Mastodon.art just banned AI art

[Ms. Toad]

27. Your focus wasn't on the issues of licensing and plagiarizing.

You described it as inherently bac - specifically that it was bad because it was lazy art and people needed to learn the skills. (And suggested lawsuits were an appropriate way to solve the problem you described.)

Those are two very different issues. Your assertion was, at its core, that the use of automated tools to do the work which traditionally has been done manually is bad. It's not inherently bad - it's a choice, similar to the choice to use film or digital cameras; to use a physical darkroom v. a digital one.

The focus of any lawsuit wouldn't be on whether using newer tools is bad. It's on whether the manufacturer or user of the tools are complying with the law: did they properly license the underlying work? Are they claiming they wrote an essay when the rules of the relevant forum prohibit the use of AI tools in any submitted essay?

Lawsuits aren't the way to resolve whether using tools in creating art or writing is a good thing (or not).

Back when I started teaching I had similar concerns about using calculators in high school math/science classes. I used a slide rule when I was in high school. My graduation present was a 4-function calculator which cost around $100. So 4 years later, when I started teaching, I prohibited students from using slide rules because I believed it made them lazy - and - because relying on "magic" to do arithmetic - especially for those who struggled with arithmetic - was bad (and would lead to students who could not cope in the world because they believed whatever the calculator spit out was correct. (I was also concerned about the cost of the tools, which put them out of reach of students with fewer resources.)

I was wrong. As soon as calculators were reasonably priced, I asked the school to purchase calculators (to relieve any lingering concerns about equity of resources). I used them in my very, very basic math class (Essentially - now that you know 1+1=2, what co you do with it.) I was required to have my students take the same final exam as every other class (where calculators were prohibited) - but they were not permitted to use calculators on the exam. I was terrified the first year that once my students were deprived of calculators they would bomb. What I discovered was that once they were no longer to struggle with the mechanics of performing arithmetic, they were able to understand how to use it appropriately.

The same may be true of AI, particularly in writing. A lot of people struggle with the mechanics of writing. AI could be used by creative instructors in the same way I used calculators - to relieve the barrier to writing so that they aren't struggling too much to understand how to use it. It can also be used to teach art appreciation/critique.

But the reluctance of those in the fields to accept a new tool is unrelated to whether the tool can be legally used (as currently constructed).