[mkipper]

Do you really feel that way universally? Would it be ethical to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry by removing all restrictions around drug trials? Heck, you could probably speed things up even further if you could administer experimental drugs to subjects without their consent.

Obviously this is a bit facetious, but basing your ethical framework on utilitarianism and _nothing_ else is pretty radical.

[ChadNauseam]

If having those restrictions makes the world worse overall, then it would be ethical to remove them. But I assume the restrictions are designed by intelligent people with the intention of making the world better, so I don’t see any reason to think that’s the case.

I agree that the current crop of artists are worse off with AI art tools being generally available. But consumers of art, and people who like making art with AI art tools, are better off with those tools being available. To me it’s clear that the benefit of the consumers outweighs the cost to the artists, and I would say the same if it was coders being put out of jobs instead. You can prove this to yourself by applying it to anything else that’s been automated. Recording music playback put thousands of musicians out of work, but do you really regret recorded music playback having been invented?

P.S. Adobe firefly is pretty competent and is only trained on material that adobe has the license to. If copyright were the real reason people didn’t like AI art tools, you would see artists telling everyone to get Adobe subscriptions instead of Midjourney.

[the_gastropod]

> If having those restrictions makes the world worse overall, then it would be ethical to remove them

Worse how? As defined by whom?

You could make a pretty compelling argument that "the world" would be better off by, e.g., forcing cancer patients through drug trials against their will. We basically could speed run a cure to cancer!

These longtermist, ends justify the means, ideas can easily turn extremely gross.