comment: >
  
  At what point were the images stolen? 
  When a computer loaded the publically open web pages that they are on, and downloaded them into it's cache? (the way you would watch any copyrighted picture on the internet)? 
  When it saved them into a computer's permanent folder? (the equivalent of a human hitting right-click save on a picture)?
  When the algorithm constructed a 2 Gb model out of 240 Tb of images, containing less than a pixel's worth of data from each image?
  When I typed in "big boobs anime waifu, very big boobs, massive boobs, by Greg Rutkowski, giant boobs", and the program created a new image based on that model's statistical understanding of what those words mean, (again, with the model containnig less than one pixel's worth of data from each specific image at the time)?
context: It's simpler than that. Mixing an image with data from hundreds of thousands of others is sufficient alteration to get around any sane copyright law, and the provision of a text prompt and refinement of the image through onboard tools and image editing software qualifies as a form of authorship. >
  
  Very interesting, if that’s true then art theft would be difficult to prove in these cases. May I ask where you found this is to be true by providing a source? >
  
  Of course art theft will be impossible to prove as long as the output is sufficiently different from any originals. >
  
  Yep you might be right. I guess the exception to this is when prompting an AI to generate art in a certain artist’s style, e.g., Van Gogh >
  
  Still not art theft. It has never been theft to draw/paint in someone else's style. >
  
  Correct, by itself it may not be theft. A problem may arise when you try to pass AI-generated “Van Gogh style” art as Van Gogh’s actual artworks, for example. An untrained eye may likely be fooled into thinking the AI-generated artwork is actually Van Gogh’s if images do not record where they came from (e.g., an image says whether it was created by AI art generation software in its file metadata), and whether that is the human’s fault may be debatable. It is an issue of authenticity. >
  
  I think that the theft accusation mainly comes from AI learning algorithms. Like companies feed copyrighted art to the algorithm for it to be able to create AI generated image, without asking artists for permission, or paying artists for using their work to teach algorithm.  Also, algorithms are able to create works that are dangerously close to real artist's works. Imagine that company needs to create a promotional image. They ask a programmer to create this image using AI. AI was trained on actual artist's works, without him knowing about it, or getting payed for his works being used. AI creates an image, that is 98% similar to artists work. This way, company gets their image, without paying anything to the artist, but getting same quality work. This is what happened to DeviantArt. They just stealthily automatically opted in to train their AI algorithm on everything that any user ever posted on their site without informing users that their artwork is being used. Using artwork without artist's permission is theft. >
  
  
  Also, algorithms are able to create works that are dangerously close to real artist's works. Imagine that company needs to create a promotional image.  
  Imagine that company needs to create a promotional image. They ask a programmer to create this image using AI. AI was trained on actual artist's works, without him knowing about it, or getting payed for his works being used. AI creates an image, that is 98% similar to artists work.
  
  Humans are already able to create copyright-infringing art and we can decide to criminalize it for that, not for the method that was used to create it.
  They can do it by hand, or by opening a picture up in photoshop and only slightly editing it, not enough to count as Fair Use.
  Hell, you can draw a brand new, visually interesting and unique picture of Spiderman, and distributing it commercially is still copyright infringement just because of the character it contains.
  But in all these cases, being able to look at it and see that it's a direct or at least indirect copy of something specific, is the necessary requirement to calling it theft.
  By arguing against AI art on that principle, but also generally on the basis of it being trained on other images, you are creating a much stricter standard than previously.
  Yeah, if an AI creates an image that is 98% the copy of another specific image, that's copyright infringement. But what if it doesn't? If it scans hundreds of thousands of artworks, and then it creates a new one, that doesn't directly resemble any of the existing ones, then how is that theft? If just scanning people's artworks and adding the tiniest bit of detail based on each of them to how you draw your own pictures is theft, then OP is right, and humans doing the same would already be theft too. >
  
  
  Hell, you can draw a brand new, visually interesting and unique picture of Spiderman, and distributing it commercially is still copyright infringement just because of the character it contains.
  
  nope, that's a trademark violation, not copyright infringement.
  
  but also generally on the basis of it being trained on other images, you are creating a much stricter standard than previously.
  
  its a bit of a different standard.
  But, distributing or deploying software that contains a model derived from copyrighted images isn't entirely different than distributing software that statically linked to a library.  In software, if someone's distributed or deployed binary is derived from my code, those distributing or deploying have some obligation to comply with my copyright.
  the line between data and code is a bit fuzzy.  Under current interpretation of copyright, distributing a binary that is in part derived from data used without permission is fine, where a binary derived in part from code used without permission is not. I think the resemblance is there. >
  
  
  But, distributing or deploying software that contains a model derived from copyrighted images isn’t entirely different than distributing software that statically linked to a library.
  
  those are completely different, what an absurd notion >
  
  use my code in your binary you distribute or deploy, you need my permission.
  use my art in your binary you distribute or deploy, you don't need my permission.
  the only difference is just what is considered fair use. >
  
  the art used for the training set isn’t deployed with the model, it’s not at all comparable to using a library or binary that literally must ship with the code in order to function >
  
  a trained model contains data derived from the art it was trained on.
  just as a static library doesn't contain the code but does contain data derived from the code.
  if you don't ship the data derived from the art (the model) your program won't function.
  the only difference is what is considered fair use.  a static library is considered to have too much of the content from the code.  a trained model is considered to have sufficiently little information for the picture to be considered fair use to distribute. >
  
  
  derived from the art it was trained on
  
  also known as: not the art >
  
  a static library isn't the code, either.
  if I write a c++ library, and someone else compiles it into a static library that they statically link to for a binary they distribute, there's no c++ code in the resulting executable.  The executable just contains the binary output of the compiler, not the source code.
  but, someone distributing that executable still has to comply with the license terms of my c++ library. >
  
  what do you mean? it’s exactly derived from your code, translated in a perfectly reproducible way to be packed efficiently and processed efficiently by a machine, it’s not at all comparable to training data >
  
  Humans also inject their own experience into the work. The AI does not have any other experiences. This is a fundamental difference >
  
  Sure it does, it's been trained on billions of images, and millions of iterations. That's more experience than a human could have in a lifetime. >
  
  I think you're missing the point - 
  
  it's been trained on billions of images, and millions of iterations
  
  billions of stolen images. It does not insert anything into the "art" that is not based on the work of another person. >
  
  None of those images are stolen. >
  
  That is what we're debating here, yes.
  Point is: there is a major difference between a human's life experiences flowing into art or an AI using other art to create art.