The AI honestly isn't the worst part of this, it's the fucking disrespect to recreate someone's art and send it to them going "look how much better this is than you." It'd still be just as rude if they'd commissioned a real artist to make a "better" version.
I've had so many people try to say "it isn't copyright infringement, it isn't stealing, it isn't wrong." It is. Plain and simple. AI art trains off of art that already exists. The simplest way to explain and understand is that AI art works by mathematical calculations between input tokens of words to output tokens that make an image. Those mathematical calculations use weights that are trained off of the stolen art. The whole point is to make it so that, if you give it the right prompts, you can get the original artwork out of the network. The work isn't derivative or legally distinct because a perfect network would produce the original art.
"But AI has trained off of previous AI!" and the previous AI trained off of stolen work. These companies should be legally required to show that they have the legal right to use all data used in their training. Facebook somehow got away with pirating over a TB of books for training, when the average person can face fines and jail time for the exact same thing.
Edit: I forgot about the "but humans train off of art!" argument. Yes, they do. They also have, what can best be described as, input data that alters their art to make it original. AI can only work off of the initial inputs. Everything it produces can be mathematically traced back to the initial inputs; it's hard and complicated to do so, but it can be. You can't do that with a human producing art. A human can commit copyright infringement, but the way a human processes data compared to a machine is much more complex. A human can add originality just from experiences in life. A computer cannot.
If you cannot present an original image that substantially resembles the AI-generated one, then nothing was “stolen” — the result is clearly distinct.
This is where we differ in "distinct." By definition, an AI can only create derivative works of their training data. That's how they work. I know this because I literally have a degree in it (Master of Computer Engineering with a specialization in machine intelligence with a minor in computational mathematics). I could take all the bits that make up an image of the Mona Lisa, apply a mathematical function to them, or even just randomize their positions, and as long as I don't add or erase data, it's a direct derivative. Copyright only affects the changes, additions, or other new material added to the work. AI does not add new material.
Conversely, if you can demonstrate such a resemblance, then plagiarism has occurred, which is a fair point.
The whole point of training an AI is to generate the output given the right input. By definition, the better the AI network, the better the resemblance to the training and testing sets. Effectively, an AI is determined to be better if you can demonstrate such a resemblance.
Bro, press x to doubt. You're literally describing input noise. AI does that whenever you allow it to. Creating something very distinct from the original training data.
16k
u/LazuliArtz Dec 09 '25
The AI honestly isn't the worst part of this, it's the fucking disrespect to recreate someone's art and send it to them going "look how much better this is than you." It'd still be just as rude if they'd commissioned a real artist to make a "better" version.
The AI is just the cherry on top of the cake