‘I Made This’ ⇥ hypercritical.co
In its current state, generative AI breaks the value chain between creators and consumers. We don’t have to reconnect it in exactly the same way it was connected before, but we also can’t just leave it dangling. The historical practice of conferring ownership based on the act of creation still seems sound, but that means we must be able to unambiguously identify that act. And if the same act (absent any prior legal arrangements) confers ownership in one context but not in another, then perhaps it’s not the best candidate.
I ruminated on similar themes earlier this week, and last month, and before that — and I will probably keep linking to and writing about this subject. In the abstract, one thing I appreciate about this moment is how challenging this technology is. It requires us to think deeply about what we want from intellectual property law, technology, and art.
Of course, the people tossing out bottomless funding do not seem to care much for thinking about questions like these. They are preoccupied with putting “e/acc” in their Twitter handle and promoting this stuff relentlessly, as they always have.