Training AI on copyrighted material is no more illegal or unethical than training human beings on copyrighted material (from library books or borrowed books, nonetheless!). And trying to challenge the veracity of generative AI systems on the notion that it was trained on copyrighted material only raises the specter that IP law has lost its validity as a public good.
The only valid concern about generative AI is that it could displace human workers (or swap out skilled jobs for menial ones) which is a problem because our society recognizes the value of human beings only in their capacity to provide a compensation-worthy service to people with money.
The problem is this is a shitty, unethical way to determine who gets to survive and who doesn’t. All the current controversy about generative AI does is kick this can down the road a bit. But we’re going to have to address soon that our monied elites will be glad to dispose of the rest of us as soon as they can.
Also, amateur creators are as good as professionals, given the same resources. Maybe we should look at creating content by other means than for-profit companies.
The flip side to this is an escalation of break-ups that happen on or around Valentine’s Day every year, since the holiday encourages those en-coupled to have serious conversations with themselves about their relationship and if they actually like where they are and with whom. Surprise! Not so much.
Valentines day is about the tragedy of romance, either not having it or not getting it or finding out it was wrong all along.
And day-after chocolate sales.