zlacker

> From a worker's perspective, the automation is coming from "the outside".

Not, if the worker is an engineer or similar. Some engineers built tools that improved building tools.

And this started even earlier than the industrial revolution. Think for example of Johannes Gutenberg. His real important invention was not the printing press (this already existed) and not even moveable types, but a process by which a printer could mold his own set of identical moveable types.

I see a certain analogy between what Gutenberg's invention meant for scribes then and what Stable Diffusion means for artists today.

Another thought: In engineering we do not have extremly long lasting copyright, but a lot shorter protection periods via patents. I have never understood why software has to be protected for such long copyright periods and not for much shorter patent-like periods. Perhaps we should look for something similar for AI and artists: An artist as copyright as usual for close reproductions, but after 20 years after publication it may be used without her or his consent for training AI models.

>>Archel+(OP)
>Not, if the worker is an engineer or similar. Some engineers built tools that improved building tools

Those engineers consented to creating the new tools so that's different

>>Riogha+zR
That was not what was at issue in my comment. It referred to a sentence where the Parent was not talking about Stable Diffusion in particular, but about what he claimed was a general difference from the usual conditions since the industrial revolution. My comment merely referred to the fact that this is not generally true everywhere (in most specific cases, of course, it may very well be true). In this context, the real difference, however, with regard to Stable Diffusion is not the involuntary nature of the artists' "contributions", but the fact that the artists are not usually the developers of the AI software. In this respect, the Parent is right that for them all this comes from "the outside". It is just that I wanted to point out that this does not apply equally to all professional groups.

>>Riogha+zR
Some did, others did not. But those who did could still use the entire engineering corpus of knowledge they have studied towards their goal, even if they learned it from those who would not approve.