AI Labs are getting a tiny cut of the hundreds saved by not hiring an artist.

So regular people save hundreds, the labs get a few dollars, and the artists get nothing.

The artists are still losing, but it's regular people, especially the least able, who are winning.

The coffee shop isn't cutting OAI a $300 check for doing their spring menu. They are pocketing $295 and paying OAI $5.

Then they found they could commission an actual artist to draw what they wanted for tens or hundreds of dollars, which is a very good price for getting exactly what you want without having to waste your time playing the token slot machine.

Having everyone pay phone/internet, office, streaming, music, etc., subscriptions to large tech companies that are effectively monopolies all do that. It's a bigger, pre-existing issue.

2) As one of these artists, I am entirely fine with my entire body of work being used for the purposes of model building. The tech is astonishing and fantastic, and I sincerely hope we will be better through it. As the parent suggested: The idea that people in general previously gave a fuck about compensating artists is hilarious. MS builds models with my work, random people bought, idk, another vacation in Thailand or a fourth pair of shoes with the money that they never spent on art. I know which one I would prefer.

But I do find it particularly juicy that people, who, on the whole, never thought too much about paying artists (which I am also fine with btw!), all of a sudden can't stop wringing their hands about the injustice of it all.

Turns out, if it's American oligarchs profiting from everyone's work, they love the idea!

Their teachers teach them from a very early age how to hold a carton, and how to draw.

Maybe some miraculous humans will reinvent all drawing of growing by themselves in the jungle, most people will not.

Source: I have kids.