It’s come to light that a group of Canadian newspapers have banded together to launch a lawsuit against ChatGPT and OpenAI, two entities that specialize in using artificial intelligence to generate what could be called “creative’ materials. By creative materials, I speak mostly about text, or writing applications, and artificially-generated images, although the technology will soon expand to include other artistic endeavours, like video, music, and, well, you name it.
These entities are also referred to as large language models, or LLM’s, and get their capabilities from scouring the internet in the most precise detail and “learning” from what they scan, both in terms of content and style, to the point where they can replicate the work of a real person, and do so in seconds.
The implications, and ramifications of this, are huge. And to a large degree totally unfair to those people and those organizations who generate creative content the old-fashioned way: through talent, hard work, and much self-sacrifice.
The reason it’s newspapers leading this particular charge is two-fold.
First, it’s been the news media generally that has been stolen from on an egregious scale, victimized by the big tech companies who would allow that original content to be posted and re-posted on their various social media platforms and other platforms. Given the rise and popularity in social media, it was only a matter of time before the advertising dollars followed suit, the same dollars that newspapers relied on to provide their product and pay their salaries and bills. After all, when you advertise in a newspaper, your messaging gets thrown in the trash after a day or a week, depending on the type of publication. When you advertise online, algorithms ensure that your message will remain alive, and pop-up conveniently everywhere a potential consumer may go, since the algorithm has already determined your surfing and interest patterns. A much better bang for your advertising buck.
The kicker is that the place that created the original content is forced to lay off staff, downsize its operations, or close completely, thereby sniffing out the source of all that creative work. So there go of all those writers, reporters, graphic artists, editors, and advertising sales people, all victims to voracious American big tech companies who have literally come in and stolen everything from you to fuel their own breath-taking growth.
Secondly, it’s these same big-tech companies who are now using LLG’s to meticulously and rapidly comb through your articles, past and present, to identify patterns and to derive meaning and context from text, so as to be able to replicate your work, your creativity, and your self-sacrifice so that they can offer almost that same level of “quality” to the masses who have made absolutely no contribution to any of the areas being impacted. So, in effect, you can “write” something, have it come across as credible, even have it “researched,” and then present it as yours, no questions asked. And, if for some reason you’re not totally satisfied with the end product, you can simply add a line of text into the query bar and get the same thing, only modified to meet the revisions you requested. In seconds.
And where does this artificial intelligence go to get the text that it learns from? Well, from newspapers, among other things. And since these big-tech giants are often the same people who run search engines, they can rip right through pay walls and utilize the material at no cost while they develop the technology that will eventually kill off its host, which is sort of a general AI concern in and of itself.
So yeah, Canadian newspapers are pissed, but so is the New York Times and other publications. They’re being shameless ripped off and then have to face the further indignity of being strangled to death with a weapon of their own creation, their very own creative work.
I’d be pissed too.
These newspapers will plead for the government to do something, anything, to arrest this trend, or maybe even make it stop, which is a hell of a tall order to put on any government of any political stripe, doing battle with Google, or Facebook, or Meta — I know that’s Facebook, relax — or any other of the behemoths. That’s a David versus Goliath scenario, and David doesn’t have a slingshot.
And when the government does take some form of action, Big Tech retaliates with threats and rumours of threats, knowing the leverage they have as masters of hundreds of millions of users world-wide, including many millions right here in Canada. Here at home, the government made such an attempt, and it led to Google partially complying, but also led to Meta reacting by disallowing the sharing of Canadian news on Facebook, a further punch in the nuts directed at our media industry. And what was the reaction of the population? Of course, it was to be pissed off at the government for doing something that led to Facebook being mad at us and now we can’t share our news on our Facebook feeds. Predictably self-centred and self-convenient. You know, the way people are generally, I find.
I experimented with the various AI-generated platforms, including ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini among others. It was shocking how easy it was to “create’ something, often something not half-bad. In the hands of just about anyone with brains or an education, this is like stumbling on a chest of gold coins on a Caribbean beach. You put in a query, or question, and the thing spits out a reasoned response in seconds. Then you could kind of reverse-engineer the thing, modify this here and there, research in reverse to get your citations, and freaking voila. A finished product that could more or less pass scrutiny.
A 2000 word essay in maybe 30 minutes tops if you knew what you were doing. Any of you who ever did the work to write a 2000 word essay would be able to tell you about the effort and time needed to craft such a product on your own, the time spent, the creativity mustered, the sacrifices made. But you also understood that the rigour of the endeavour was an essential part of the learning, that if you’re required to invest and spend that much time with a topic, then it stands to reason that you would be more familiar with the topic, and have a certain expertise with the topic, something bought and paid for with your hard work and due diligence.
And now anybody can spend seconds to come up with a product similar, just not as trustworthy as yours. What do we even need education for? Or is that one of the places we’re heading.
I don’t use these technologies to write, because I’m a writer — not an author, so relax — and I take some measure of pride in what I can do. I have some natural talent, I suppose, but that’s been augmented along the way by hard work and experience. I’ve put in the time. I’ve put in the work. And now any clown can pass themselves off as my equal in that regard, so I kind of get where the newspapers are coming from. Writing is pretty much my only skill, the only thing that I could ever pride myself on as something I developed and crafted entirely by myself. In it’s own small way, it made me kind of special. It made me feel good about myself.
And I’m just a hack writer.
I once knew an artist who was entirely self-taught. She could sing, play piano, play guitar, all self-taught, and she was magic at all of it. She more than put in the time, put in the practice, put in the reps, all of it quietly behind the scenes with no one watching. And did so with such grace and humility, never ever once that I can ever recall mentioning it to others, or bragging to others about what needed to go into the development of these hard-earned creative talents. She just did her thing and did it well. I can’t imagine how unfair it would be if some artificially-generated program were to come along and give those same talents to any scrub wanting to emulate them and then pass themselves off as an equal. This person put that same rigour, and that same humility, into all that she did, athletically, musically, professionally, personally, and things I’m leaving out, all with the same result: a superior end-product, forged through the amalgamation of talent, creativity, and hard work. And caring.
To have that all wrapped up in a package of humility just makes it all the more special.
There’s no program in the world that can replicate that. But there are plenty that will try, and plenty more that will seek out said programs in an attempt to bask in glory that’s not there’s to bask in.
I’ll admit to using AI-generated images on my blog, mostly because there are a lot of things I write about where original photography is just not possible. Images on the internet are likely copyrighted, and fair enough. There are creative commons opportunities out there that make some imagery available at no cost. But a story should have a photo, and if you don’t have one of your own, and you’re not inclined to steal one from somebody else, then AI is an option. But then in so doing, in my own small way, I’ve contributed to the very phenomenon that I write about today. I mean honestly, where was that AI-generated image derived from? The work of countless un-named photographers world-wide who put in the work, had their work published online, only to have a bunch of bots scrape it and mix it together with other scrapings from other artists to produce a reasonable facsimile of an original piece of work.
It’s funny, but after writing that I feel a little cheap. Now the question is, am I ready to do something about it? I know if I was a bigger entity, I’d simply purchase a plan with one of the big photography hubs. But I have, like, four people who follow me, and one of them is me, so such an expense doesn’t quite work for me somehow. I’ll ponder that dilemma moving forward.
I’m not some old guy who laments the passing of time and the way we “used to do things.” I think I’m fairly astute when it comes to the identification and utilization of technologies in my spheres of interest and activity, and always have been.
I can see the benefits of what AI offers. I do have concerns of caution, but I’m not yet ready to sound the alarm over how we’re all going to be taken over by our own creations, like Frankenstein’s monster run-amok.
But I can certainly see where those newspapers are coming from. And as a writer of some middling talent, I’m not crazy about how somebody can replicate my work while they munch out on a bowl of crackers. And then I think of the people with real talent, who either do now or may-well face the exact same thing, but on a more egregious scale.
I feel really bad for them.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 