For example, I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools. I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged by Copilot.
For myself, I am skeptical of intellectual property in the first place. I say go for it.
I am also not a hypocrite; I do not like DALL-E or Stable Diffusion either.
As a sibling comment implies, these AI tools give more power to people who control data, i.e., big companies or wealthy people, while at the same time, they take power away from individuals.
Copilot is bad for society. DALL-E and Stable Diffusion are bad for society.
I don't know what the answer is, but I sure wish I had the resources to sue these powerful entities.
Not sure I agree, but I can at least see the point for Copilot and DALL-E - but Stable Diffusion? It's open source, it runs on (some) home-use laptops. How is that taking away power from indies?
Just look at the sheer number of apps building on or extending SD that were published on HN, and that's probably just the tip of the iceberg. Quite a few of them at least looked like side projects by solo devs.
I imagine that Disney would take issue with SD if material that Disney owned the copyright to was used in SD. They would sue. SD would have to be taken off the market.
Thus, Disney has the power to ensure that their copyrighted material remains protected from outside interests, and they can still create unique things that bring in audiences.
Any small-time artist that produces something unique will find their material eaten up by SD in time, and then, because of the sheer number of people using SD, that original material will soon have companions that are like it because they are based on it in some form. Then, the original won't be as unique.
Anyone using SD will not, by definition, be creating anything unique.
And when it comes to art, music, photography, and movies, uniqueness is the best selling point; once something is not unique, it becomes worth less because something like it could be gotten somewhere else.
SD still has the power to devalue original work; it just gives normal people that power on top of giving it to the big companies, while the original works of big companies remain safe because of their armies of lawyers.
If a small time artist has their work stolen, they probably won't be able to fight it very well. They might be able to get a few taken down, but the sheer number will make it impossible to keep up.
Disney, on the other hand, will have armies of lawyers going after any copyright violation.
It seems the same whether AI is involved or not.
Because you are right: a few, and a small time artist can fight. Hundreds and thousands of copies, or millions, and even Disney struggles. That's why Disney would go after the model itself; it scales better.