I was expecting a much stronger argument based on the headline.

Personally I’d prefer regulation on how social media is structured and how algorithms operate. First thing I’d do is ban infinite scroll, which corporations like because it increases ‘engagement’ whilst harming the quality of the experience for their users.

They only want to ban social media and even then only the big ones with an exception for youtube.

These AI models require huge amounts of electricity. If governments wanted to they could destroy their ability to operate, like when China banned bitcoin mining.

I like how the article presents this as some super secret conspiracy when Mitt Romney and others made public statements openly admitting to this.

There are cases progressing through the courts. If the courts rule that copyright has been violated by the AIs under current laws then we won’t need to create a new offense or expand IP laws currently on the books.

wtf are people actually buying

A unique work of art I guess since it’s unlikely anyone would be able to replicate the prompt in order to get the same results.

When someone makes use of a service and doesn’t pay afterwards that is considered to be theft even if the provider hasn’t been deprived on anything. For example, if I snuck into an art gallery without paying I won’t remove anything tangible since the gallery’s overheads and running costs were fixed long before I arrived.

A better word would be copyright infringement if the AI is making use of other works without a license or other permission. Based on my reading of the article it appears those involved only fed the AI works in the public domain or works that they had created themselves. The letter of complaint appears to be signed by artists who are unaware of these circumstances.

This is from Q4 when ad spending doubles in the run up to Christmas. Q1 would probably earn half as much.

Plus it was an election year so loads of money from campaign ads, too.