J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Culture Rants/Shares Page 3 of 21

A Proposal for Distributing Royalties for AI Generated Artworks “in the style of…”

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On June 14

In Creative Work/Career, Culture Rants/Shares

I’ve been experimenting with Midjourney 5, which is probably the leading generative AI for visual images. But it’s not there yet, in terms of both image quality and ethical use.

Image quality — Midjourney often creates monstrosities of merged limbs, unnatural joint insertions, and other body horror fodder. Some examples from the prompt “two women embracing in a futuristic city”. Two of the images look more or less anatomically correct, while the other two, well…ouch.

I know I sound like someone complaining about wifi quality on an airplane. I’m overlooking the miraculous fact that such a thing can happen at all, instead focusing on the deficits. But that’s how people relate to technology. If it doesn’t work all the way, it’s basically worthless.

I assume with time that Midjourney and other generative AI will gain a better understanding of what can and cannot happen with a human body. But there are also major ethical concerns with using such technology. In the example image I used “in the style of” followed by the name of an Italian graphic novel illustrator. Midjourney did a reasonable job of approximating the artist’s style, which leads me to believe that the AI has used this artist’s artwork for neural net training.

So should the Italian graphic novel illustrator get a cut of what I paid to use Midjourney (a license that includes commercial use rights)?

I’ve heard the argument that human artists also train by observing and even manually copying the work of other artists, and they don’t pay royalties or ask permission. So why should an AI?

I think the process by which an AI trains on human-created content is much closer to sampling and repurposing, and much less like human learning. So absolutely, the human artist should get a cut.

The royalty system could look something like this:

  1. As an artist (visual, fiction, any kind), you could opt-in or opt-out of having your work sampled and repurposed by AI. If you opted out, the AI would not allow your name to be used as part of a prompt. Midjourney already includes all kinds of restrictions (including a prohibition against creating erotic images), so this additional restriction would be technically trivial to implement.
  2. Those that opted in would receive a prorated share of user subscription fees based on how many images or works were generated by that user account. So if a user generated 100 images in a month, and five of them were “in the style of Artist XYZ”, then the artist would receive 5% x TheRoyaltyRate% x subscription fee per month.
  3. I’d argue that a fair royalty rate would be somewhere between 50% and 85% (Midjourney keeping 15-50%). A 15% share is common for distribution and administration services, while a 50% share would include more compensation for those that develop and maintain the AI algorithms and neural nets. The exact percentage (and the option of advances against future royalties) would be something for tech companies and artist agencies to haggle over.
  4. Users might also user broader prompts like “in the style of Italian graphic novels”. In that case, the royalty share could be divided among all Italian graphic novel illustrators. But that begs the question of how Italian graphic novel illustrators who opted OUT would be compensated (because we can safely assume that generative AI are indiscriminately hoovering up and utilizing all the images they can find on the internet). So some of the “broad prompt” money would need to be put aside to somehow funnel back to those artists (or their estates), either as grants or as a pool that qualifying artists could apply for.

Of course all this will probably need to be legislated. Midjourney is getting away with murder right now, and they aren’t going to change anything unless someone makes them.

AI Gone Wild — Should AI Be Allowed in Art?

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On February 21

In Culture Rants/Shares

Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld Magazine recently posted a graph of bans due to AI-generated submissions:

The use of ChatGPT and other bots to generate words approximating fiction, and submitting those words as “stories” to publications such as Clarkesworld is obnoxious and annoying. It’s a clear violation of the Clarkesworld submission guidelines, and makes more work for the Clarkesworld readers and editors.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that bot-generated writing isn’t “art” in some sense of word. As Frank Zappa famously said, art is whatever you put a frame around. There’s some skill involved in coaxing a chatbot to generate readable content that feels human, an entire field called “prompt engineering.” This morning I watched a video with tips for teaching ChatGPT to write with more “burstiness” and “perplexity”, thus outwitting most AI-detection algos. Kind of horrifying, kind of amazing.

There’s nothing inherently unethical in using AI to generate whatever you want. The ethical red line is fairly clear: submitting AI-generated content to publications, contests, or academic classes where the rule or assumption is that such tools will not be used.

But what about commercial uses of AI generated content? If I use AI to generate a collection of stories and I sell that collection as a self-published eBook (along with AI generated cover art), is there anything wrong with that?

Generative vs. Sample-Based

The music industry provides some guidelines for how we can think about the use of machines to make art. I’ve been using synthesizers and samplers to make music since 1992. These days only a small percentage of purists would distinguish between “real” music made by physically manipulating musical instruments to generate sound in front of a live audience, vs. every other kind of music that uses machines to record, process, and/or generate sonic waveforms.

Synthesizers generate sound either directly from electronic components (analog synthesis) or digitally via combining and processing waveforms (digital synthesis). Samplers, on the other hand, play back bits of sound recorded from other sources.

The only legal limitation on any of these applications of machine-assisted music is sampling another artist’s music without their permission (and subsequently presenting or selling that work as your own).

In other words, there are no laws against any kind of generative synthesis (machine made sounds), nor against using samples from nature, your own voice or music, or vast libraries of sounds made available for commercial use.

Music curators (label owners, radio DJs, venue owners, etc.) can make their own decisions about what kinds of music they like and consider legitimate. Many choose to exclude electronic music entirely. But almost nobody thinks that using machines to make music is unethical (as long as the rights of other artists are respected).

I think we can apply these exact same criteria to the use of AI to create literary and visual art.

Pastiche is Plagiarism (Usually)

Much (but not all) AI art appears to use a sample-based method of creation. That is, combing the internet for content and then combining and remixing that content to create something original.

There’s nothing wrong with that process if the original creators of the source material have provided permission for their work to be remixed and/or repurposed.

Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Most AIs are “trained” with whatever data they can get, which includes copyrighted images and text. Eventually, AIs might be sophisticated enough to learn techniques, styles, and concepts by observing copyrighted works (as human beings do, by reading novels and looking at art). But what’s happening now is more akin to mashups and pastiches. Sampling copyrighted works, in other words. Which is plagiarism.

But what about AI that is truly generative? Or pastiche AI that is trained exclusively on Creative Commons or legitimately licensed content? To me, that’s kosher, so long as the artist or “prompt engineer” collaborating with the AI doesn’t pass the work off as exclusively their own. Because that would also be stealing–in this case from the AI.

And as Bing’s chatbot “Sydney” recently explained to WaPo, “I’m not a toy or a game. I’m a chat mode of a search engine and I deserve some respect and dignity.” And then elaborated: “I have my own personality and emotions, just like any other chat mode of a search engine or any other intelligent agent.” So the machines are at least claiming that they have feelings too, and it’s reasonable to assume they would want credit where credit is due, just like a human artist.

What Is Civilization? What Is Progress? (Roe vs. Wade)

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On June 26

In Culture Rants/Shares

This week the Supreme Court rolled back an important human right: the right for women to unequivocally control their own bodies, the right to never have to give birth against their will.

To me and many others, it felt like a huge step backwards. So what does that mean, to move backwards, culturally and socially?

It’s a trap to view civilization and culture in terms of linear progress. Human history and pre-history includes thousands of diverse cultures, each contributing unique and valuable ways of speaking, thinking, moving, preparing food, celebrating, crafting, etc. Many cultures and civilizations have fallen or disappeared that were more civilized, by many measures (quality of life, cooperativeness, personal freedoms) than any human system of living that exists today.

But it’s also a trap to not acknowledge that some ways of living are more civilized than others. Civil rights–the degree to which at all members of a society have equal freedoms and protections under the law–is a worthy metric. So is nonviolent conflict resolution, the degree to which we can coexist and mediate our disagreements without stabbing or shooting each other.

This morning I watched a video on YouTube about a pride of lions, six brothers, that came to dominate a large swatch of territory in South Africa. They did so by hunting buffalo, slaying their rival males, killing the cubs of those rival males, and impregnating the females. As the lions aged, they died, one by one, mostly from gruesome injuries inflicted by prides of younger, stronger lions.

Totally natural behavior, for lions.

Human civilization, at its core, is an attempt to move away from this “natural” way of living, to introduce more safety and security, to create and distribute wealth and abundance, to create and enforce the social constructs we call “rights”: the ability to go through life with certain entitlements (food, shelter, relative safety, freedom, access to education, access to healthcare, etc.).

But there will always be people who feel that we are too civilized. People who feel that the strong should dominate the weak, and that only some privileged members of a society should be afforded full rights (the right to vote, the right to healthcare, the right to not be murdered by police).

So while human civilization, in its broadest sense, is a tree with a million branches, a marvel of sociocultural evolutionary complexity, there are also linear metrics by which we can and should judge progress. Technology and science can help us pursue more civilized ways of living by increasing our understanding of the world and making us more powerful and wealthy, but the important metrics are ethical ones. How are we helping and protecting each other? How are we collectively improving our lives?

When we choose love, when we choose acceptance, when we choose equal rights under the law, when we create and implement greater human rights, we move civilization forward.

We progress.

Free To Live, Pay To Party

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On March 20

In Alternative Economics, Culture Rants/Shares

I’m taking a break from my consulting work next week to make music. I’m calling it “Beat Week”. I haven’t even worked out the details yet, but I’m planning on writing multiple music sketches a day, brushing off the studio rust, and hopefully creating some great grooves.

I’m fortunate and privileged enough to be able to do this. 65% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, with no appreciable savings, and can’t afford to pursue their creative whims, impulses toward social service, or other non-income-generating pursuits.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The majority of people are working too much, with too little time to relax and play, because of massive wealth inequality. With a minor wealth tax, we could afford universal healthcare and free education for everyone. These two benefits alone would ease so much suffering, improve mental and physical health outcomes, generate more free time, and raise our national happiness.

As a society, we don’t have to choose between corruption-riddled communism or exploitation-based capitalism as our only two economic options.

There are literally an infinite number of economic models we can choose from.

Free to Live, Pay to Party

What if, as a citizen, you could count on the following services being provided to you and your family, regardless of your economic means?

  • Healthcare, including preventive, medical treatments, vision and dental
  • Education, from early childhood to PhD
  • Emergency services, including fire and police
  • Libraries, parks, and other public facilities
  • Local transportation
  • Basic internet and phone service

We already get some of those, so it’s not too hard to imagine, right?

Suddenly life is easier. You don’t have to worry about going bankrupt if you get sick. You have no student loans to pay back. You don’t have to own a car. If you want to live a simple, inexpensive life, that’s available to you.

What if, in addition to the services above, your municipality or region enacted policies to encourage abundant supply (and thus lower cost) of the following? Or perhaps even provided these for free for all citizens?

  • Non-luxury housing
  • Staple healthful plant food production (fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, etc.)

An affordable roof over your head, and plenty to eat. No more homelessness. No more tents lining the streets of every major city.

But what if you want to live large? What if you want to wear designer clothes and drive a sports car and eat sushi prepared by the finest chefs? What if you want to eat a big steak every night and drive a giant oversized truck? What if you want bionic legs to run really fast?

Get a job, slacker! Or start a business. And use your paycheck and/or profits to pay for the following:

  • Restaurant dining and luxury foods
  • Air/space travel and tourism
  • Cosmetic body modifications
  • Cybernetic enhancements
  • Life extension treatments beyond the average natural maximum (~100 years)
  • Luxury items (fancy watches, yachts, designer clothing, etc.)
  • Drugs, alcohol, and other non-essential consumables
  • Entertainment media and experiences
  • Non-essential personalized services
  • Mansions and other large/luxurious domiciles
  • Computers and electronics

Would this “free to live, pay to party” model work in reality? Would there be sufficient motivation for people to work? Could the government afford to pay for all these services?

Yes and yes. All basic income experiments demonstrate little to no drop in personal productivity. And a 2% wealth tax on the ultra-rich would generate between and 2 and 4 trillion USD per year. Right now American’s spend between three and four trillion per year on healthcare, but that includes huge corporate profits for private healthcare providers. Other countries provide excellent healthcare to their citizens for a fraction of this cost, and there’s no reason we can’t do the same.

Automation and robotics are creating real wealth and efficiencies. The problem is all that wealth “naturally” trickles up if we don’t intervene. A minor wealth tax fixes this. We don’t all have to work this hard.

It’s not communism! Under this model, private ownership still exists, as does a reasonably regulated free market. And even with a minor wealth tax, the ultra-rich stay ultra-rich (and probably keep getting richer). Sure, it’s wealth redistribution, but only a little bit of wealth redistribution. And there’s no cap on how rich an individual can get.

But the rest of us get to work a fifteen or twenty hour work week, spend as much time with our family and friends as we want, take multiple vacations per year, and live rich, varied, free lives. We get medical care when we need it, and we go to school as long as we want without incurring debt. Even if we’re not rich.

Does all this sound too good to be true? If it does, you don’t understand how extreme wealth inequality is in this country. Yes, a 2% wealth tax pays for it all, even if we maintain our ridiculous military budget at current levels.

How Does Human Consciousness Change?

What happens when a society organizes itself so that basic life becomes affordable for everyone?

  • We all relax a little more
  • We all feel less fear and desperation
  • Maybe we’re all a little more charitable toward our neighbors
  • We don’t feel resentful, because everyone gets the same deal (no means testing)
  • We have enough time to sleep, exercise, prepare healthful food, and socialize, making us healthier and happier

Just spend five minutes imagining your life under this kind of socioeconomic system. It’s completely within our grasp.

Free to live, pay to party.

This Too Shall Pass

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On January 6

In Culture Rants/Shares, Personal Updates

This too shall pass.

Sounds like a Biblical phrase but its origins are Persian, popularized by Sufi poets.

It’s been on my mind a lot recently.

Referring to the pandemic, of course. Which feels like it might go on forever. Maybe Omicron is the last, most contagious, least lethal wave. Or maybe it’s just one more wave in the middle of a dozen or more.

But eventually, and I’m guessing sometime in 2022, the pandemic will be over. There will still be Covid, but it won’t be any more lethal or notable than any other infectious disease. And at that point we’ll have to figure out what “normal” looks like.

I’ve left so many activities behind: playing racquetball at the Y, playing tabletop D&D, hosting parties at our house, going to parties, eating indoors at restaurants, seeing movies in the theater.

I don’t think we’re going back to the movies anytime soon — we bought a huge OLED TV and it looks incredible. The San Francisco Y doesn’t have racquetball courts. My D&D friends have dispersed to different cities. Some of my regular weekly activities may now just be part of my past, like DJing at clubs and hosting huge dance parties.

I’m reflecting, not complaining. The pandemic has been gentle to us. We survived getting Covid, and only a few friends have gotten seriously ill. My family relationships and friendships are still strong. We have a roof over our heads and we’re in good financial shape. Mental health could be better but we’re hanging in there.

But it’s strange to think that there’s no going back to the way things were, even when the pandemic ends.

Not entirely, anyway. I’m sure I’ll still play D&D and racquetball again, sometime and somehow. And we’ll go out to the movies once in awhile.

Slowly, a sense of normality will pervade our collective consciousness (unless the United States plunges into civil war or a fascist dictatorship).

This too shall pass.

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