In brief
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being used not only to draw from prior works to create new works, but also to create new works "in the style of" an existing creator. This should be raising questions about the rights of living creators as well as whether we want to live in a world where we can distinguish what is and is not real. These are urgent questions, from my perspective, in the context of the need to regulate AI with respect to creative works. While there are many reasons to rush to implement AI to help solve real-world problems (like developing vaccines to cope with new viruses, other medical and scientific advances, and using AI to increase productivity), I argue that there is no compelling reason to continue to permit people to use AI to usurp the identity of living creators, and plenty of reason to stop this practice. Even when works are out of copyright, there are potential dangers as well as benefits from allowing a proliferation of copies that are variations of original important works - and this practice may be counter to other current trends such as acknowledging traditional knowledge and countering the practice of cultural appropriation.
Details
In La Presse, Péloquin (2022) reports finding a number of works by Canadian and Québec authors in the AI tool Stable Diffusion, works that were not publicly available, posted there without the knowledge of the authors. Users of Stable Diffusion can create new works "in the style of" living artists. Artists interviewed by Pélonquin expressed concern about the quality of these works (part of author moral rights in copyright) in addition to concern about the works being used for commercial sales.
As of today (Oct. 26, 2023) ChatGPT takes about a minute to write a short story in response to this prompt: "Please write a short story in the style of Margaret Atwood" (or Stephen King). Readers, I encourage you to try this experiment for yourself - but ignore and delete the results, as I have.
From my perspective, these examples of current practice raise questions with profound implications for society:
- Should human creators be able to claim exclusive rights to their identity and style? This goes beyond author moral rights as covered in existing copyright laws, and is a type of moral right with economic implications. I argue that we urgently need to protect human creators of all kinds in the race to create and implement AI regulation.
- Is this "feature" of AI likely to contribute to a postmodern dystopia where it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish what is real from from what is not, accurate information from misinformation? One example of such a postmodern theory is the hyper-reality of simulacra (copies without originals) described by Baudrillard (1995). Is this necessarily desirable even for works that are not under copyright? With the aid of AI, it is not hard to imagine the world being so inundated with the latest works "in the style of Plato" it becomes harder to locate and verify the authenticity of the original. Is unleashing this aspect of AI compatible with contemporary trends to address traditional knowledge, including cultural expressions, and resistance against cultural appropriation? I don't have the answers, but I think these questions merit serious, thoughtful consideration and is reason to limit the "creativity" of AI in this respect.
As an author, I do not wish to allow anyone to use AI to create works "in the style of Heather Morrison (or IJPE), particularly not for sharing for commercial or non-commercial reasons. IJPE is open access, free for anyone to read and share as is for noncommercial purposes, but otherwise All Rights Reserved.
Side note: apparently ChatGPT does have some limits (perhaps due to pressure from copyright owners?). In response to the prompt, "Please write a prequel to Margaret Atwood's A Handmaids' Tale", the ChatGPT response is "I'm sorry, but I can't provide verbatim excerpts from copyrighted texts or create derivative works based on copyrighted materials. However, I can offer you a brief summary or discussion of potential themes and ideas for a prequel to Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." Let me know how you'd like to proceed".
References
Baudrillard, J. (1995). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press.