Should AI Be Allowed to Train On My Work?
How long before it’s as consistently mediocre as I am?
A new AI tool called Seedance 2.0 is making waves with not-totally-shitty-looking videos made for very little money. It’s been used to make a short film about time travel, a rooftop battle o’ hunks between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, and the type of blockbuster effects movie that often puts me to sleep on an airplane. And also: Porn porn porn — surely so much porn! — but that hasn’t been publicized.
Here’s the Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise video:
Hollywood hasn’t been this angry since MeToo narc’d on everyone’s fun. The Motion Picture Association, SAG-AFTRA, and Disney all sent letters to Seedance’s parent company, Bytedance, and yes: That’s the same Bytedance that made TikTok, the app that teaches America’s youth about the glories of communism and body dysmorphia. Legal action seems likely to follow; the only thing growing more rapidly than AI right now might be case law about AI.
Some people are angry that AI is often trained using copyrighted works. You can understand why people are pissed; it’s one thing to have a robot steal your job, it’s another thing to show the robot the ropes before it kicks you onto Skid Row. I certainly have a dog in this fight; I’ll be out on my ass if AI ever learns precisely which Simpson’s reference to pair with which warmed-over centrist libtard observation.
But I feel like the debate on this topic is often muddled. So, here’s my attempt to make sense of the various issues at play.
