An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip

And? What's the model supposed to do? It's just doing what many human artists would do, if they're not explicitly being paid to create new IP.

If infringement is happening, it arguably doesn't happen when an infringing work product is generated (or regurgitated, or whatever you want to call it.) Much less when the model is trained. It's when the output is used commercially -- by a human -- that the liability should rightfully attach.

And it should attach to the human, not the tool.

> It's just doing what many human artists would do, if they're not explicitly being paid to create new IP.

It isn’t an independent human. It is a service paid for by customers. The moment it provides the image to a paying user, the image has thus been used commercially.

In fact, the user may not even necessarily have to be paying in order to infringe copyright.

And besides, even amateur artists are ashamed to produce copies unless they are demonstrating mastery of technique or expressing adoration. And if it happens spontaneously, they are then frustrated and try to defend themselves by claiming to never have even experienced the original material. (As happens with simplistic, but popular musical riffs.) But AI explicitly is trained on every material it can get its hands on and so cannot make such a defense.

If I pay you to tell me the plot of Indiana Jones, privately, because I don’t have time to watch it, and you agree, did you violate copyright laws?

If you do it for free, is it different?

If I ask a friend to draw me as Indiana Jones? Or pay an artist? In either case I just want that picture to put in my rec room, not to sell.

The answer is yes? The person doing the drawing is violating copyright. I don't know why that is even a controversial question.

You are asking the equivalent question of, if I put a pirated copy of windows on my PC that I only use privately at home am I violating copyright, or if I sell copies of music for people to only listen to in their own home.

But this is even more damning, this is a commercial service that is reproducing the copyrighted work.

Edit: Just to clarify to people who reflexively downvote. I'm making a statement of what is it not a value judgement. And yes there is fair use, but that's an exemption from the rule that it is a copyright violation.