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It seems to me that a more effective strategy would be for an entity like Reddit or Stackoverflow to initiate a lawsuit, as they may be able to better prove tha

It seems to me that a more effective strategy would be for an entity like Reddit or Stackoverflow to initiate a lawsuit, as they may be able to better prove that their owned/user’s content was copied, terms of service were violated, etc.

leovander 3y ago
OpenAIs Sam Altman is on Reddit’s board, no? Don’t think Reddit would be starting anything. Next up, all content will be only viewable if you are signed in ala twitters change this morning.
- roughly 3y ago
  > Don’t think Reddit would be starting anything. The API changes and the ensuing chaos are at least in part because of OpenAI scraping Reddit’s content.
  - leovander 3y ago
    Since Altman is on their board, its moreso other companies that aren't OpenAI that would be effected? OpenAI got what it needed; has their own straw in the milkshake, make it more expensive for anyone else. Purely conjecture obviously, but him being on both sides of that, not hard to see how all this becomes more favorable to his company making the moat wider for others.
    - kuchenbecker 3y ago
      OpenAI is both asking to raise the barrier to entry of LLMs and closing off the data sources that made them successful.
    - ThunderBee 3y ago
      Sam is on record, and has even given lectures, stating the key to business success is monopolization. It seems rather obvious under his perspective to do everything possible to restrict access to all information that could be used to train an LLM. I understand Sam’s history with ycombinator gives him leniency around here but we seriously need to wake up to the fact that he’s attempting to monopolize the most powerful tool ever created. He talks a good game but if you pay attention to his actions it’s clear he is openly hostile towards the common good which he supposedly promotes. I see him in the same regard as I see any oligarch vying for public favor by ‘stealing’ billions, donating a few million, and riding off into the sunset being praised by media for how much of the ill gotten gains he’s given back.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    That's what Reddit executives say, but I don't think they're being truthful. Big significant AI players could be easily deterred by a mere terms of service change, or a modest rate-limit. Instead they imposed an extremely abrupt new demand for money with any API call.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
The courts have already ruled that web scraping is legal of the data is publicly facing. This is why price trackers for Amazon exist.
- riedel 3y ago
  Interesting thing is that it is not legal everywhere in the world in such away. Fair use is a concept prominent in the US and not established in Europe (the datamining directive is a bit more limiting). Also the concept of informational self-determination does not really exist in the US despite the fact that the UN statements on human rights in the digital age clearly point in this direction. This is all 'wild west' to me as a European, but somehow I wonder if there is any guns that work to protect yourself by means of self-justice.
  - nomel 3y ago
    How does this work for data brokers? For example, if a data broker legally collects the data in the US, then sells it elsewhere, where it could not be legally scraped?
    - LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
      I think that generally if the customer hires you for something that is legal in general in their country, like price comparison, that they're fine if you employ means that wouldn't be legal for them, such as automated scraping, as long as it's legal for you.
  - dantheman 3y ago
    The concept of informational self-determination ends when you put the information out in public... you self determine what is public and what isn't...
    - wpietri 3y ago
      That's obviously not true. Legally, for example, both copyright and trademark protect public information from some kinds of use. In many places, artists also have moral rights: https://www.copyrightlaws.com/moral-rights-in-u-s-copyright-law/ https://www.copyrightlaws.com/moral-rights-in-u-s-copyright-... More importantly, the laws are representations of human feeling and social negotiation. Copyright law grew out of a complex array of beliefs and interests. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne It could be that the various "AI" generative models are legal under current law. But it could also be that this is one of those things, like the printing press, that causes people to say, "Hey, that's not right," and change the law to rule out something that was previously legal.
Applejinx 3y ago
Reddit, for one, is not about to do any such thing. They're clearly trying to cash out on the grounds that they are a giant source for AI companies, and they're fighting their own users who try to remove their content or gate it.

leovander 3y ago

OpenAIs Sam Altman is on Reddit’s board, no? Don’t think Reddit would be starting anything. Next up, all content will be only viewable if you are signed in ala twitters change this morning.

roughly 3y ago
> Don’t think Reddit would be starting anything. The API changes and the ensuing chaos are at least in part because of OpenAI scraping Reddit’s content.
- leovander 3y ago
  Since Altman is on their board, its moreso other companies that aren't OpenAI that would be effected? OpenAI got what it needed; has their own straw in the milkshake, make it more expensive for anyone else. Purely conjecture obviously, but him being on both sides of that, not hard to see how all this becomes more favorable to his company making the moat wider for others.
  - kuchenbecker 3y ago
    OpenAI is both asking to raise the barrier to entry of LLMs and closing off the data sources that made them successful.
  - ThunderBee 3y ago
    Sam is on record, and has even given lectures, stating the key to business success is monopolization. It seems rather obvious under his perspective to do everything possible to restrict access to all information that could be used to train an LLM. I understand Sam’s history with ycombinator gives him leniency around here but we seriously need to wake up to the fact that he’s attempting to monopolize the most powerful tool ever created. He talks a good game but if you pay attention to his actions it’s clear he is openly hostile towards the common good which he supposedly promotes. I see him in the same regard as I see any oligarch vying for public favor by ‘stealing’ billions, donating a few million, and riding off into the sunset being praised by media for how much of the ill gotten gains he’s given back.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  That's what Reddit executives say, but I don't think they're being truthful. Big significant AI players could be easily deterred by a mere terms of service change, or a modest rate-limit. Instead they imposed an extremely abrupt new demand for money with any API call.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

The courts have already ruled that web scraping is legal of the data is publicly facing. This is why price trackers for Amazon exist.

riedel 3y ago
Interesting thing is that it is not legal everywhere in the world in such away. Fair use is a concept prominent in the US and not established in Europe (the datamining directive is a bit more limiting). Also the concept of informational self-determination does not really exist in the US despite the fact that the UN statements on human rights in the digital age clearly point in this direction. This is all 'wild west' to me as a European, but somehow I wonder if there is any guns that work to protect yourself by means of self-justice.
- nomel 3y ago
  How does this work for data brokers? For example, if a data broker legally collects the data in the US, then sells it elsewhere, where it could not be legally scraped?
  - LawTalkingGuy 3y ago
    I think that generally if the customer hires you for something that is legal in general in their country, like price comparison, that they're fine if you employ means that wouldn't be legal for them, such as automated scraping, as long as it's legal for you.
- dantheman 3y ago
  The concept of informational self-determination ends when you put the information out in public... you self determine what is public and what isn't...
  - wpietri 3y ago
    That's obviously not true. Legally, for example, both copyright and trademark protect public information from some kinds of use. In many places, artists also have moral rights: https://www.copyrightlaws.com/moral-rights-in-u-s-copyright-law/ https://www.copyrightlaws.com/moral-rights-in-u-s-copyright-... More importantly, the laws are representations of human feeling and social negotiation. Copyright law grew out of a complex array of beliefs and interests. E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne It could be that the various "AI" generative models are legal under current law. But it could also be that this is one of those things, like the printing press, that causes people to say, "Hey, that's not right," and change the law to rule out something that was previously legal.

Applejinx 3y ago

Reddit, for one, is not about to do any such thing. They're clearly trying to cash out on the grounds that they are a giant source for AI companies, and they're fighting their own users who try to remove their content or gate it.