That information is published freely online.

Do companies have to avoid hiring people who read and were influenced by copyrighted material?

I can regurgitate copyrighted works as well, and when someone hires me, places like Stackoverflow get fewer views to the pages that I've already read and trained on.

Are companies committing theft by letting me read the internet to develop my intelligence? Are they committing theft when they hire me so they don't have to do as much research themselves? Are they committing theft when they hire thousands of engineers who have read and trained on copyrighted material to build up internal knowledge bases?

What's actually happening, is that the debates around AI are exposing a deeply and fundamentally flawed copyright system. It should not be based on scarcity and restriction but rewarding use. Information has always been able to flow freely, the mistake was linking payment to restricting it's movement.

Molly White also wrote about this in the context of open access on the web and people being concerned about how their works are being used.

“Wait, not like that”: Free and open access in the age of generative AI

The same thing happened again with the explosion of generative AI companies training models on CC-licensed works, and some were disappointed to see the group take the stance that, not only do CC licenses not prohibit AI training wholesale, AI training should be considered non-infringing by default from a copyright perspective.

Creators who are justifiably furious over the way their bosses want to use AI are allowing themselves to be tricked by this argument. They’ve been duped into taking up arms against scraping and training, rather than unfair labor practices.

That's a great article. Isn't this kind of exactly what is going on here? Wouldn't bolstering copyright laws make training unaffordable for everyone except a handful of companies. Then these companies, because of their monopoly, could easily make the highest level models only affordable by the owner class.

People are mad at AI because it will be used to exploit them instead of the ones who exploit them every chance they get. Even worse, the legislation they shout for will make that exploitation even easier.

Our privacy was long gone well before AI companies were even founded, if people cared about their privacy then none of the largest tech companies would exist because they all spy on you wholesale.

The ship has sailed on generating digital assets. This isn't a technology that can be invented. Digital artists will have to adapt.

Technology often disrupts jobs, you can't fix that by fighting the technology. It's already invented. You fight the disruption by ensuring that your country takes care of people who lose their jobs by providing them with support and resources to adapt to the new job landscape.

For example, we didn't stop electronic computers to save the job of Computer (a large field of highly trained humans who did calculations) and CAD destroyed the drafting profession. Digital artists are not the first to experience this and they won't be the last.