI there. It's not all sunshine and lollipops and rainbows. I personally know a number of artists who have had death threats, because they've used it, and they're constantly verbally assaulted, because they use it. Docs online, they're anonymous artists. You know, so there is that that's real.
Scott Sholder 39:05
And I kind of lost my train. Well, we'll come back here. If it returns to your head, we think
Jennie Rose Halperin 39:12
universal basic income.
Scott Sholder 39:18
Free work be responsible. Alright, well, that certainly is a solution. Whether it's realistic or not. It's certainly laudable. It's actually
Jennie Rose Halperin 39:30
so Delia Brown, who's I think that's still on the CC board said that this was being discussed in basically every other country except for the US, but it's a it's like a very, very unique
Scott Sholder 39:43
and I'll clarify my prior content, not unrealistic, because it's something that that shouldn't be or that can't be done. It's something that the people in charge won't do. They weren't allowed to be done. Okay, so, we've got we've got about five minutes left. So anyone Are there any final comments on these massive topics? I'll open it up to questions and see which ones already love it even at the end of the day at five o'clock and
karen darricades 40:12
come all day, every day. And I mean, I just want to find that we are at a place right now where we have, you know, I mean, in terms of the political Well, of course, for that has always been difficult. But since the pandemic, we literally have so much research cases, you know, the use cases and what it can actually look like, from around the world, be great to use, it would be great if we had a tool that like recognize, like patterns, and, you know, could take a look at some of that, and maybe be like, How could some How could some of that? How can we persuade, particularly capitalist government and from Canada, into, you know, into considering all of this new new practice that we have of universal basic income and and a tool that could extract value as well, and then spread it around? Not question.
Scott Sholder 41:04
Questions or comments? Or well, would you like to respond to that question?
Speaker 8 41:15
Hi, thank you for the talk. So my question is, in cases where the human author only putting a prompt, but actually spent a lot of time selecting the right image, then do you think the advice in selecting the image should come towards the creative process? And if yes, whether it's part of what you feel are for the artists to present evidence of their effort in selection to the court and get copyright protection as a result.
Kayvan Ghaffari 41:41
You want to get selection on like a single image that then becomes like the art, I still don't think that a court in the US would claim that is copyrighted, because you by selecting something, you're not necessarily creating it. And it's already been created. Now, if you select it and put it in a sequence of other artworks, then that structure of other artworks and the decision to put it in a particular place, that structure can be operative. But not the individual disparate parts that are that are forming that structure,
Scott Sholder 42:21
at least and under the current framework that I don't think that would be enough to be copyrightable, at least based on what the copyright office says. And then the empty, I noticed what you you mentioned specifically about spending a lot of kind of time and effort choosing the right image, and that there was something called the sweat of the brow doctrine that was done away with many, many decades ago by by the courts and copyright cases that said, so doesn't really matter how hard you work. If it's not copyrightable. It's not like, you know, if you work really hard and gathering data, just public facts to Caitlin's point, the selection arrangement, coordination of those facts could potentially be copyrightable. But the facts themselves are not no matter how hard how hard you work said,
Heather Timm 43:05
I'd like to I'd like to just, you know, copyright last side for a second. And, and back to art.
In the traditional art world, okay. It's pretty common knowledge that many of the most wealthy and popular artists do not create their own work. Okay, they hold a vision, they give a color palette, and it's a bunch of art students and grad students who are actually doing the labor. Okay, tell me how it's different than a prompt. And then we can have a real discussion.
Kayvan Ghaffari 43:53
Now, interestingly, I think the prompt is copyrightable. The thing about that, right, like, because a prompt is an expression and copyright is providing a limited monopoly on expression, not on ideas. And so your prompt actually could be upgraded. Maybe the output is
Scott Sholder 44:12
short. Yeah, if it's if it's a sentence, a poem, a paragraph, a short phrase, you know, my favorite example, I don't ask me why, I don't know I came up with this during one of my early presentations on on AI. If you type in squirrel riding a bicycle into mid journey, you will get some pretty hilarious and adorable images. But squirrel riding a bicycle as a prompt is not is not enough to the operator, you write a little story about that squirrel riding a bicycle and what happens along the way that's potentially copyrightable. And then you could argue that whatever comes out of it is a derivative, a derivative work that requires a license. So there's a lot of potential loopholes that haven't been litigated or legislated on that. Who knows where it'll go? Maybe time for one more. There's one more question anyway.
Speaker 9 45:01
Hi, my name is Prakash Raj Gupta and I bring about 30 years working with state and local governments in the US. So I have a question, good point about the universal basic income. So so far, the story has been at least the resistance part of the universal basic income, or whether it is basic income in the US, the minimum wage. It has been that, you know, quote, unquote, we want incentivize work. And that's why there's some resistance towards minimum wage or a universal basic income. So now we are faced with whether we are faced with it today, or the short term or definitely, in the long term, is a question of, you know, either provide work or you provide basic income, universal basic income, or both, in some way, shape, or form. So what are your thoughts on that? Oh, wait, do you then?
Jennie Rose Halperin 46:00
Yeah, I mean, again, changing times, need changing norms. And again, I'm sorry, I can't remember your name. Karen pointed out this, this has been implemented with good and bad consequences, and many different places. So that being said, I mean, like, we didn't really talk about anything other than creativity. But there are approximately 8 million jobs in the US, at least, that are administrative jobs, like ultrasound technician, jobs, like administrative assistant, many lawyers are probably going to find themselves, you know, not not as needed. And and so, you know, while you know, there, I do think that there is a changing, that the world is changing around us. And in some ways, we've already seen it happen. I mean, the question I always ask people, when I when I talk about AI is like when's the last time you use a travel agent, really good flight algorithms to choose your flight has made it and also the change in norms around work that now I'm expected to spend several hours of my work week choosing my flights. You know, these two things have changed around us. And nothing has, particularly besides the algorithms sprung up to replace it. But those are jobs that have been lost. And hopefully those people can be re skilled, or they can't, and then there needs to be a changing rule. But you know, when it comes to the question of Creative Commons, and how, you know, we really can foster a global commons, if I can just sort of leave us with this. David bullier, a scholar of the commons says that there are three main things that need to happen within a global commons and that are within a common system and that is governance, social life and provisioning. So if we consider something like universal basic income, or at least a minimum standard of living as a provisioning, norms, and governance, as norms as governance, and then we have creative commons, it's a social life, right? We're a community of people who are coming together around these questions. And so I really want when we think of our Creative Commons, to really think about how creative Commons can really be a commons and foster policies. And again, I'm using the same word norms that that do foster these three elements of comments. Thank you very much.
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