Patreon CEO Calls AI Fair Use argument ‘Bogus’ in SXSW Talk
Patreon CEO Jack Conte argues AI companies should pay creators for training data, calling current “fair use” claims bogus.
Austin: Patreon CEO Jack Conte says he’s not anti-AI. He can’t be. “I run a tech company,” he told people at SXSW in Austin.
Conte created Patreon to help musicians get paid for their work. Now he thinks AI companies should pay creators too when they use their work to train AI models. He calls their “fair use” argument bogus.
The AI companies say it’s fair to use creator work without paying. But they pay big companies like Disney and Warner Music millions of dollars. If it’s legal to just use the work, Conte asks, why pay them and not creators?
Conte wants Patreon’s hundreds of thousands of creators to get paid too. He says this isn’t about being anti-tech or anti-change. AI will be part of our future, and artists deserve a fair share.
He believes humans will still make and enjoy human art for a long time. “Great artists don’t just copy what exists,” he said. “They push culture forward.”