Musicians, photographers, screenwriters, writers, journalists and programmers are rebelling against ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligences (GAI), which train with their works without their authorization and without paying them. Petitions, strikes and lawsuits flourish.
The camp of IAG publishers, on the contrary, questions the legitimacy of authors to claim rights if the artificial works do not resemble the initial works. We invoke freedom of learning, of inspiration, of style. It is worth recalling that the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 2016 that the digitization of books by Google constituted a “fair use” and “Google Books provided significant public benefits”which justified not remunerating the authors.
In Washington, the Senate and the Copyright Office have taken up the problem, but history is almost written in advance. The general public will prefer the magic of free IAG to the protests of rights holders, as in the early days of online music exchanges, despite the remonstrances of policeman Hadopi.
Loss of originality and diversity
We will discuss the beginnings of photography, when Charles Baudelaire protested in vain against its artistic use. We will argue about competition with the Chinese so that innovation prevails over “corporatist demands”. A few cosmetic concessions, such as the possibility given to authors to prohibit IAGs from using their works, will complete the return to normal.
However, this scenario takes us straight to the subculture. Music platforms are already overwhelmed with artificial tracks. Large image databases are populated at the rate of three artificial images for every two author images. However, 90% of the Internet’s information stock is less than two years old. As the pace increases, the majority of content will soon be artificial.
The IAG will feed on its own content, the quality of which will be sorted by the traces of interest left on platforms like TikTok. Losses of originality and diversity will be matched by gains in productivity, and artificial culture will follow the sad path of junk food.
Drawing inspiration from the Beaumarchais mechanism
Elon Musk, boss of Tesla and Twitter (renamed X), warns of a threat “existential” for the survival of humanity. Beyond the outrageous style we know, we must anticipate the day when everyone will think that creativity is not reserved for humans. The feeling of humanity’s decline in the face of machines will then join and amplify ecological pessimism.
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