If I were to steel man both sides it'd be something like this:
1. Training an AI model on code (so far) makes it regurgitate code line-for-line (with comments!). This is like "learning to code" by just cut and pasting working code from other codebases, you have to follow the license. The AI doesn't "understand the algorithm" at all (or it hasn't been told "don't export the input you fool"). Obviously a bog-simple AI could make all licenses moot by dumping out what it input, and the courts wouldn't permit that.
2. Training an AI model on illustrations so far produces "style parodies" which may look similar to an untrained eye (the artist here is annoyed because she'd not art like that, even though to us it looks similar enough). Drawing a picture that looks like Mickey Mouse is a trademark violation, but tracing a picture of the Mouse is both a trademark and a copyright violation.
The first violates some pretty clear legal concepts; the second is closer to violating moral concepts but those are more flexible - if an artist spends years learning to paint in the style of Michelangelo is that immoral?
1. Training an AI model on code (so far) makes it regurgitate code line-for-line (with comments!). This is like "learning to code" by just cut and pasting working code from other codebases, you have to follow the license. The AI doesn't "understand the algorithm" at all (or it hasn't been told "don't export the input you fool"). Obviously a bog-simple AI could make all licenses moot by dumping out what it input, and the courts wouldn't permit that.
2. Training an AI model on illustrations so far produces "style parodies" which may look similar to an untrained eye (the artist here is annoyed because she'd not art like that, even though to us it looks similar enough). Drawing a picture that looks like Mickey Mouse is a trademark violation, but tracing a picture of the Mouse is both a trademark and a copyright violation.
The first violates some pretty clear legal concepts; the second is closer to violating moral concepts but those are more flexible - if an artist spends years learning to paint in the style of Michelangelo is that immoral?