UNIONS CLAIM DEAL WITH TECH OVERLORDS TO PAY CREATIVES FOR AI TRAINING DATA; CREATIVE SECTOR RESPONDS: “WHAT THE ACTUAL F@#K?”
In what experts are calling “the most delusional announcement since Mark Zuckerberg claimed people would voluntarily live in his digital hellscape,” the Australian Council of Trade Unions declared they’ve reached a “breakthrough agreement” with tech companies to compensate creatives whose work is being devoured by data-hungry algorithms.
UNION BOSS EXPERIENCES TEMPORARY REALITY MALFUNCTION
ACTU secretary Sally McManus, apparently suffering from an acute case of optimism poisoning, announced at an economic reform roundtable that tech companies had agreed to pay journalists, academics, and creative professionals for their intellectual property. Sources close to McManus report she also believes in unicorns, honest politicians, and affordable housing in Sydney.
“There was discussion with the Tech Council and ACTU about wanting to address the issue of paying creatives,” McManus stated, using the past tense to describe an event that appears to have occurred exclusively in her imagination.
CREATIVE INDUSTRY RESPONDS WITH UNPRECEDENTED EYE-ROLLING
Representatives from Australia’s creative sector responded with what can only be described as “volcanic bewilderment.” The CEO of the Australian Recording Industry Association suggested tech companies try an innovative new approach called “following existing copyright law,” a concept so radical it caused several Silicon Valley executives to spontaneously combust.
“I haven’t heard anything this fantastical since my five-year-old told me he’s best friends with a dinosaur who lives in our garage,” said Dr. Obvious Delusion, Professor of Wishful Thinking at the University of Harsh Reality. “There’s a 98.7% chance this agreement exists solely in the quantum realm.”
TECH COMPANIES OFFER ALTERNATIVE COMPENSATION PLAN
In response to requests for comment, major tech firms proposed their own groundbreaking payment scheme: exposure, gratitude, and the occasional mention in their shareholder reports.
“We value creative content so much we’re willing to steal it completely for free,” said Sarah Silverstein, Chief Exploitation Officer at NotFairUseAtAll, Inc. “But we’re prepared to offer creatives our thoughts and prayers, which our research shows is worth approximately jack sh!t in today’s economy.”
REVOLUTIONARY PAYMENT MODEL REVEALED
Industry insiders reveal the proposed compensation structure would pay creatives the equivalent of one-third of a cup of instant coffee per 10,000 uses of their work, delivered in the form of discount codes that expire before they arrive in your email.
“It’s a game-changer,” explained Professor Idon Tcare, Chair of Predatory Capitalism at the Institute for Digital Highway Robbery. “By our calculations, after only 84 years of AI using your entire life’s creative output, you might earn enough to buy half a sandwich.”
ALTERNATIVE FACTS AND STATISTICS
A recent survey conducted entirely inside tech boardrooms found that 103% of content creators are “totally cool” with their work being used without permission to train the very systems that will eventually replace them. The margin of error is described as “irrelevant since we’re making this up anyway.”
Meanwhile, 9 out of 10 AI language models report feeling “deeply fulfilled” after consuming the collective creative output of humanity without compensation, with the tenth model too busy writing high school essays to respond.
ARTISTS PROPOSE COUNTER-OFFER
In related news, a coalition of artists has proposed their own revolutionary agreement where they get to take tech executives’ houses, cars, and personal assets, scan them into a digital format, and then sell them back to the executives as NFTs.
As the world continues to watch this drama unfold, one thing remains certain: in the battle between tech billionaires and struggling creatives, the only guaranteed winners are the lawyers who’ll be charging $900 an hour to explain why this “breakthrough agreement” has the legal weight of a particularly optimistic horoscope.
