We like to talk about how sophisticated generative AI is becoming.
And more often than not this is concomitant with a discussion about where these companies are getting all of this training material for their models.
While that’s still a murky area in many ways, today’s headline at least demonstrates a willingness to engage with creators in a transparent way.
After all, it’s hard to complain about generative AI becoming better if you’re helping it get there.
That’s exactly what some content creators on popular social media platforms are doing. Not only is Meta interested, but also OpenAI, the firm behind the popular ChatGPT.
Content creators are getting about $USD 1 to $USD 4 for unused footage depending on the visual quality of the media they submit. Companies are also looking for novel footage such as drone videos and are willing to pay a premium for that.
The Bloomberg article also addresses the problem of these firms training their models on public content without remuneration to creators.
Senior vice president of creators at WassermanDan Levitt told Bloomberg, “Anything that you publicly post essentially is up for grabs, and we’ve seen companies just rip it and ingest it into their system… This is a way to actually participate in that, to do this in a much more legal, structured manner, and now you at least have some upside.”
None of this removes the concerns about the larger debate around generative AI, namely, whether it will take jobs away from media professionals. So, depending on where you stand, these people are savvy and cashing in on a craze while they can or there’s some element of betrayal. For our part, we’re just glad to see something a little more legitimate than the aforementioned appropriation of public content.
Any thoughts that you might have on companies paying content creators for their unused footage to help them train generative models are welcome in the comments.
We have some other articles for you to read at this link.
