AI will actually be a game changer - even in the area of art . . .

[britechguy]

. . . not that I doubt that anyone here doesn't already know this.

This morning, when I opened Paint to work with an image, I noticed a new button for "Cocreator" and, when activated, it asked if I wanted to join the preview, so I thought, "What the heck." Below was my first, quick attempt at having Cocreator make me an image based strictly on a brief verbal description. The result is incredibly good, and the variants presented are all equally good. I'll have to play with the other styles just to see what they look like. But there's no doubt that this will be a game changer for those who want to create images that they can accurately describe, in detail, but who have no art training or skill whatsoever. The question then becomes, who owns copyright?

 

[phaZed]

The question then becomes, who owns copyright?

Ya! Been using it since 2020(?) or so with Stable Diffusion running locally on my GPU's. Pretty amazing stuff, really.

In the end, for me, the answer to your final question is easy to me - though, I'm sure it will be a problem point and debated in the future.
You/I own the copyright. The tool does not. When digital editing (Photoshop etc.) came along, nobody asks if Photoshop should be the copyright holder because it has brushes and tools to allow the creation. Same thing here. The tool needed your input to provide a result.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Quite an eye there, looks like a pearl! Ask it to add the symbiotic ants!

 

[britechguy]

Ask it to add the symbiotic ants!

Actually, those are not common at all on tree peony blooms. Herbaceous peonies are a different story altogether and certain cultivars are routinely alive with ants!

@phaZed: There is still, to me, a fundamental difference. With Photoshop, etc., the tool had nothing to do with the creative generative process. It was akin to using a paintbrush to paint. No one has ever tried to say that painters tools owned the resulting painting. But now these things are actually doing a huge portion of the generative process. Mind you, I agree with you in that they require human direction to do it, but what they're actually doing is fundamentally different that what "the tools of yore" did as far as actual creation of the content itself. That's why I anticipate lots of legal wrangling, just as I anticipate lots of legal wrangling surrounding "who's responsible" when autonomous vehicles have accidents, and they will, and they will occasionally be the "at fault vehicle."

 

[phaZed]

Actually, those are not common at all on tree peony blooms. Herbaceous peonies are a different story altogether and certain cultivars are routinely alive with ants!

@phaZed: There is still, to me, a fundamental difference. With Photoshop, etc., the tool had nothing to do with the creative generative process. It was akin to using a paintbrush to paint. No one has ever tried to say that painters tools owned the resulting painting. But now these things are actually doing a huge portion of the generative process. Mind you, I agree with you in that they require human direction to do it, but what they're actually doing is fundamentally different that what "the tools of yore" did as far as actual creation of the content itself. That's why I anticipate lots of legal wrangling, just as I anticipate lots of legal wrangling surrounding "who's responsible" when autonomous vehicles have accidents, and they will, and they will occasionally be the "at fault vehicle."

But, the way the AI works fundamentally is by using math, directed by your words. Without your words, it produces nothing. Without a training model, based on millions(?) of other images and context, it produces nothing.

Edit: Also, copyright can't be held by a non-human.. AI can't hold a copyright, just as a router can't hold a copyright for producing network packets. You could argue that Microsoft or the AI parent company could hold the copyright, but then again, they had no input on the creation of the work.

when autonomous vehicles have accidents, and they will, and they will occasionally be the "at fault vehicle."

I would disagree. It would be the fault of the vehicle manufacturer (recalls) for not having a safe product. Of course, what I think, and what society at large finds to be the "truth" of the matter is often entirely at odds. Lol.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Actually, those are not common at all on tree peony blooms. Herbaceous peonies are a different story altogether and certain cultivars are routinely alive with ants!

Ahh...different type than I see up in these parts...I've not seen them so open in the middle like yours, usually the ones up here are more like solid balls. No visible "eyes" for the most part. They usually have ants on them for a while, common myth that it's for pollenating, but it's false, the ants just crawl around them eating mites and other small bugs that are common on peonies (attracted by the sweet smell if I recall)

In one of my prior lives I was a manager at a florist/greenhouse, and got into tropical plants...orchids, anthuriums, birds of paradise, etc. Still have a few orchids at home (phalaenopsis)

 

[Diggs]

I screen-shot a picture of an electronic speed controller that had everything (pin-outs) in hungarian(?) and fed it to Google's AI. I instantly received an English version of it including model, wattage, etc. You couldn't do this only a couple years ago. This is not a text to text translation. This is a a very grainy and busy .jpg screeny pasted into chat.

 

[britechguy]

Still have a few orchids at home (phalaenopsis)

Amateur!

I have somewhere in the area of 100 plants (which is, in the orchid collecting world, "a small collection") and have had a 3-tier light table with six 8-foot LED tubes on each level where they live for the winter for at least 20 years now.

Two of my phals are sitting in the room with me right now blooming their heads off and it's just past peak cattleya bloom season. Soon, the great spring schlep-a-thon to get them all out of the basement and on to the outdoor stands for the summer will begin. It's not safe to do that here until Mother's Day as come and gone, and there's still a very slight risk of a very late frost after that.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah I have slowed way to down on the plants....compared to where I was 25+ years ago.
When I move to FL full time, and buy our own house (after a year or two of renting down there waiting for things to settle), I hope to have a gorgeous back yard area where I will get back into this hobby and surround the yard with tropical plants of all types! Also love staghorn ferns...love the large hanging ones some people have down there, or some huge ones growing out of the crotch of a tree.

 

[HCHTech]

Also, copyright can't be held by a non-human.

This may be the key, and let's hope we don't need to add "yet" to that sentence.

 

[britechguy]

But isn't copyright also held by corporations? I know that corporations (and LLCs) are, in the eyes of the law, "a virtual person on paper," but still.

It need not be a real, living, breathing human being that holds copyright. These days, I doubt that most copyrights are held by actual humans.

 

[phaZed]

But isn't copyright also held by corporations? I know that corporations (and LLCs) are, in the eyes of the law, "a virtual person on paper," but still.

It need not be a real, living, breathing human being that holds copyright. These days, I doubt that most copyrights are held by actual humans.

Yes, it can be held by a Corporation as the Copyright Claimant - but on the same form it asks for the Author(s) name and address... whether it be an employee of the company or be it a "Work made for hire" 3rd party. So, to me, it looks like the work is attributed to a person or group of people from which it can then be assigned to the claimant (Corporation). It doesn't appear that "the corporation", the entity, can file for a Copyright. An officer of the corporation, a person, would be needed and listed.

I'm not a lawyer. I could be entirely wrong.. but this is the sense I have had about copyrights in the past.