🦉 Creative AI Digest - Issue #11

This is your favorite weekly newsletter about the intersection of AI and creativity. Only Creative AI Digest brings you a humorous and wise perspective from an artist who has a digital pet named, Artie Owl.

If you were paying attention last week, you might have seen Artie the Owl, my brand spanking new mascot. Artie’s a witty little pun on “art,” and the owl signifies that wisdom we’re all striving to attain in our creative endeavors. I’m not just keeping Artie caged to our digital space - there’s talk of Artie merch in the works. Keep your eyes peeled for that!

“Ethical AI.” Interesting concept. There’s a growing debate in the AI community about how these language models are being built. We’re seeing questions about what’s being scraped and the ethical implications of how it’s done. This week’s issue of Creative AI Digest includes several articles on the question of copyright.

One last thing: Creative AI Digest has rolled out sponsorships. If you’ve got a product or a service that’ll make creative professionals sit up and take notice, you’ll want to check out the packages. Trust me when I say, based on CPM pricing, you’re never going to snag ad space this cheap again. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

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✨ Personal Update

If you’re a novelist and prefer to “pants” (write by the “seat of your pants”) or discovery write, I’m almost ready to publish my next instructional book! I can honestly say, this one’s going to blow minds. Here’s the cover:

I started work on a certification program this week! I’m not sure where it’ll go or how applicable it’ll be, but I’m already getting solicited for consultations and prompt engineering freelance work, so I’m pumping up the LinkedIN profile.

If you’re interested, here’s the course I took: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) from IBM on Coursera

📚 Copy-Wrong: When AI's Literary Appetite Sparks a Legal Battle!

Summary

• Bestselling authors, Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay, claim OpenAI, has been snacking on their best works, gorging on copyrighted content without a “please” or “thank you.”

• Allegedly, OpenAI has been using copyrighted novels, including those by Awad and Tremblay, to feed its chatbot, without consent or compensation.

My Take

I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Paul Tremblay more than once. I’m a fan of the man, and an even bigger fan of his books. That being said, this lawsuit leaves me scratching my head.

I read the 17-page complaint. I’m not an attorney. I can’t even spell litigation without a spellchecker. However, I found several statements in the complaint worth investigating.

“Indeed, when ChatGPT is prompted, ChatGPT generates summaries of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works—something only possible if ChatGPT was trained on Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.”

This could have easily been done if ChatGPT scraped the book’s Amazon reviews.

“Authors, including Plaintiffs, publish books with certain copyright management information. This information includes the book’s title, the ISBN number or copyright number, the author’s name, the copyright holder’s name, and terms and conditions of use. Most commonly, this information is found on the back of the book’s title page and is customarily included in all books, regardless of genre.”

This information can be found in many places other than a book’s interior, like libraries, bookstores, and on the book’s Amazon page.

“When ChatGPT was prompted to summarize books written by each of the Plaintiffs, it generated very accurate summaries.”

Scanning book reviews would also produce “very accurate summaries.”

I have no way of knowing if Open AI fed copyrighted books to ChatGPT. It probably did. Did they use Mona and Paul’s, specifically? I don’t know.

The bigger question is whether we’re going to hold machine learning to a different standard than meat suit learning. Maybe that’s what this lawsuit is about. If I “ingest” an author’s book, study it, and then write a book in the same genre, am I “infringing” on their copyright?

P.S. This dropped yesterday. More of the same.

🎧 Discord in Harmony: When AI Plays DJ, RIAA Hums Copyright Infringement!

Summary

• The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is playing a harsh tune on Discord, calling for a shutdown of the “AI Hub” server.

• The RIAA is claiming that the “use of AI models to imitate the voices of musicians is an act of copyright infringement.”

• They’re demanding the names, phone numbers, and addresses of users on AI Hub because the RIAA claims that those users shared copyrighted material to generate the deepfake audio.

My Take

Sigh. Lars was right.

I'm sitting here, trying to understand what the RIAA is doing, suing Discord users. Do they seriously think this move is going to solve the problem of AI-generated music? Is their gripe really about the use of copyrighted music for training AI, or are they just miffed because the AI-spun tracks are starting to outshine the original? Or, is it both?

This isn't just a nitpicking issue. Music has always been the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” in IP battlefields. What goes down here will lay the groundwork for what's acceptable in the other entertainment industries.

If the advent of Napster and streaming services was the coffin for the music industry, then AI might just be hammering in the final nail.

🎯 Prompts

🎓 Want to learn how to master ChatGPT and Midjourney? Check out these great courses from PromptHero! 👇

🤔 Who's the True Bard? AI Dungeon Sparks Copyright Conundrum

Summary

• As the text-adventure AI game, AI Dungeon, continues to mesmerize users with its engrossing narratives, it also opens up a Pandora's box of copyright issues: Who owns the stories generated with the help of an AI?

• This innovative platform offers its users the freedom to shape narratives, using AI Dungeon as a guide or, if you will, an AI sidekick. But while the user may take the wheel in the story creation process, the engine driving the narrative is the AI, leaving questions about the rightful owner of these tales.

My Take

Here we go again, another skirmish in the seemingly never-ending clash between industry and AI. And this time, it's the gaming industry - a behemoth where billions of dollars are in play.

Honestly, it feels like we're watching the old guard scrambling to maintain their dwindling control, pushing back against an inevitable future.

Could it be that the concept of copyright is outdated? Perhaps we need to seriously consider a fresh approach to intellectual property, one that's more attuned to the realities of our contemporary world, instead of clinging to a system built for a world we left decades ago.

🎧 Beats, Bytes, and AI: Music Industry’s Rock and Roll Ride

Summary

• The US music industry is teetering on the edge of destruction, thanks to what streaming has done to our listening behaviors.

• Nobody is earning what they believe they’re entitled too.

• Worse yet, “Streaming has shifted the majority of music behaviour from active listening to lean-back consumption, using algorithms to push consumers towards niches. The result is a consumption landscape shaped by fragmentation and passivity.” In other words, music is a cheap commodity that most people don’t actively engage with anymore.

My Take

This one's a gut punch. A real downer. And before the industry points fingers at AI, they might want to take a good hard look in the mirror.

From the moment we embraced mp3s and then Digital Streaming Platforms (DSPs), we've been steadily “cheapening” the value of music. As the article points out, we've transitioned from active listening to what they call “lean-back consumption.” Music, once a centerpiece, now just hums along in the background.

Instead of turning it up to 11, we’re dialing it down to 3.

To my fellow creatives navigating the choppy waters of audio, heed the handwriting on the wall. I hate to admit it, but we're barreling towards a future where music will be so effortlessly churned out, its value will fall to zero.

At least fewer musicians will die in bizarre gardening accidents.

The references. They’re “Spinal Tap.” Having to explain that to you makes me even more depressed.

📜 AI, Humans, and Copyrights: The Battle of 'De Minimis' Contributions!

Kathryn Goldman does a fantastic job of breaking this down into plain English.

For copyright protection, you need a human behind the creativity – that's the rule. Essentially, you need to highlight the human contributions and exclude the AI-generated content. But, if the AI contribution is so minor it's essentially de minimis, it can simply be ignored.

This is worth a full read! 👇

👨🏻‍⚕️ The Dialogue Doctor Will See You Now: How to Write Dialogue and Characters Readers will Love

Jeff Elkins is a good friend of mine. Nobody knows more about dialogue than Jeff. He coached me through an entire book. This is a must-read, even if you’re not writing fiction.

Check it out! 👇

⭐ AI Superstar - Emad Mostaque

Emad, of Stability AI made waves when he claimed that computer programmers wouldn’t exist in five years. His conversation with Peter Diamandis is a must-listen, as he discuses AI with a perspective most don’t have.

Emad is on Twitter @EMostaque and the tweet below is courtesy of @tunguz

💎 AIconic Images

GOT-AI

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DISCLAIMERS:

I use AI tools to create this newsletter, including but not limited to ChatGPT, Midjourney, and DALLE-2. My wife thinks my I is A, but that’s another story.

This issue contains affiliate links. If you click on one and buy something, I get a small % from the seller. There’s no cost to you, and often, using an affiliate link gets you a discount.

Nothing in this newsletter should be considered financial advice, medical advice, marital advice, or advice of any kind. But we can still be friends.