Patreon CEO says AI companies should pay creators for training data

In short: Patreon CEO Jack Conte says AI companies should compensate creators when their work is used to train AI models.

What happened

Jack Conte, the CEO of Patreon, says AI companies should pay independent creators whose work is used to train AI systems. Training data is the large pile of text, images, music, and other material an AI model studies to learn patterns, like a student learning by reading many books.

Conte argues there is an unfair gap in how AI companies handle rights. He says big publishers can strike licensing deals with AI firms like OpenAI and Meta, but independent creators do not have a similar system. At the same time, he says a lot of the material used to train AI comes from creators who post work online, including artists, writers, musicians, and other digital creators.

Conte says creators should get three things: consent, credit, and compensation. Consent means a creator can opt out of having their work used for training. Credit means they are acknowledged when an AI output clearly draws from their style, like a signature influence. Compensation means they get paid when their work helps create value for AI products.

Conte says he supports regulation, or government rules, to protect creators who cannot negotiate on their own. He pointed to YouTube’s Content ID as a possible model, a system that can detect copyrighted content and help route it to removal tools or payments.

Why it matters

This debate affects what people see and hear online, and who gets paid for it. If creators feel they are being copied without permission or payment, some may stop sharing work publicly, or they may take legal action. Conte also warns that without fair systems, AI could weaken many creators’ ability to earn a living.

Source: TechCrunch AI