Using existing art to train AI models is something that a lot of people have discussed in the past, and even though the conversation is still in the air, it is not something that has a solid conclusion. It appears that Google has found itself in some trouble again as a bunch of creators are rallying against the search engine giant and taking the company to court for using their images to train its Imagen model.
Google and a number of other companies are in hot water as artists are rallying against the search engine giant
It is worth noting that at the moment, this lawsuit is still in the early stages, which means that both sides have to jump into the court before the conclusion comes out, and that means Google could get away with it in the end.
Cartoonists Sarah Andersen, Hope Larson, and Jessica Fink and photographer Jingna Zhang are involved in a class action lawsuit against Google, the lawsuit was filed on Friday. The claim is simple as it accuses the company of using billions of copyrighted images to train its model Imagen, and some of the images that were used belong to them. There is no word on how much these artists are looking for in terms of restitution, but they do want the company to destroy every copy it has, which seems fair, but it is not something that seems possible.
Google is not the only company under the fire as the same artists have filed similar lawsuits against stability AI, MidJourney, and a couple of other image generators, but at the moment, there is no information on those lawsuits in our possession. The goal is rather simple: the artists want these companies to stop using the images that belong to them.
Sadly, the whole idea of copyright is vague. Companies like Google claim that the images are available to use for free, which is true. But at the same time, there is no clear understanding of whether all the images that are being used by image generators are free to use or some of them.
Then, there is the whole idea that many artists are rallying against Google and other companies because they did not practice and train for years just so companies can use their art to train their AI models, that too without any consent. This is more than enough to give these artists a legal ground to pursue lawsuits against these corporations.
Whatever side of history you are on, it is more than safe to say that sooner or later, we will hear from Google as well as other companies involved, as well. The AI race is just starting, and it has a lot of potential to get very, very tricky as we move forward.
