Me when I understand the things that have historically harmed creative industries.
Right off the top of my head here are five terrible possible consequences of such a policy that would harm creatives:
Forcing second language learners out of the market or making them more subject to scrutiny (and !!!!possible PROSECUTION?!?!?) - second language learners are more likely to be accused of using AI in their writing because their tone may come off stiff, stilted, or 'unnatural' - all things that people are told to look for to identify AI.
Weaponization of accusations of AI use against creatives to force takedowns or account closures. Since it's impossible to prove that something was created WITHOUT ai if you don't have documentation of the creation it would be easy to brigade an artist with unlabelled AI reports (similar to the way that false DMCA reports are used). (This would also immediately be weaponized by corporations against applicants - the example above uses AI rejecting resumes as an example of harm but it's insane to think that companies wouldn't reject applicants for suspected AI use in their resumes, which would make it exceptionally hard to prove bias because, well, lots of people DO use AI to help write their resumes)
Immediate gatekeeping of "non-AI" versions of tools. You used to use smart select to remove the background in photos? Get good with that magnetic lasso unless you want to pay extra for the AI plugin so that Adobe can meet the labeling requirements. And then get ready to label your photos or collages as AI-assisted (it's very easy to make an argument that the magic wand or smart selector tool in most image programs is powered by machine learning/AI). Did you increase the resolution of your scanned photo? That's upscaling now, that's an AI tool and must be labeled. (Note: these aren't necessarily ACTUALLY ai tools, but if a company can make more money by charging you for the 'non AI' option they will, and if a bad actor wants to accuse you of using AI because of a tool that doesn't *technically* use AI, how will you prove that you didn't use the AI upscaling?)
Gatekeeping on platforms. "This post has been given a tentative AI label, please submit a request for review." "Your request was rejected, please submit your process documentation to challenge the rejection."
"The hosting entity is responsible for unlabelled violations" is exactly how we got SESTA/FOSTA and your uploads are going to be scanned (by a perfectly legally labeled AI tool or left to the subjective judgement of people) and labeled or rejected with a strong bias toward false positives to avoid responsibility on the part of the platforms.
Mandatory labeling of tools you already use and don't think of as AI. Which, like, maybe that's a good thing in the end because maybe that would get people to think about what they mean when they say AI but. Like. You know that most digital photography uses some kind of machine learning process, right? Whether that's autofocus or smart lighting adjustments or HDR, that's a machine learning component of the camera's software that was trained on millions of images by uncredited photographers. I'm a big fan of manual photography (here's a guide I've written on it so that you can get an SLR and ensure the purity of your artwork in the future), but if you use digital photography as reference or to do color selection or to trace backgrounds, get ready to label your work as AI-assisted.
Remember that the goal here was to not hurt creatives and we have arrived immediately at a plausible scenario where creatives could be required to label all of their work that used digital photography at any stage in the production and could be prosecuted for not doing so.
Are you a gold star artist, or is your work unclean, forever tainted by the fruit of the poisoned tree?
Think about that for a second.
Now, think about how you'd prove it if someone was serving you legal paperwork requiring that you demonstrate there was no AI used in the production of your work.
Anyway, copyright fucking sucks also and if you are working on a scheme that depends on increasing copyright protections you are actively working to harm yourself as a creative, there's not even any question about that you have ceded the battle to Disney and almost deserve whatever you've asked for.
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