Who Dunnit?

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 21:42:06 +0100
ChatGPT

What does the the band "Genesis" have to do with authorship, GenAI and reversal of the burden of proof?

Was it you or was it me?
Or was it he or she?
Was it A or was it B?
Or was it X or Z?
(Genesis, "Who Dunnit", 1981)

It seems as if one of my favorite prog rock bands anticipated one of the more annoying side effects of GenAI.

Last week I took a pic which, when shared with friends, triggered a question that made me contemplate about where we're heading with AI:

"Did you use Dall-e or MidJourney?"

After some years of "no filter" not too surprising. Short answer: Neither nor.

Innocent until proven guilty has lost its charm, it seems. While in the old times, prosecutors had to prove an artist being a copycat, today, the artist has to deliver prove for being the origin of the art in question.

What actually happens if I "steal" a text generated with ChatGPT? Oops. Funny thought! How do the creators of a text credibly prove that the text originated from their own brain? Will we have to deal with a reversal of the burden of proof in future copyright disputes? A frightening idea.
(From my book "ChatGPT - Das perfekte Versprechen")

Will the proof of origin consume more time than creating the art itself?

As with my book where I can tell the underlying story for EVERY point I made, I can prove origin of that pic in a way that shows that faking the pic and the process behind it would have taken way more efforts than being honest. Here's the story:

Last week, I took my Nikon and left my house into the cold and white upper Bavarian winter. Dressed like an Inuit. This part of Germany had been drowned in snow during the days before with the Munich airport ceasing to function and trains being stuck in snow drift over night.

It was late afternoon when I trudged north through our small village. Always along our little creek, the Windach. The sun was about to set behind the white slopes in the West. After a 30 Minutes walk on a farmers road freed from snow by the tractors transporting food to the cattle on the pastures behind the village, the hard part started where I sank into the snow knee deep. Another half hour which had me exhaling clouds of fog into the cold air with the water in the creek to my left silently murmuring. I took some photos with my iPhone and some with my Nikon and trudged on until I came to an end where only wading through the river would have taken me farther north.
As I did not fancy cold, wet feet, I turned around and started my way back, carefully stepping into the holes in the snow that used to be my previous footprints. Saving energy, nonetheless exhausting. The sun was setting to my right behind a steep hill, west of the river, shining through the branches of snow covered trees and giving the evening fog raising from the warmer water a face. The reflections were dancing in the ripples in the shallow water which are caused by stones on the riverbed below the surface. Pure magic in the air but only enough time for a couple shots with the Nikon. Only a couple minutes time for 10 pics. Trying different camera settings and details.

That's my favourite:

Then, the hill in the west blocked what was left of the light of the setting sun rendering the motive into grey mud.
Seizing the moment with a lucky shot that had a whole story leading and trailing. And feelings. Endorphines.

What else it had next to the story: Funny lines. Google recorded the way:

You still don't believe me? Here's some stuff where I played with aperture, focus and shutter speed:

All NIKON-pics have been taken in RAW-format, they include a wealth of information such as a range of exposure data for each pixel. HEIC on my iPhone is even more advanced as it also contains a range of focus data for modification in the "digital darkroom". Very difficult to fake unlike JPEG as a lossy format.

Still not convinced that the pic is real?
Well, then: Prove me wrong or bugger off!

(-;