AI Slop: Money For Nothing

I--as an aspring writer and artist--finally stick my oar in about generative artificial intelligence, and how plagiarists are abusing it to make quick cash--while taking advantage of their own and other people's tendecies towards instant gratification-- at the expense of the actual creatives who put in the time and energy to create real art.

(Part of the title inspired by the Dire Straits song, 'Money for Nothing'--which is ostensibly about people making bucketloads of money doing the bare minimum in their field)

The words I use in the recording may not match the words in the transcript.

Transcript

AI Slop: Money For Nothing

Over the last couple or so years, AI slop--especially in the creative arena--has been an issue in the arts community, and is still an issue to this day...and now I, as an aspiring writer and artist, am finally weighing in on the issue.

People who create and distribute so-called art created by generative artificial intelligence make a lot of money from other people's hard work--and thus with the barest minimum of their own effort--and expect to be seen as artists; however, real artists understand the process is just as important as what is known as the end product. But the folks who produce what we now call 'AI slop' are also taking advantage of the fact that we live in what Lisa Simpson once called 'a quick-fix, one-hour photo, instant-oatmeal society' and ever-shortening attention spans--to the point where the CEO of an AI music generator actually had the nerve to say: "It’s not really enjoyable to make music now. People enjoy it, sure, but it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of practice. You need to get really good at an instrument, or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music." Never mind that the etymology of the word 'art' is the Latin word ars, which means 'skill'--that is, real art takes skill...which involves taking the time to practice the skill in question to improve said skill.

But it turns out that, as John Oliver points out on the episode of his show, Last Week Tonight, on which he talks about AI slop, AI tools have reduced the barrier of entry to people who want to produce writing, images, or music that can seem plausibly professional--and that, I surmise, is another part of the appeal to people who want to be creatives--or at least to be known as creatives: they can be seen as
artists or writers or other creative types without having to do the time required--in other words, generative AI allows these folks to have their cake and eat it, too.

Back in the day--and I have living memory of this--we had a word for people who didn't care too much about the process of creating art and pushed inferior work into the world: that word was 'hack'; the thing is, the work even hacks sent into the world was their own (for the most part); those who use artificial intelligence to create 'works of art' are committing plagiarism--using other people's work and passing it off as their own. I remember a time when, if you did that in post-secondary institutions and you got caught, you got expelled--and high-school
teachers and administrators wouldn't have let it pass, either.

Someone posted a video on the page of a Facebook group called Artists Against Generative AI, in which the host (and I assume creator) states: 'So if you don't appreciate something, you don't understand the value of it. You start to devalue things because you're viewing things in the eye of a consumer and not a creator.'

And of course, there are copyright issues.

Copyright in Canada and the United States emphasizes human authorship--that is, works to be copyrighted must be created by human beings, meaning, at this moment, works produced by generative artificial intelligence won't be copyrighted. That might largely be because 'artworks' created by generative AI have the potential to violate copyright--even dmca.com acknowledges that AI can infringe on copyright--and there are already examples in case law of artists suing generative-AI companies and platforms for allowing AI slop creators to use their work without their permission and without crediting them. Meanwhile, here in Canada, Canadian lawmakers are still grappling with how to regulate generative AI: 'The Government of Canada conducted a Consultation on Copyright in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence between October 12, 2023, and January 15, 2024, to better understand the effects of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on copyright and the marketplace.' Canadian Lawyer magazine has an article on its website with the title, 'GenAI exposes limits of Canadian copyright law, say IP lawyers,' in which the writer(s) state(s): 'At the heart of the issue is a growing divide between the rapid evolution of genAI tools and the slow pace of Canadian copyright reform.'

To all of those who crow, "AI is the future!": Just because you and others are touting something--such as a bit of technology--as 'the future' doesn't mean it should be allowed to run amok, as opposed to being regulated--and it doesn't excuse human laziness, or stealing other people's work, especially to make a quick buck.

Sources:

https://www.dmca.com/articles/pdf/how-ai-is-affecting-copyright.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-appeals-court-rejects-copyrights-ai-generated-art-lacking-human-creator-2025-03-18/#:~:text=Wider%20Image%20Podcasts-,US%20appeals%20court%20rejects%20copyrights%20for,generated%20art%20lacking%20'human'%20creator&text=March%2018%20%2D%20A%20federal%20appeals,be%20copyrighted%20under%20U.S.%20law.

https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/practice-areas/intellectual-property/genai-exposes-limits-of-canadian-copyright-law-say-ip-lawyers/392284

https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/strategic-policy-sector/en/marketplace-framework-policy/consultation-copyright-age-generative-artificial-intelligence-what-we-heard-report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWpg1RmzAbc