Then there’s the other way: With a studio legal victory. The AI models are deemed prohibited from training on this content — this “fair use,” a judge says, ain’t that. In such a scenario we are ensured that for the indefinite future what gets generated in the way of Hollywood images comes from Hollywood and Hollywood alone.

The battle over the future of AI-generated content escalated on Wednesday as two Hollywood titans sued a fast-growing AI start-up for copyright infringement.

Disney and Universal have together filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, the company behind one of the most popular AI image generators, over rip offs of characters and art styles from the likes of The Simpsons and Star Wars.