Kickstarter demands further information from generative AI projects
As generative AI has reached the mainstream, the crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter struggles to develop a policy acceptable to all parties involved. Most of today’s productive AI systems for creating art and language are trained using publicly available images and text from the web. These include platforms such as Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT.
Relevancy of AI-Generated Content:
The proponents of AI technologies contend that they are protected by fair use theory – at least in the United States. Content providers aren’t always in agreement, especially considering monetizing AI-generated content or the AI tools themselves. Kickstarter said that projects on its platform that use AI technologies will be obliged to publish “relevant details” on their pages. These specifics must indicate how the project owner intends to use the AI material in their work. It will also direct which components of their creation will be entirely original. It will also indicate which will be developed using AI techniques.
Sources of AI-Generated Content:
Kickstarter requires that new projects involving AI technology, tools, and software include information regarding the sources of training data. According to Kickstarter, the project owner must disclose how the sources manage processes involving consent and credit. The sources should establish ‘safeguards’ such as opt-out or opt-in systems for content providers. A rising number of AI providers offer opt-out procedures these days.
Kickstarter’s new policy will go into effect on August 29. But the platform doesn’t plan to retroactively enforce it for projects submitted prior to that date, said Susannah Page-Katz, Kickstarter’s director of trust and safety.
Section “AI Use”:
When AI project creators submit their work to Kickstarter, it will undergo the regular human moderation procedure. Page-Katz says that upon approval, the AI components will be labeled as such on their project website’s newly created “Use of AI” section.
“Throughout our conversations with creators and backers, what our community wanted most was transparency,” Susannah Page-Katz added, noting that any use of AI that isn’t disclosed properly during the submission process may result in the project’s suspension. “We’re happy to directly answer this call from our community by adding a section to the project page where backers can learn about a project’s use of AI in the creator’s own words.”
Policy Change Addressing Generative-AI:
Kickstarter initially hinted at a policy shift regarding generative AI in December. It stated that it would reconsider whether media owned constitutes duplicating or replicating an artist’s work. Since then, the platform has made incremental progress toward a new policy.
