Skip to content

There are too few nonprofit organizations like CC fighting for the commons – support our vital leadership with an end of year contribution. Donate today!

Webinars: AI Inputs, Outputs and the Public Commons

Better Internet
Two images generated by AI side-by-side: On the left: A brightly colorful painting in the style of Hieronymus Bosch showing vaguely human figures climbing on and attending to a wooden Medieval-looking Rube Goldberg contraption involving wheels, levers, and spheres. On the right: A white robot with a look of concentration on their face, wearing a red cap and robe, holding a painter’s palette, painting something beyond the frame with a brush that has an abstract flower growing up from its handle.

“AI Inputs and Outputs” by Creative Commons was made from details from two images generated by the DALL-E 2 AI platform with the text prompts “A Hieronymus Bosch triptych showing inputs to artificial intelligence as a Rube Goldberg machine; oil painting” and “a robot painting its own self portrait in the style of Artemisia Gentileschi.” OpenAI asserts ownership of DALL-E generated images; CC dedicates any rights it holds to the image to the public domain via CC0.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been exploding across the digital landscape — from people sharing text and images generated by AI platforms, to new policy that tries to shape a future where AI is expected to play an even bigger role — all while we aren’t really sure yet even how to define AI, much less understand all the impact it will have.

Here at CC, we’ve been thinking about what AI means for the commons we support, both in our strategy for better sharing and for our collaboration for a better internet. Are all these new works generated by AI part of the open, public commons? Should they be? If someone does hold copyright for an AI work, who is it? The technologists who created the AI tool? The person who uses AI to generate a work? The countless creators whose works trained the AI? The machine itself? Or should works generated by AI live in the public domain, as they do in many interpretations of established law?

Going beyond AI’s outputs: How do and should human works participate in training AI? Currently, AI platforms are using untold amounts of existing content to train their systems. Not every creator welcomes their work being used in AI, especially when AI is put to life-changing uses that could amplify biases, like predictive policing, facial recognition, job recruiting, insurance claims, or loan approvals. At the same time, if AI inputs are limited, AI could be based on a more narrow view of the world that could also perpetuate biases and block insights. How can we best ensure AI is trained to support creators and good outcomes?

As we form our positions at CC, we are bringing together people with diverse perspectives to participate in broad discussions about how AI intersects with open sharing in a commons that serves the public interest.

How does the proliferation of AI connect to better sharing: sharing that is inclusive, just and equitable — where everyone has wide opportunity to access content, to contribute their own creativity, and to receive recognition and rewards for their contributions? How does the proliferation of AI connect to a better internet: a public interest vision for an internet that benefits us all?

Read our thoughts about the discussion at these two free, public webinars: one focused on how open works and better sharing intersect with AI inputs — works used in training and supplying AI — and another focused on how open works and better sharing intersect with AI outputs — works generated by AI that are, could be, or should be participating in the open commons.

Webinars

AI Inputs and the Public Commons: Wednesday 9 November 2022

Generated by AI: A brightly colorful painting in the style of Hieronymus Bosch showing vaguely human figures climbing on and attending to a wooden Medieval-looking Rube Goldberg contraption involving wheels, levers, and spheres.

“AI Inputs” by Creative Commons was generated by the DALL-E 2 AI platform with the text prompt “A Hieronymus Bosch triptych showing inputs to artificial intelligence as a Rube Goldberg machine; oil painting.” OpenAI asserts ownership of DALL-E generated images; CC dedicates any rights it holds to the image to the public domain via CC0.

A free, public webinar on how open works and better sharing intersect with AI inputs — works used in training and supplying AI — with panelists:

Links shared by panelists and participants

AI Outputs and the Public Commons: Thursday 10 November 2022

Generated by AI: A white robot with a look of concentration on their face, wearing a red cap and robe, holding a painter’s palette, painting an empty gold picture frame with a brush that has an abstract flower growing up from its handle. A bottle of brown nail polish sits near the frame on the red-draped table.

“AI Outputs” by Creative Commons was generated by the DALL-E 2 AI platform with the text prompt “a robot painting its own self portrait in the style of Artemisia Gentileschi.” OpenAI asserts ownership of DALL-E generated images; CC dedicates any rights it holds to the image to the public domain via CC0.

A free, public webinar on how open works and better sharing intersect with AI outputs — works generated by AI that are, could be, or should be participating in the open commons  — with panelists:

Links shared by panelists and participants

Posted 31 October 2022

Tags