This is well-put but I have to chime in by saying that the aspect of environmental issues being used against generative AI industry is not only a forced but also a very skewed talking point. Once you get past the sensationalistic article titles and read in more detail, you'll find out that the use of those technologies is actually less pollutive than the usual human activities. Yes, it is bad for the environment therefore fine to criticize it, but so are literally all industries, majority of which are far worse offenders. We are all heating up the planet purely by existing. But let's just narrow it down to leisure activities such as video games, surfing the web and use of social media etc. (which, yes, includes this forum too). Those things aren't necessary but use up so much of energy and barely ever mentioned. The developers are obviously the biggest consumers of non-renewable energy resources, the everyday users significantly less so. And numerous studies have shown that it would take up much more energy (on average about a hundred times more) to manually draw a 2D drawing than just generate one using AI which was a bit surprising at first but also made sense. Another of the many examples, rendering a 3D movie uses up heaps of energy and you never see people complain nor mention that. Or if you want to create a marble sculpture, you are using actual resources and have to consider mining which contributed to getting the material which aren't renewable sources either. Does that mean we should abandon art altogether? Absolutely not.
Considering all of the things mentioned, thinking that stopping the use of generative AI will somehow help resolve the environmental issues is the equivalent of bringing a water gun to a forest fire.
That's why the main focus should remain on using copyrighted material to train models and I think the environmental topic is unfairly taking away from that issue.
In any case - banning AI generated music in this contest is something we should all agree on without any hesitation and it's good to see that happening here.
