Tragedy of the AI Commons

 

 

 

We once discussed the dilemma known as the tragedy of the commons (MM 6/11/18 Tragedy Of The Commons), a concept so straightforward as to be almost self-evident i.e. it refers to the exploitation of any limited resource by individual parties in furtherance of maximizing their individual self-interests which collectively serves to deplete or even exhaust said resource to the detriment of all.

The most basic illustration of the phenomenon is to imagine a pond with a finite number of fish from which a number of fishermen each seeks to maximize their respective catches. The tragedy comes with the inevitable exhaustion of the fish stock as it ultimately destroys the resource for all (the commons). Replace fish in a pond with most other finite resources and the concept holds e.g. overgrazing, deforestation, traffic congestion, air and water pollution.

And, as our focus piece suggests, another resource ripe for such tragedy is the pool of human creativity (click: In The Age of AI We Must Protect Human Creativity As A Natural Resource).

The uniqueness of human creativity might be illustrated by a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a woman one day spotting Picasso in the market and, pulling out a piece of paper, asking him to "do a little drawing" to which he happily complies. Then, handing the paper back to her, he says that that would be a million dollars. "But, Mr. Picasso, that only took you thirty seconds to do this little masterpiece," she responds, to which he replies, "My good woman it took me thirty years to do that masterpiece in thirty seconds" (click: MM 6/3/19 Birthing Beauty).

AI, on the other hand, represents the potential for unlimited copies of such originals, without due recognition or compensation to the artist. Even the legal concept of “fair use” gets lost amidst the power of technology to be “trained” from original works. What financial incentive would a would-be author have, knowing that a very credible and largely free AI summary of that work would be available within days, if not hours, from the original publication?

The musician faces the same dilemma as AI tools can generate music that mimics the style or voice, raising questions about derivative works. The legal framework is evolving but still murky when it comes to the degree of “human creativity” that would support copyright protection. Think of that the next time you hear background music that “sort of” sounds like the Beatles but isn’t.

Is the creative world being threatened by AI overfishing?

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