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There's a lot of debate going on about whether training AI on such data is copyright infringement or not. This is of course _immediately_ important, as a press

There's a lot of debate going on about whether training AI on such data is copyright infringement or not. This is of course _immediately_ important, as a pressing legal question, but also longer-term less interesting. The interesting question, IMHO, is whether we should amend copyright to deal with this! As I read it, the spirit of copyright is to give creators safeguards against their work being misused, so they aren't cagey about sharing it, in limited contexts. The public has some, limited, rights to such published work, in return. The question is, should we allow people to publish their work, while also disagreeing to it being used for AI training. I think, resoundingly, yes. The constructs of copyright just don't make sense in a world where a machine can perfectly recreate the human skill, if only it can consume all of its data. As a painter, say, it won't bother me that someone might use my paintings to learn, over the course of many years, and maybe even surpass my current level of skill - by the time they do I will be either better, or retired. But if a machine can do this over weeks or months and take my job away, sure I won't like it. The alternative IMHO is just more paywalls, as people realise they don't want to be unpaid AI trainers and labellers.

Jevon23 4y ago
Good point. The entire concept of copyright was, frankly, invented out of thin air. That’s not a bad thing, to be clear - that’s how pretty much all laws get invented. The point is just that you can’t analyze existing copyright law like it’s a sacred text that has the One True Answer to whether AI training without permission is ethical or not. If we as a society decide that we don’t want to allow it, then we can simply write a law that says that. What current laws say is irrelevant. At least in the US though, meaningful action on major legislation like this has become virtually impossible, which is why everyone is staking their hopes on the interpretation of existing copyright law.
- sharemywin 4y ago
  the problem is the cat's already kind of out of the bag. the models have already been trained and widely distributed. what do you do with existing models?
  - Jevon23 4y ago
    Cat’s out of the bag on free infinite copying of digital media too, but copyright law still exists.
boxed 4y ago
> As I read it, the spirit of copyright is to give creators safeguards against their work being misused, so they aren't cagey about sharing it, in limited contexts "misused"? "Someone else making money off it" more like it. Not so they aren't cagey about sharing it, but aren't basically ripped off. Of course, nowadays people have gone all crazy. I had a discussion with a dude who seriously thought that if we could trace the invention of the wheel or the alphabet back in time, the living descendents of those inventors should own these inventions!
- zaphar 4y ago
  The right to make money off of it is only one form of misuse that copyright protects. My source code that I publish under the Apache 2.0 license gives me the right to defend against other forms of misuse than just making money off of it. Some of which are: * Publishing the code without giving me attribution. * Shipping software to end users without giving them the source code. I care much more about those than I do whether someone is making money off of it.
  - boxed 4y ago
    Sure. But again, that's not why copyright was invented. The application of your terms is based on the same "I own ideas" meme that Disney used to increase their ownership of movies and characters pretty much indefinitely for decades. In my opinion you are both wrong. You agree with Disney on a premise that I reject. Attribution should imo be covered by some other law. It's a different thing. It's lying about facts.
    - zaphar 4y ago
      In theory each of the things I care about could be covered by different laws or regulations. However they aren't. The only tool I have for that is copyright. If you find a route to getting those alternative methods established I'm all ears but as it stands such a route does not exist. Copyright is what you have so copyright is what you have to use.
formerly_proven 4y ago
I contribute media to Wikipedia and honestly between people using media and not giving attribution as the default, which is all they are asked to, and AI/ML companies feeling entitled to rip all data and use it for their profit because they allege copyright simply does not apply to their money printing, I've been thinking more and more about just not publishing anything anymore. These behaviors are simply spitting people in their faces and telling them they actually should be fine with that. Same goes for open source honestly. (I've burned out as a maintainer a few years ago and for the most part stopped doing code things publicly after that)
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  “But it’s not a copy its tRaInIng”
Y-bar 4y ago
> But if a machine can do this over weeks or months and take my job away, sure I won't like it. You make a good point which often overlooked in the debate about training data. Machine Models operate on a scale widely different from human learners, they need not sleep, they can operate in a widely parallel fashion, and therefore need not curate their own "knowledge" into a niche. "Scale of action" (for lack of a better phrase) makes a big difference, for example quoting a passage from a book is fine, quoting five hundred passages from a book is not at all the same thing. Taking a few still frames of a Hollywood movie is one thing, screen-capping every single frame is very different.
DennisP 4y ago
On the other hand, if we could legally train AI with a large number of actual books, it might be a lot more useful. (And if the AI can cite sources, it might even drive book sales.)

Jevon23 4y ago

Good point. The entire concept of copyright was, frankly, invented out of thin air. That’s not a bad thing, to be clear - that’s how pretty much all laws get invented. The point is just that you can’t analyze existing copyright law like it’s a sacred text that has the One True Answer to whether AI training without permission is ethical or not. If we as a society decide that we don’t want to allow it, then we can simply write a law that says that. What current laws say is irrelevant. At least in the US though, meaningful action on major legislation like this has become virtually impossible, which is why everyone is staking their hopes on the interpretation of existing copyright law.

sharemywin 4y ago
the problem is the cat's already kind of out of the bag. the models have already been trained and widely distributed. what do you do with existing models?
- Jevon23 4y ago
  Cat’s out of the bag on free infinite copying of digital media too, but copyright law still exists.

boxed 4y ago

> As I read it, the spirit of copyright is to give creators safeguards against their work being misused, so they aren't cagey about sharing it, in limited contexts "misused"? "Someone else making money off it" more like it. Not so they aren't cagey about sharing it, but aren't basically ripped off. Of course, nowadays people have gone all crazy. I had a discussion with a dude who seriously thought that if we could trace the invention of the wheel or the alphabet back in time, the living descendents of those inventors should own these inventions!

zaphar 4y ago
The right to make money off of it is only one form of misuse that copyright protects. My source code that I publish under the Apache 2.0 license gives me the right to defend against other forms of misuse than just making money off of it. Some of which are: * Publishing the code without giving me attribution. * Shipping software to end users without giving them the source code. I care much more about those than I do whether someone is making money off of it.
- boxed 4y ago
  Sure. But again, that's not why copyright was invented. The application of your terms is based on the same "I own ideas" meme that Disney used to increase their ownership of movies and characters pretty much indefinitely for decades. In my opinion you are both wrong. You agree with Disney on a premise that I reject. Attribution should imo be covered by some other law. It's a different thing. It's lying about facts.
  - zaphar 4y ago
    In theory each of the things I care about could be covered by different laws or regulations. However they aren't. The only tool I have for that is copyright. If you find a route to getting those alternative methods established I'm all ears but as it stands such a route does not exist. Copyright is what you have so copyright is what you have to use.

formerly_proven 4y ago

I contribute media to Wikipedia and honestly between people using media and not giving attribution as the default, which is all they are asked to, and AI/ML companies feeling entitled to rip all data and use it for their profit because they allege copyright simply does not apply to their money printing, I've been thinking more and more about just not publishing anything anymore. These behaviors are simply spitting people in their faces and telling them they actually should be fine with that. Same goes for open source honestly. (I've burned out as a maintainer a few years ago and for the most part stopped doing code things publicly after that)

ChatGTP 4y ago
“But it’s not a copy its tRaInIng”

Y-bar 4y ago

> But if a machine can do this over weeks or months and take my job away, sure I won't like it. You make a good point which often overlooked in the debate about training data. Machine Models operate on a scale widely different from human learners, they need not sleep, they can operate in a widely parallel fashion, and therefore need not curate their own "knowledge" into a niche. "Scale of action" (for lack of a better phrase) makes a big difference, for example quoting a passage from a book is fine, quoting five hundred passages from a book is not at all the same thing. Taking a few still frames of a Hollywood movie is one thing, screen-capping every single frame is very different.

DennisP 4y ago

On the other hand, if we could legally train AI with a large number of actual books, it might be a lot more useful. (And if the AI can cite sources, it might even drive book sales.)