Bucktoothstudios

People in AI often justify the exploitation of creatives' work for AI training with versions of: 'If people can learn from your work, why can't AI?' But this totally ignores the social contract under which people create and share their work. Traditionally, when people created and shared work, they expected other people to learn from it. But they also expected the law to protect them from people using their work to compete with them. So you expect that young people will learn from you and make up the next generation of creatives - absolutely! But you also have good evidence that people are not allowed to take your work and use it to dilute the market you're in. They can't bootleg it. They can't remix it without your permission. You expect the law to protect you. This is the social contract under which people shared their work - for years, decades, arguably centuries. Then AI comes along. Tech types say 'it's just learning from your work, like people do'. But let's be clear - this use of your work came totally out of the blue. Virtually no creative out there expected it. They made what they made knowing and expecting that people would learn from them; they did not know or expect that AI would learn from them. They expected, rightly, the law to protect them from people using their work to compete with them, to dilute their market. *This is what AI does.* AI companies copy their work for training, then sell access to the trained model - *which competes at unheard-of scale with the people whose work it uses*. The social contract under which people create is being broken. Travel writers expected other travel writers to learn from them; they did not expect OpenAI to use their work to build a model that puts them out of work. Artists expected other artists to learn from them; they did not expect Midjourney to use their work to build a model that puts them out of work. Musicians expected other musicians to learn from them; they did not expect Suno to use their work to build a model that puts them out of work. AI breaks the social contract under which creatives make and share their work. Whatever you think the law says - IMO, much of what's happening infringes copyright - there is a broader truth here. Creatives had good reason to think think the law would protect them from things like AI, even if they didn't know AI was coming. Every poll of creatives shows huge objection to AI companies' mass exploitation of their work. This is a key reason why. The social contract has been ripped apart by a group of companies that place profit above the concerns of human creators.