Fundamentally I don't understand the desire to make AI "creative" As a tool for medicine, science, spotting patterns so good for catching fraudsters and criminals, yes, but as an "artist", why? Is it just jealousy from those who run the companies, because it's something they can't do?

I suspect it’s simpler than that. More people want to be able to “make art” by issuing vague instructions than need a protein folding utility, so there’s money.

🤔 "twat" or "tech bro apologist who worked for a Trump arse kisser trying to protect the possible share price of a company that peddles a planet damaging, shonky product that nobody actually wants"

Someone elsewhere noted that we'd been warned by the SF writers that our future was grey goo. It just turns out that it's literary rather than physical.

So market forces, so beloved of capitalists, basically will kill the AI industry, so let's alter the market forces to save the capitalists.

Yeah - constant chorus of “break capitalism so we can make money.” It’s some other -ism in a trench coat. Corporatism? Extractionism? Dunno. Beyond the obvious one, but that’s a different question.

Extractionism. I like that one.

It's the logical extension of the privatising essential utilities then heavily subsidising them from the public purse because we can't afford to have an essential utility go under. Invent a utility, then *claim* it's essential so that the public must subsidise it.

the old pulling yourself up by my bootstraps

Ask any Chilean why the blackouts are so frequent…

Also 'kill the industry'? In order to save a few companies and some rich people; none of whom existed before the very short now? He'd prefer to kill creativity, or at least commit GBH on a profession that has been around almost since the year dot.

And of course AI requires enormous amounts of energy and water while compounding the climate crisis. I’m sure the electricity companies are delighted to supply the power for free.

Haven't they already infringed copyright on a massive scale? It is now a matter of compensation.

I mean… you’d think.

it's a matter of them *avoiding* remuneration

1 this is an industry talking point. It’s interesting to ask which version of AI requires this, and what the use cases are. Pretty sure Alpha Fold doesn’t care about novels, for example.

2 it’s not uncommon, in megamoney deal-making, for companies to acquire something they cannot afford by leveraging, signing long term profit-share deals, or offering stock. That the industry chooses to ignore these options here is about perceived power, not tech or finance.

3 it would not ultimately be inappropriate, IF the technology were demonstrably as important as proposed, for a government to cut a deal with its creatives - tax breaks, UBI, whatever - in exchange for training rights, then secure concessions from tech. Again, not discussed.

Their logic seems to be that copyrighted content is an essential input for AI, for which they should escape paying because AI is essential for our futures. But if they are right should we not simply expropriate the benefits of AI without paying for it?

4 Government could (and, in the event, must) use taxation to secure the future viability of human arts. Tax AI art products heavily to level the playing field and incentivise hiring humans.

UBI for artists, paid for by a tax on AI companies is the closest thing to a solution this I've ever heard.

It’s a great starting point for a conversation; there’s a lot of devil in that detail.

Absolutely. It's a conversation worth having. It's much better than the "just gonna have to live with it" nonconversation we're having now.

5 The tech industry is desperate to present this as a binary - “give us everything or lose everything” - because a more nuanced discussion of real options is hugely damaging to the creation of ridiculous money - but not to the furtherance of actual usable ML/LLM tech.

6 This is a hilarious - and perfectly reasonable - response. Love it. Mic drop from Stephen :) bsky.app/profile/step...

I'm for it, once we figure out what those "benefits" are.

HAAAA

7 just to close: I think it pays to examine the detail and the policy options in this conversation, however much one might wish to Thanos-snap the whole thing and send Nick Clegg to some kind of perpetual cameo in the techbro soap opera which increasingly feels like his natural home.

Nick clegg is absolutely wrong. Again.