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> I don’t think we want to establish the precedent that the government can stop people doing what they want in private with their own hardware Society does thi

> I don’t think we want to establish the precedent that the government can stop people doing what they want in private with their own hardware Society does this every day and people think nothing of it if the hardware is a fentanyl lab or a uranium enrichment facility.

skissane 3y ago
> Society does this every day and people think nothing of it if the hardware is a fentanyl lab or a uranium enrichment facility. There's a big difference between laws preventing you from doing those things in the privacy of your own home, and laws preventing you from entertaining or expressing certain ideas or beliefs in the privacy of your own home. Freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, are generally understood to be fundamental human rights, while "freedom to synthesise fentanyl" or "freedom to enrich uranium" are not. Software is ultimately a form of literature (that's where its protection under copyright law comes from), and hence is directly connected with freedom of expression; AIs are ultimately just software too, so the same applies to them.
- mrtranscendence 3y ago
  Source code is a form of literature; software-being-executed is not. It might be permissible for me to write a program that steals credentials and holds them for ransom, but actually running it would not be. Thus I don’t see why it would be unbelievable that training or inference of large language models might, plausibly, be limited in some way by law.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > It might be permissible for me to write a program that steals credentials and holds them for ransom, but actually running it would not be. Because that’s communicating with a third party, no longer limited to the privacy of your own home. Fraud, extortion, etc, go beyond the bounds of accepted free expression. > Thus I don’t see why it would be unbelievable that training or inference of large language models might, plausibly, be limited in some way by law. What’s the fundamental difference between training an AI to generate propaganda and generating it by hand? If freedom of expression protects the latter, why does it not protect the former too?
    - mrtranscendence 3y ago
      OK, what about this? It’s also illegal to use a AI model to generate realistic child pornography, even in the privacy of your own home. > If freedom of expression protects the latter, why does it not protect the former too? It’s legal for me to achieve altered states via meditation; why is it illegal to use LSD? Arguably it shouldn’t be, but it is. It seems like methods matter, even when it comes to expression.
      - skissane 3y ago
        > OK, what about this? It’s also illegal to use a AI model to generate realistic child pornography, even in the privacy of your own home. False in the US - in the 2002 case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court ruled that “virtual child pornography” is protected by the 1st Amendment. True in some other jurisdictions, including my own country (Australia). However, I think Australian laws on this topic go way too far - in Australia, people have been convicted of child pornography offences purely for publishing offensive remarks about child abuse victims. While I agree it is wrong to make such remarks, I think it is massive overkill to prosecute them as child pornography.
        defrost 3y ago
        > in Australia, people have been convicted of child pornography offences purely for publishing offensive remarks about child abuse victims. I'd love to see a cite to the Court case on this - while I don't doubt that you've heard this it does sound an awful lot like a Sky 'News' after Dark pearl clutching misrepresentation of an almost but not quite actual event.
        skissane 3y ago
        I’m talking about this case - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-12/nicolaas-bester-sentenced-over-social-media-comments-child-abuse/7083524 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-12/nicolaas-bester-sente... I have no sympathy for the defendant, who is absolute scum of the earth. But, as a matter of principle, I don’t think it is right that posting an offensive Facebook comment is legally the same offence (“producing child exploitation material”) as filming heinous crimes against children. If they’d prosecuted him for harassment instead-he’s currently facing trial on harassment charges against the same victim-I’d have no objection.

skissane 3y ago

> Society does this every day and people think nothing of it if the hardware is a fentanyl lab or a uranium enrichment facility. There's a big difference between laws preventing you from doing those things in the privacy of your own home, and laws preventing you from entertaining or expressing certain ideas or beliefs in the privacy of your own home. Freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, are generally understood to be fundamental human rights, while "freedom to synthesise fentanyl" or "freedom to enrich uranium" are not. Software is ultimately a form of literature (that's where its protection under copyright law comes from), and hence is directly connected with freedom of expression; AIs are ultimately just software too, so the same applies to them.

mrtranscendence 3y ago
Source code is a form of literature; software-being-executed is not. It might be permissible for me to write a program that steals credentials and holds them for ransom, but actually running it would not be. Thus I don’t see why it would be unbelievable that training or inference of large language models might, plausibly, be limited in some way by law.
- skissane 3y ago
  > It might be permissible for me to write a program that steals credentials and holds them for ransom, but actually running it would not be. Because that’s communicating with a third party, no longer limited to the privacy of your own home. Fraud, extortion, etc, go beyond the bounds of accepted free expression. > Thus I don’t see why it would be unbelievable that training or inference of large language models might, plausibly, be limited in some way by law. What’s the fundamental difference between training an AI to generate propaganda and generating it by hand? If freedom of expression protects the latter, why does it not protect the former too?
  - mrtranscendence 3y ago
    OK, what about this? It’s also illegal to use a AI model to generate realistic child pornography, even in the privacy of your own home. > If freedom of expression protects the latter, why does it not protect the former too? It’s legal for me to achieve altered states via meditation; why is it illegal to use LSD? Arguably it shouldn’t be, but it is. It seems like methods matter, even when it comes to expression.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > OK, what about this? It’s also illegal to use a AI model to generate realistic child pornography, even in the privacy of your own home. False in the US - in the 2002 case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court ruled that “virtual child pornography” is protected by the 1st Amendment. True in some other jurisdictions, including my own country (Australia). However, I think Australian laws on this topic go way too far - in Australia, people have been convicted of child pornography offences purely for publishing offensive remarks about child abuse victims. While I agree it is wrong to make such remarks, I think it is massive overkill to prosecute them as child pornography.
      - defrost 3y ago
        > in Australia, people have been convicted of child pornography offences purely for publishing offensive remarks about child abuse victims. I'd love to see a cite to the Court case on this - while I don't doubt that you've heard this it does sound an awful lot like a Sky 'News' after Dark pearl clutching misrepresentation of an almost but not quite actual event.
        skissane 3y ago
        I’m talking about this case - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-12/nicolaas-bester-sentenced-over-social-media-comments-child-abuse/7083524 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-12/nicolaas-bester-sente... I have no sympathy for the defendant, who is absolute scum of the earth. But, as a matter of principle, I don’t think it is right that posting an offensive Facebook comment is legally the same offence (“producing child exploitation material”) as filming heinous crimes against children. If they’d prosecuted him for harassment instead-he’s currently facing trial on harassment charges against the same victim-I’d have no objection.