4 ms·

As anyone well-informed how LLMs work will tell you, it's not violating any copyright or IP, because these answers are coming from a probabilistic walk through

As anyone well-informed how LLMs work will tell you, it's not violating any copyright or IP, because these answers are coming from a probabilistic walk through condensed remix of learning, not the sources themselves. Another way of thinking of it is compressed knowledge, with learned structure, and an ability to pick likely words to describe that structure rather than an ability to use original words. The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn't have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. As an easy to understand analog, if you grab a Shutterstock photo, change it from 100% quality to 5% quality, the file size drops to 100th of the original and on display, none of the pixels are the same. While it may be the same general concept depicted badly, it is certainly not the original and clearly isn't copyrightable. (Note: That last paragraph is firmly tongue in cheek /s ... I've used the "uniqueness (originality) is compressed out, what remains as learned is fair use" argument in the past, but on further reflection about the interaction of creativity and structure, I'm not sure it stands, especially at temperature 0 aka zero creativity.)

tsimionescu 4y ago
It should be noted that the GP was asking a different question - they were asking whether OpenAI might have any claims of copyright over the output of their model, so that they might sue you for using the output of their model for your own business.
- deleted 4y ago
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- madamelic 4y ago
  The current ruling for AI generated images is that they cannot have copyright by anyone because copyright only covers human-generated works. If a human didn't create it, it can't have a copyright.
  - throwbadubadu 4y ago
    Hmm.. so there is also procedural computer art, writing code to produce nice images. Also not copyrightable? At least the code? I draw an image. I write some lines of code that draws an image. I write many lines of code that do something, gather something, and then draws an image? I just wonder how one can reasonably draw hard lines (and now I don't mean art :D) in the future.. there are so many ridiculous incarnations of copyright and patent fights already out there..
    - layer8 4y ago
      The principles are quite clear: Copyrightability is based on how much originality of a work is attributable to a human (because copyright law is limited to human creations). See [0]. In case of dispute, this has alway had to be assessed by a court on a case-by-case basis, there were never hard lines. In the context of using AI or coding, the question is how much creative control you have over the output. When writing code to draw an image pixel by pixel, then you have full control, probably even for procedural art when you devised the algorithm completely on your own. When using an existing library that can draw crayon strokes or produce nice water color fills, there is less attributable to your own creativity. Similar for AI, where it will have to be assessed how much of the creativity is attributable to the human-invented prompting (likely not much) vs. to the AI. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
  - bumby 4y ago
    Humans can claim processes as intellectual property though. The question in my mind is: if I develop AI that to perform some specific task (like image generation), does that constitute a specific patentable process? And thus, if you use that process without compensation, are you stealing my intellectual property?
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      Shouldn't this depend on the licensing terms of the AI you are using to generate the content. I haven't read the various terms of current offerings. But it is probably not unreasonable to include bad terms in there...
      - bumby 4y ago
        Maybe, assuming you are using a third-party's tool directly. But I guess I was thinking more about the issue of someone creating a process that is more easily replicable. There are lots of instances of fairly fragile architectures that work really well in a particular application, but if you change some small part of that architecture, they fail. Now say I spend a lot of research time identifying that architecture and maybe even patent it as a process. I could even publish the methods of exactly what that process entails and somebody could copy it an use it. But I think that would be illegal (assuming AI can be patented in this way).
deleted 4y ago
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acuozzo 4y ago
Copyright covers "derived works", no? Training an ML model doesn't seem to fall under the established exceptions which qualify as "fair use".
- basch 4y ago
  Fair use is a judgement. Fair use is an affirmative defense (admitting guilt, but saying you should be allowed to, like self defense.) A judge looks at the work and the framework and decides if fair use is an acceptable defense to infringement. Given most of what we are talking about would fall under the output being used commercially, lets look at the end of of fair use test. > the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and >the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Unless your opponent is using a model exclusively trained on Twilight to output a Twilight sequel before you the author, you are going to have a have a hard time saying they used a large part of your work and that it directly displaces a sale of your work. A collage of word samples from millions of works is going to fall under fair use. If the model did a good enough job of compressing your work in its entirety, and it outputs that copy, you might have a case.
thwayunion 4y ago
The OP was asking a different question with a different answer -- OP wanted to know if novel ChatGPT output is copyrightable, not whether existing copyrights might cover ChatGPT outputs. That said... > The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn't have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. What?! This is not at all how copyright law works and that's also not at all how LLMs or compression work! You're wrong about both the law and the technology! Just because the model can't losslessly reproduce the entire training dataset doesn't mean that the model can't losslessly reproduce copyrightable fragments of the training dataset. And the law truly doesn't give a damn that a verbatim copy of a piece of code or sequence of paragraphs came out of a model instead of a copy/paste from github. If it's the same basket of bits, or close enough in certain cases, it's covered by copyright, full stop. > As an easy to understand analog, if you grab a Shutterstock photo, change it from 100% quality to 5% quality, the file size drops to 100th of the original and on display, none of the pixels are the same. While it may be the same general concept depicted badly, it is certainly not the original and clearly isn't copyrightable. As an easier to understand analog, if you grab a BITMAP of a Shutterstock photo and convert the file type to a reasonable JPEG (lossy compression!!!), tht's very clearly still covered by the copyright on the .bmp.
- Terretta 4y ago
  You seem to have missed "Note: That last paragraph is firmly tongue in cheek /s" Firmly tongue in cheek sarcasm, as in, this is obviously wrong.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn’t have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. Or, why making and redistributing a JPEG of a copyright-protected artwork is not infringement. Results decidedly not guaranteed if you try this “a copy with lossy compression is not infringement” argument in an actual court of law.
- Terretta 4y ago
  > Results decidedly not guaranteed You've replied in the spirit intended. :-)

tsimionescu 4y ago

It should be noted that the GP was asking a different question - they were asking whether OpenAI might have any claims of copyright over the output of their model, so that they might sue you for using the output of their model for your own business.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
madamelic 4y ago
The current ruling for AI generated images is that they cannot have copyright by anyone because copyright only covers human-generated works. If a human didn't create it, it can't have a copyright.
- throwbadubadu 4y ago
  Hmm.. so there is also procedural computer art, writing code to produce nice images. Also not copyrightable? At least the code? I draw an image. I write some lines of code that draws an image. I write many lines of code that do something, gather something, and then draws an image? I just wonder how one can reasonably draw hard lines (and now I don't mean art :D) in the future.. there are so many ridiculous incarnations of copyright and patent fights already out there..
  - layer8 4y ago
    The principles are quite clear: Copyrightability is based on how much originality of a work is attributable to a human (because copyright law is limited to human creations). See [0]. In case of dispute, this has alway had to be assessed by a court on a case-by-case basis, there were never hard lines. In the context of using AI or coding, the question is how much creative control you have over the output. When writing code to draw an image pixel by pixel, then you have full control, probably even for procedural art when you devised the algorithm completely on your own. When using an existing library that can draw crayon strokes or produce nice water color fills, there is less attributable to your own creativity. Similar for AI, where it will have to be assessed how much of the creativity is attributable to the human-invented prompting (likely not much) vs. to the AI. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
- bumby 4y ago
  Humans can claim processes as intellectual property though. The question in my mind is: if I develop AI that to perform some specific task (like image generation), does that constitute a specific patentable process? And thus, if you use that process without compensation, are you stealing my intellectual property?
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Shouldn't this depend on the licensing terms of the AI you are using to generate the content. I haven't read the various terms of current offerings. But it is probably not unreasonable to include bad terms in there...
    - bumby 4y ago
      Maybe, assuming you are using a third-party's tool directly. But I guess I was thinking more about the issue of someone creating a process that is more easily replicable. There are lots of instances of fairly fragile architectures that work really well in a particular application, but if you change some small part of that architecture, they fail. Now say I spend a lot of research time identifying that architecture and maybe even patent it as a process. I could even publish the methods of exactly what that process entails and somebody could copy it an use it. But I think that would be illegal (assuming AI can be patented in this way).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

acuozzo 4y ago

Copyright covers "derived works", no? Training an ML model doesn't seem to fall under the established exceptions which qualify as "fair use".

basch 4y ago
Fair use is a judgement. Fair use is an affirmative defense (admitting guilt, but saying you should be allowed to, like self defense.) A judge looks at the work and the framework and decides if fair use is an acceptable defense to infringement. Given most of what we are talking about would fall under the output being used commercially, lets look at the end of of fair use test. > the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and >the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Unless your opponent is using a model exclusively trained on Twilight to output a Twilight sequel before you the author, you are going to have a have a hard time saying they used a large part of your work and that it directly displaces a sale of your work. A collage of word samples from millions of works is going to fall under fair use. If the model did a good enough job of compressing your work in its entirety, and it outputs that copy, you might have a case.

thwayunion 4y ago

The OP was asking a different question with a different answer -- OP wanted to know if novel ChatGPT output is copyrightable, not whether existing copyrights might cover ChatGPT outputs. That said... > The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn't have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. What?! This is not at all how copyright law works and that's also not at all how LLMs or compression work! You're wrong about both the law and the technology! Just because the model can't losslessly reproduce the entire training dataset doesn't mean that the model can't losslessly reproduce copyrightable fragments of the training dataset. And the law truly doesn't give a damn that a verbatim copy of a piece of code or sequence of paragraphs came out of a model instead of a copy/paste from github. If it's the same basket of bits, or close enough in certain cases, it's covered by copyright, full stop. > As an easy to understand analog, if you grab a Shutterstock photo, change it from 100% quality to 5% quality, the file size drops to 100th of the original and on display, none of the pixels are the same. While it may be the same general concept depicted badly, it is certainly not the original and clearly isn't copyrightable. As an easier to understand analog, if you grab a BITMAP of a Shutterstock photo and convert the file type to a reasonable JPEG (lossy compression!!!), tht's very clearly still covered by the copyright on the .bmp.

Terretta 4y ago
You seem to have missed "Note: That last paragraph is firmly tongue in cheek /s" Firmly tongue in cheek sarcasm, as in, this is obviously wrong.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> The compression ratio of the source corpus versus the model demonstrates it doesn’t have all the source material, ipso facto, results are not infringement. Or, why making and redistributing a JPEG of a copyright-protected artwork is not infringement. Results decidedly not guaranteed if you try this “a copy with lossy compression is not infringement” argument in an actual court of law.

Terretta 4y ago
> Results decidedly not guaranteed You've replied in the spirit intended. :-)