Depends. Are they still making negative money with it? If so, then I'm gonna say no.
It's kind of like robbing a bank, killing everyone inside, then running out without taking anything, dropping your wallet in the process
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2026
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*and also burning everyone else's money at the same time.
The whole business model of tech startups is to lose money until you cornered the market and make unfathomable amounts of money. By the time you realize „well shit, it really was the biggest heist in history“ it‘s already too late. They are too powerful to be punished for it. So this definition of yours plays right into their cards. The only saving grace here is that AI will never be profitable. But people said the same thing about Youtube and now it looks like Google might swallow Disney soon.
That model only works if people actually adopt the technology
Oh they do. Idiots on fb messenger using ai to edit pictures for thrblolz. They are customers.
So many dumb people love AI.
So, something is only theft if it is profitable?
That's a wonderfully liberating new definition.
Are you dense? That's not the question.
Ok chief. Because it really reads like you just said that in the comment above.
You know, I remember not too long ago when people on Lemmy tried to interpret each other charitably. Then everyone from Reddit came over, polluting the culture, and now practically every exchange on here feels like it's in bad faith.
It is more like taking someone's style without consent at all, and for profit.
Few societies and institutions teach about art appreciation to everyone, and the understanding of one's expression through art is also emotional investment, that's why creatives in traditional manual endeavors are understandably enraged at AI and its investors being tactless in taking their style and then mass-producing the generated media for aesthetic but soulless consumption.
No and the hyperbole around this gives AI authority that it does not deserve. I love art, and one of the things that has peeved me off in the last 10-15 years is how many times I have stood in a gallery and all around me are people with a phone out snapping a pic to say I have been there.
There is only one of that item. One, and in real life if you take the time to view, you can appreciate the delicate lines, the brush strokes, the variation of colour and technique, the grain of the canvas that have stood the test of centuries, and you can marvel that it was once held by its creator. It has the ability to stir something inside you.
Pure art still holds. as another posted alluded digital art is where it changed. It is nothing more than endless reproduction, I am not criticising digital art, it is a movement, and and employer but with it you lose uniqueness and compromise authenticity. It's hard to hear but its the nature of the format. AI is just another form of mass production and I would argue a graduation of the movement.
In short, anyone who thinks this needs to step inside a gallery and assess if AI content can achieve and hold credence.
No one can appreciate shit anymore. They've lost the ability to enjoy anything. Brains are fried.
Try getting 1 person to sit through an album today. Its RARE. Doesn't matter if they're young or old either. The olds forgot their ways and have fried their brains worse than the young.
I would love it if all smartphones and social media dissapeared today.
"Society can improve somewhat" meme.
This suggests that the only things that qualify as art are things that can be made by hand.
So let's flip that a little and talk about writing. A perfect turn of phrase still exists when you type something rather than write it out by hand. The ability the evoke emotion through shared experiences, to evoke empathy or sympathy by telling a story, to bring joy and satisfaction through a literary tale still exist when the medium is "digital".
What a lot of people talk about when they talk about ebooks vs physical books is the loss of physical sensations like the smell of books or the feel of turning a page. I will not say (as an avid reader) that this tactile feedback isn't missing from the digital book experience, and I won't say that it's not an enjoyable part of the experience.
But I will say that just because we can recognize that trade off between the two doesn't mean that the one that came after is lessened as art. Because if that were true it would have been "lessened" by going from spoken story to written story and I don't think that's true. It was changed. Some of the experience changed with it. But that's not the same thing.
art isn’t something you can generate as such. having a model that can copy the Mona Lisa pixel perfectly hasn’t stolen the Mona Lisa. it’s the shitty kids’ movies and TV ads and company logos that are at stake.
art is about effort and ingenuity and is centered around people and places and times and can’t be simply replicated by an industrial process, as much as Disney wants that
Yes. They stole everything and are diverting markets to their newly acquired storehouses. Many many many markets. All AI companies are criminal operations. If you've built a body of work and had it scooped up by a billionaire to have it output simply by referencing your name.... its easy to see this point. Of course the non-creator's voice, who has no work absorbed by these corporations, will be the loudest to defend AI.
All AI companies are criminal operations.
Even if someone is being gracious enough to allow you the argument that copying is theft, which it is most assuredly not, it wouldn't make anything a "criminal operation" because, by law, it isn't a crime. It is a civil offense.
no
even accusing AI of theft is a puerile misattribution of copyright infringement that was tossed aside in the late 90s, so let's just get over that bullshit right now.
Shut up, you are annoying
Says the slopper :slopper:
That isn't even a real insult.
I think you need to get off the internet and go touch some grass or something.
Well I could have said your post history shows the intellectual subtlety of a three year old child with a sledgehammer, but I don't like making fun of stupid people when it isn't their fault they were born idiots.
piracy isn't theft.
But surely something has to be said for taking ones work, repackaging it, claiming it's yours, and selling it as a product, no?
Point being that I think just calling it "piracy" seems a bit reductive...
But surely something has to be said for taking ones work, repackaging it, claiming it’s yours, and selling it as a product, no?
sure, and that something is that copyright and intellectual property is capitalist nonsense. nobody "owns" ideas, and the only ethical issue with AI is that nothing should ever be sold, whether it's made with AI or not.
This isn't piracy though.
They aren't consuming media. They are reselling it.
They aren't downloading a film to watch or "illegally" accessing a text.
They are using the unpaid labour of other humans as their product and will gouge the rest of society for it through entertainment media, civil infrastructure and healthcare.
Whilst your pithy, cliched statement is fun to throw around when we talk about torrenting a marvel movie, it's completely useless in this context.
here's another pithy, cliched statement for you. copyright and intellectual property is capitalist nonsense that should be ignored. ideas can't be owned. what's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours. nobody owns any media. the only ethical issue with AI is that nothing should be sold, whether it's made with AI or not.
It's a shame that 6 years ago, lemmy would have agreed with you. They forgot that copyright is bad suddenly because of a new invention. Copyright needs to be abolished, it's a hold over from pre-capitalism.
I don't think pithy means what you think it means.
I know exactly what it means, I was using it sarcastically to make fun of your rather stupid argument.
How's that working out for you, chief?
... But more sensibly, the argument you are using enables corporations to steal the work and labour of individuals.
It is the argument that means only middle class wealthy individuals get to make art.
It's a shite argument, and it's been debunked a ton of times.
How’s that working out for you, chief?
it's working fine. thank you.
the argument you are using enables corporations to steal the work and labour of individuals.
so your problem is with capitalism, and not this fictional "theft" of art.
It is the argument that means only middle class wealthy individuals get to make art.
nobody is stopping anyone from making art.
It’s a shite argument, and it’s been debunked a ton of times.
if that makes you sleep better, then you do you. I don't really mind if some liberal I'll never meet wants to claim nonsense that'll never affect me on the internet. ideas are free, they belong to everyone, and I'll keep copying and using digital media in whatever way I want.
AI bad, upvotes to the left please.
digital art became worthless in the early 00s
I don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
It's still sold, so it definitely has a market value.
If you are talking about sociatal value, then I disagree even more firmly. Art has a lot of value, regardless of what medium it is delivered by.
You know that movies and video games are digital art, right?
Video games are more like a theme park set up by a group of people. Not all entertainment is art by default.
It really depends on the video game I guess. There are a lot of video games, I would consider high art, but there are others, I wouldn't. That's really subjective though and other people will probably consider other games as art than me.
But there is no way to objectively determine what art is. My personal definition is like I determine the gender of a person. If the artist says, it's art, then it is art.
have you ever tried making it and selling it
No. They're giving AI too much credit this way.