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You don't need to pay for or "borrow" anything to learn from copyrighted works. Nobody has had that expectation for years, and that is also not what copyright p

You don't need to pay for or "borrow" anything to learn from copyrighted works. Nobody has had that expectation for years, and that is also not what copyright pertains to. It's not that AI breaks into libraries and isn't paying the fees. You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like, for free and take from it what you can and use all of that to create something else and get paid for that thing. The stuff that AI uses to learn is available to you, as a human. That is not being challenged in the least. As parent said: Everything is derived work. We are remix machines. It is how we learn and how we make money. Now with AI, apparently, we are offended, when something does it better and faster than we can? To me it seems, if we expect AI to pay additional fees, the question is: Why? I am not saying that it's not an important question. Google has built its entire business around information other people have provided. I would argue most people are quite happy with the existence of something like Google search and see it as a net positive in their lives. Does that make the business part okay? Where do we stand on this in regard to an open web? Is it okay for Google to do what they do (and if they do it well to win the space), or should there maybe be a license where people have to pay the owner whenever they are indexing a website? I don't know. Feels complicated. > If you stop paying them, then it doesn't get created. That's an interesting thought. But is it true and, more so, is it a problem? What if humans from here on will only be paid to create stuff that an AI can't?

KaiserPro 4y ago
> What if humans from here on will only be paid to create stuff that an AI can't? I look forward to a life of horrific poverty
- jstummbillig 4y ago
  I don't think there is any defensible reason to have people at large suffer over AI advancement, without having a plan for making their lifes better. If AI takes jobs because it's simply superior at them, and that creates friction and anxiety until we have stuff figured out, that's of course sad and we should do our best to soften the process, but I think it's inevitable. The carriage must die. It seems obvious that restrictions on training data are just a distraction and will not move the needle on any interesting time frame. If however AI does not pay forward, in an arrangement that makes our collective lifes better, I will be the first to work on burning it into to the fucking ground. But, on a lighter note, since that has generally been the direction of human civilization (not linear when zoomed in, but always when zooming out) I remain optimistic.
  - KaiserPro 4y ago
    In the anglo-saxon world, I have not seen significant successful program since the industrial revolution that has helped or softened the impact of a new process on an affected lump of people[1]. The weavers were left to rot when the automatic looms came in. (there were in flanders east england and northern france incredibly rich and influential class) Furniture makers were left to rot when steam power tools came in Farm labourer were left to starve when steam threshing/harvesting came in. enclosure was another tragic note in england. The green shirts were lobbying for "a share of the domestic profit" in the 20s-30s, in the 60s they were convinced that we were going to be working 2 hours a day by now, with robot servants cooking and cleaning for us, and no-one would be living in poverty. Even Orwell has written on this. Instead we see productivity in the western[2] world dropping. Meaning for every human hour worked we make less money. because I suspect in part to the rise of servant-as-a-service jobs(food/shopping delivery/cleaning/elderly care etc etc) all of which are long hours and low paid. [1] well, DDR everyone had a job, but lived in permapovety and were likely to be disappeared if you spoke out. [2] specifically the US and UK, who appear to be snorting financial inequality by the metric fuckton
    - jstummbillig 4y ago
      Fair enough. All is not well. What I was more so thinking of are the unspecific societal functions that evolved to the benefit of everybody, but more so to those who could not have afforded them beforehand: Quality health care, various forms of social support, more accessible education and food, better road systems. The stuff that makes the charts on education, prosperity and health go from bottom left to top right and child mortality and hunger in the opposite direction. The injustices of the day do not show in the most important, most long term graphs. As far as I can tell (and I am happy to hear your thoughts) this can only be true because people have benefitted increasingly from things improving, over time.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  That's either a very pessimistic take on human creativity, or a very optimistic take on the ability of AI to mimic human emotion and experience.
tsimionescu 4y ago
> You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like, for free and take from it what you can and use all of that to create something else and get paid for that thing. If you're referring to piracy, that is very much being kept in check. Otherwise, the vast majority of copyrighted art is only available for payment in various ways (streaming services, museum and theatre access fees, library cards, buying e-books etc).
- oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  They're talking about googling any copyrighted image and looking at it, as a human or an AI.
KaiserPro 4y ago
> You don't need to pay for or "borrow" anything to learn from copyrighted works. someone pays, just maybe not you. How do you think google/meta/et al offer you a service free at the point of delivery, through charity? > You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like see my bit about google. The copyright still is with the owner. That image can be removed, should the owner wish, but for various reasons its too expensive to get google to respect that. > I would argue most people are quite happy with the existence of something like Google search yes, because its a symbiotic relationship. I as a creator, make something that people want to find, google points them to me, and I get people's attention. I might do that to fluff my ego, or try and convert it to cash through sales or something. The AI step threatens to remove that relationship. Instead of being passed to me, the AI just pastes shit its gleaned from mine and other websites, leaving no chance of me getting a reward for making that website.
giaour 4y ago
> You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like, for free and take from it what you can and use all of that to create something else and get paid for that thing. If the copyright on a given work of art is still active, those pictures were taken and are distributed with the permission of the copyright holder (or they're just pirated). That's one of the reasons it's much easier to find images of classic art (for which the copyright has expired) than it is to find images of contemporary art. > You don't need to pay for or "borrow" anything to learn from copyrighted works. What exactly do you think copyright is, and would you be surprised to learn that libraries have purchased the books on their shelves?

KaiserPro 4y ago

> What if humans from here on will only be paid to create stuff that an AI can't? I look forward to a life of horrific poverty

jstummbillig 4y ago
I don't think there is any defensible reason to have people at large suffer over AI advancement, without having a plan for making their lifes better. If AI takes jobs because it's simply superior at them, and that creates friction and anxiety until we have stuff figured out, that's of course sad and we should do our best to soften the process, but I think it's inevitable. The carriage must die. It seems obvious that restrictions on training data are just a distraction and will not move the needle on any interesting time frame. If however AI does not pay forward, in an arrangement that makes our collective lifes better, I will be the first to work on burning it into to the fucking ground. But, on a lighter note, since that has generally been the direction of human civilization (not linear when zoomed in, but always when zooming out) I remain optimistic.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  In the anglo-saxon world, I have not seen significant successful program since the industrial revolution that has helped or softened the impact of a new process on an affected lump of people[1]. The weavers were left to rot when the automatic looms came in. (there were in flanders east england and northern france incredibly rich and influential class) Furniture makers were left to rot when steam power tools came in Farm labourer were left to starve when steam threshing/harvesting came in. enclosure was another tragic note in england. The green shirts were lobbying for "a share of the domestic profit" in the 20s-30s, in the 60s they were convinced that we were going to be working 2 hours a day by now, with robot servants cooking and cleaning for us, and no-one would be living in poverty. Even Orwell has written on this. Instead we see productivity in the western[2] world dropping. Meaning for every human hour worked we make less money. because I suspect in part to the rise of servant-as-a-service jobs(food/shopping delivery/cleaning/elderly care etc etc) all of which are long hours and low paid. [1] well, DDR everyone had a job, but lived in permapovety and were likely to be disappeared if you spoke out. [2] specifically the US and UK, who appear to be snorting financial inequality by the metric fuckton
  - jstummbillig 4y ago
    Fair enough. All is not well. What I was more so thinking of are the unspecific societal functions that evolved to the benefit of everybody, but more so to those who could not have afforded them beforehand: Quality health care, various forms of social support, more accessible education and food, better road systems. The stuff that makes the charts on education, prosperity and health go from bottom left to top right and child mortality and hunger in the opposite direction. The injustices of the day do not show in the most important, most long term graphs. As far as I can tell (and I am happy to hear your thoughts) this can only be true because people have benefitted increasingly from things improving, over time.
oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
That's either a very pessimistic take on human creativity, or a very optimistic take on the ability of AI to mimic human emotion and experience.

tsimionescu 4y ago

> You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like, for free and take from it what you can and use all of that to create something else and get paid for that thing. If you're referring to piracy, that is very much being kept in check. Otherwise, the vast majority of copyrighted art is only available for payment in various ways (streaming services, museum and theatre access fees, library cards, buying e-books etc).

oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
They're talking about googling any copyrighted image and looking at it, as a human or an AI.

KaiserPro 4y ago

> You don't need to pay for or "borrow" anything to learn from copyrighted works. someone pays, just maybe not you. How do you think google/meta/et al offer you a service free at the point of delivery, through charity? > You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like see my bit about google. The copyright still is with the owner. That image can be removed, should the owner wish, but for various reasons its too expensive to get google to respect that. > I would argue most people are quite happy with the existence of something like Google search yes, because its a symbiotic relationship. I as a creator, make something that people want to find, google points them to me, and I get people's attention. I might do that to fluff my ego, or try and convert it to cash through sales or something. The AI step threatens to remove that relationship. Instead of being passed to me, the AI just pastes shit its gleaned from mine and other websites, leaving no chance of me getting a reward for making that website.

giaour 4y ago

> You can google an image of any great work of art and look at it for as long as you like, for free and take from it what you can and use all of that to create something else and get paid for that thing. If the copyright on a given work of art is still active, those pictures were taken and are distributed with the permission of the copyright holder (or they're just pirated). That's one of the reasons it's much easier to find images of classic art (for which the copyright has expired) than it is to find images of contemporary art. > You don't need to pay for or "borrow" anything to learn from copyrighted works. What exactly do you think copyright is, and would you be surprised to learn that libraries have purchased the books on their shelves?