Photo Credit: Jack Conte / Patreon
Patreon co-founder and CEO Jack Conte shared his thoughts on AI and the future of creative work, and he’s angry artists aren’t being paid for their contributions to LLM.
On Tuesday, Patreon co-founder and CEO Jack Conte posted a lengthy video sharing his thoughts on artificial intelligence and its place in the future of creative work. In the 43-minute video, Conte argues that the future of creativity will remain human, even as AI continues to proliferate. However, the key issue is whether artists will receive credit and compensation for their contributions to AI-based content enterprises.
“I’m both amazed and furious,” says Conte. “I’m amazed at the technology, […] but as a creator, I’m angry that we aren’t being paid for the value that we create for these models.”
“Creators deserve consent, credit, and compensation,” he continues. “Consent meaning, ‘Do I get to opt out of my work being used by these models as training data?’ Credit meaning, ‘If my work is used and you just replicate my whole vibe as an artist… do I get credit for that?’ And then compensation, meaning, ‘Do I get paid when that happens?’ Unfortunately, the answer to all three of these questions right now is a big fat ‘no.’”
Conte points out that while some of the major publishers and rights holders have penned licensing agreements with AI companies, independent creators are left holding the bag as they lack the resources or leverage to negotiate their own similar deals. Further, there’s no system in place to ensure creators participating in LLM training are benefitting from the use of their work.
Importantly, Conte stresses Patreon is not anti-AI, and the company itself even uses AI tools. Patreon does not prohibit creators from using AI tools in their workflows, provided they follow its community guidelines. But without intentional economic design, creators risk being left out as AI becomes ubiquitous.
“What matters is ensuring that there’s a societal incentive around novelty creation so that humanity can continue to progress forward,” says Conte, adding that he believes “humans will make and consume art made by other humans for a long, long time.”
Patreon says it does not use creator work to train generative AI models that allow others to replicate a creator’s work. Conte says Patreon is “actively combating” AI-generated spam, bots, content scraping, and “exploitative misuse.”
