Those are not “AI generated”, they are AI
remixed.
It looks like some bright bulbs already have started “hire an artist to make a basic set of samples, fire the artist, start auto-remixing” routine, but they are likely to be crushed quickly and thoroughly, probably with support of other publishers.
Technically, there are few differences between AI-controlled and manually controlled image editor, and they are not necessarily provable. And then, AI can be set up to do only negligible adjustments… you see the picture (sorry).
The following assumes the
status quo in the powers over Internet. Things would be very different in conditions of e.g. Swiss (with approval of Russia and China) emerging as the keeper of most Internet infrastructure that matters, while holding in absolute contempt Disney, Hasbro, Salon com and Californian courts, while EU is confused by all this — but there’s no point trying to predict details of turns this sharp.
If AI remixes were somehow exempt — however shaped, this
de facto would effectively kill both copyright (protection of authors, mainly from publishers) and IP (protection of publishers, mainly from consumers) laws. The latter obviously is not going to die anytime soon — if Disney and other dinosaurs could not man the ramparts, they would be gone already.
Thus,
most likely AI exemptions are not going to happen either. If anything, it looks like a great excuse for another wave of “publishers own everything, including Pythagoras table” style crackdowns (which in turn are a tried setup for “unofficially official” censorship infrastructure, of course).
Much less likely (but not impossible, seeing how
some animals are a lot more equal than the rest already): lawyers embrace the opportunity to metastasize some more, but are cut short by the scandal-averse bureaucrats on all sides. The publisher oligopoly strengthens its grip enough that they don’t really care what you do, because things they don’t want to go around cannot survive even on your blog anyhow. So the “
creative collaborative community” and “unofficially official” press are allowed to go all out in celebration of this shocking new freedom (as long as they don’t deviate too much from the Party Line), but since they still compete with each other even when not allowed to disagree, this results in near-cyberpunk grade “I grabbed it first” jungle.
