Hey, “creatives”…Welcome to the working world.
Some very famous authors are suing OpenAI, claiming copyright infringement. Similar suits have been brought for comedy and images.
But these lawsuits have two prongs to them:
- The valid legal prong — Has OpenAI (and Midjourney, Meta, Stability AI, etc) violated copyright law?
- The fearful and whiny prong — Is AI better than us at our jobs, and will it supplant us in the future?
The Valid Legal Prong
Fair enough. Copyright law exists to protect the creators. It’s complicated, has a long history, and is generally well-legislated.
The main question in my mind: Is it a copyright violation for another entity (human or AI) to consume copyrighted material legally and then use it as a base of knowledge from which to create other material?
An ancillary question: Has the AI entity consumed the copyrighted material legally?
I’m interested to see how it turns out. Basically, I trust the legal process.
The Fearful and Whiny Prong
What makes you so special?
The working world has been dealing with job replacement for 100’s of years. Content creation is no different.
Creatives have jobs because people like to consume your content. But make no mistake, the consumers don’t care who or what is creating the content. They just know what they like.
The good news is that, like with all job replacements, the outlook for creatives isn’t dismal. All it takes to remain relevant is for you to figure out how to add value.
