A Valve artist has defended AI disclosures on storefronts like Steam, saying they only scare those with “low effort” products.
A Valve artist has defended AI disclosures on storefronts like Steam, saying they only scare those with “low effort” products.
Downloading isn’t stealing, and in this case the law doesn’t agree with you either, nor does Steam; games developed with AI are legal and allowed. You’re entitled to your opinion about the ethics of it, and I think it’s fine if people want to only buy games without AI, but this is an incredibly petty way to rationalize organized harassment against people with no ill intent trying to realize their dreams. The only reason anyone goes after them is because they are softer targets than any of the billionaires and corporations doing actually questionable things with the technology.
Plagiarism is.
And let’s be perfectly clear: we’ve heard from megacorporations for decades now that downloading is theft. But suddenly it isn’t now that they benefit from it? Fuck that. When Lars Ulrich himself emerges from his greasy crust and admits that downloading isn’t theft, then maybe - maybe we can talk about AI scraping everyone’s hard work not being theft. Until then, you have the entire public domain to use, just like everyone else. If you don’t think that’s enough, then maybe the megacorps shouldn’t have spent most of a century robbing humanity of a robust public domain.
Downloading isn’t stealing??? Are you delusional? It is in this case. Just because the law doesn’t recognise it is irrelevant, I’m not talking about legality, I’m talking about the ethics of ripping off small, underpaid artists.
Download a game, or a movie, or an album without the required license. That’s piracy.
If I download a Disney movie, and use clips of it in my game, how do you think a court case would go?
Or if I download idk, a Taylor Swift album and use that in my game without a license, do you think the law would agree with me or Taylor Swift?
And my only excuse is “I couldn’t afford to make my own music so I used yours”?
Using ai is no different. You’re taking someone else’s work, not paying for it, and using it in your training model without permission.
Just because they may have no ill intent is irrelevant, it only speaks to their ignorance on the matter.
“I’m sorry officer I didn’t mean to speed, I had no ill intent”. Ok, you’re still getting a ticket. Ignorance is no excuse.
You’re talking about your supposed right to enforce your idea of ethics on people who don’t agree with you, in a situation where there is no universal consensus, there is no law backing you up, and all supposed harms are abstract, indirect, and essentially a dispute about market competition.
It matters because it’s one clear reason why the people harassing them are assholes. Pretty different from a situation where someone has violated an established law very closely linked to putting people at risk of direct physical harm and that law is being enforced.
Uh yeah man there’s some people who are actually ok with having the brain worms inserted into other people’s ears? Sure it kills them and it’s being used for genocide but there’s no law against brain worms and since there’s like, a handful of people ok with it and it’s not 100% universally condoned ethically and it’s not illegal everywhere then how could you possibly be so mean to impose your morality on other people?!
That’s what you sound like.
“Oh hey billionaires are making Earth destroying computers that are killing jobs and stealing art and music and saying humans are better off without doing the one thing that we’ve always regarded as fundamental for humanity, but some idiots like instant gratification so they are ok with it, so no one should be saying anything bad about the earth destroying theft machines”
“illegal = unethical” is a fascist take
The harms are real, but it’s also about control over your creations that you own, would you want your creations stolen, copied, mashed up with other stolen creations and the occational public domain thing, and extruded as slop?
Or a better question, do you want the right for your creations not to be used like this? Surely it would be good if you could specify AI policies in licenses and they were legally enforceable?