Purely AI generated art can't be copyrighted and is therefore in the public domain. I call that a win if you're a writer, actor, filmmaker, or anyone who works in the creative space.
Artificial Intelligence has gotten concerningly good at replicating humans when it comes to creative tasks like writing and art.
So if you're an artist who is worried about losing their job to AI, just remember that you offer employers one thing that AI could never: ownership.
Even if AI gets as good as or better than humans, if your studio wants to retain the copyright to the work they make, they need to keep humans in the process. While using AI to enhance work is allowed, you need human creativity, which means you need humans.
Perhaps AI won't replace us, but be our partner. A tool to help us do things quicker and with more ease. I'm fine with AI being just that. I'm not fine with it replacing us.
It is worth noting that studios could get around this by adding slight human-made modifications to anything generated by AI. This would still require humans, but not as much as before.
It is also worth noting that the US Copyright Office said it is possible AI could get good enough to the point where humans could control the output it gives them, which could be copyrightable.
But, while artists aren't out of the woods yet, this is still a step in the right direction.
Honestly, I'm glad to see the courts consistently be pro-human when it comes to the topic of copyright.
It's totally possible a few corrupt judges could've created a world where AI art was copyrighted and owned by the people who generated it, which would be horrible for artists all around.
But fortunately, the courts seem to be siding with the people instead of the interests of greedy corporate studios. At least for now.
This is good news for people who work in creative fields like film. But there is still some fear for programmers.
Even if we assume AI generated code is in the public domain, there is nothing stopping companies from keeping that code to themselves. While art is inherently made to be shared, code is often kept private.
So developers don't have the same allure of ownership as artists do. This gives them less leverage when convincing their employers to keep them on if AI can replace them.