Because AI generated content will soon surpass that of what any human over the past few hundred years has generated, we have to be prepared to live in a world where humans and machines interact at an unprecedented intimate level. While artists are not going ‘extinct’ their work will lose value. We have seen this before: when education didn’t need to occur physically thanks the to the internet, learning things became easier and cheaper (e.g., think Udemy, Coursera, etc); when music didn’t need to be purchased via vinyl, a cassette, or a CD, it became more accessible and cheaper (e.g., think iTunes, Spotify, etc), when books digitized, they became cheaper as eBooks. The commodification of a ‘product’ means that it becomes more accessible and therefore cheaper. This isn’t a bad thing! Because of these changes, we are exposed to more knowledge, more music and more ideas.
But… while the change is generally good for the consumer, it can be detrimental to the producer. We see this more clearly now, with the massive advancements of generative AI. A beautiful photo, a masterful song, or a well crafted scene can now be generated within seconds by typing a few words… by anyone. This commodification of ‘art’ lowers the entry-point for people without the physical ability to produce art, to do so with just their words and imagination. This is great! This is actually amazing! The times we live in are mind blowing. However, these innovations have reduced the size of creative teams in hundreds of companies, have reduced the demand for work from trained artists, and have effectively lowered the value-add from an artist.
There’s a few issues with this. Neural networks (i.e., “AI”) require going through a lot of data before they can decipher the ‘structure’ to generate art. This data, for most companies, including OpenAI, was acquired by greedily scraping the surface internet for as many images, videos, and text as possible. These companies illegally bypass the Terms of Service of most websites that include anti-scrape clauses and process art without the permission of artists to produce AI that was then used for commercial purposes. So, while the generated piece of art is similar and not ‘identical’ to that of an artist's previous work, we believe that the fact that it was used in the training data to then become a commercial product without compensating the artists is unethical.
At Backpack, we solve these problems. There is no copyright infringement, because artists willingly participate in the training data KNOWING that they will be ethically and fairly compensated for their original work and the AI generated derivatives. Furthermore, artists choose to be part of Backpack, because they know that even if their pieces don’t always sell, they will be compensated for forming part of a rich and diverse community of builders, creators, and visionaries who see the value of AI, but want to participate in the new frontier ethically.
Backpack is the first of its kind 3d model and ethical AI marketplace. Join the movement. Ethical AI ftw.
