Hi everyone!
I came across an interesting article the other day about the use of AI-generated art for promotional purposes. The article (https://sfstandard.com/arts-culture/people-are-not-happy-that-the-sf-ballet-used-ai-generated-art-to-promote-the-nutcracker/) describes how the promotional material for The Nutcracker caused an uproar among the public solely due to the fact that the illustration used was an AI-generated art. I was aware that many people are not in favour of AI-generated art/books/etc., but I hadn’t realized the extent to which the public is against AI-generated work.
It seems like the general sentiment of the public and artists is that AI-generated art “is stealing intellectual property and robbing living, breathing artists of the opportunity to earn money.” Another article (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/independent-artists-are-fighting-back-against-a-i-image-generators-with-innovative-online-protests-2231334/amp-page) illustrates how artists are protesting against AI-generated art.
My thought is that although there are lots of objections to AI-generated art at the moment, the use and development of AI-generated art and work is inevitable. It’s bound to become more and more widespread in the future. Given this inevitability, I think the law around AI-generated work should progress in a way that considers artists’ interests as well as society’s technological advancement. I’m not sure what that might look like, but I guess that is what we, as future lawyers, would need to think about in our career!
Communications Law
Am going to push back slightly. I agree that the balancing of interests, even the legal tests, can and perhaps should accommodate the human impacts. That might lead to a conclusion that A.I. creativity is too derivative to be original and therefor not copyrightable. That said, I suspect the broader backlash against A.I. creativity is simply a form a techno-prejudice and will ebb in time. We will see…