If I recompress 240TB as super low quality jpgs and manage to zip them up as single file that is significantly smaller than 240TB (because you can), does the fact they are not pixel perfect matches for the original images mean you’re not violating copyright?
If you compress them down to two or three bytes each, which is what the process effectively does, then yes, I would argue that we stand to lose a LOT as a technological society by enforcing existing copyright laws on IP that has undergone such an extreme transformation.
Does that mean it’s worthless to try to train an ethical art model?
Is it not helpful to show that you can train a model that can generate art without training it on copyrighted material?
Maybe it’s good. Maybe not. Who cares if people waste their money doing it? Why do you care?
It certainly feels awfully convenient for that there are no ethically trained models because it means no one can say “you should be using these; you have a choice to do the right thing, if you want to”.
I’m not judging; but what I will say is that there’s only one benefit in trying to avoid and discourage people training ethical models:
…and that is the benefit of people currently making and using unethically trained models.
We don't agree on what "ethical" means here, so I don't see a lot of room for discussion until that happens. Why do you care if people waste computing time programming their hardware to study art and create new art based on what it learns? Who is being harmed? More art in the world is a good thing.
If you compress them down to two or three bytes each, which is what the process effectively does, then yes, I would argue that we stand to lose a LOT as a technological society by enforcing existing copyright laws on IP that has undergone such an extreme transformation.