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I found this article frustratingly vague on how prosecraft.io actually worked. As far as I can tell, the author scraped the web for books, including in-copyrigh

I found this article frustratingly vague on how prosecraft.io actually worked. As far as I can tell, the author scraped the web for books, including in-copyright books. Then he analyzed it with techniques based on "classical" natural language processing techniques, rather than transformers or deep learning. He appears to have retained the books he scraped for future analysis. The site itself seems to use only snippets. However, the apology [0] says that the creator did not "intend" to participate in AI that can "create zero-effort impersonations of artists." I'm not sure if the wording is unintentionally vague, or if there is some way his project could be used in that way. For what it's worth, the Computational Story Lab's hendometer [1] seems to have largely out-of-copyright books from Project Gutenberg, plus the Harry Potter series. [0]: https://blog.shaxpir.com/taking-down-prosecraft-io-37e189797121 https://blog.shaxpir.com/taking-down-prosecraft-io-37e189797... [1]: https://hedonometer.org/books/v3/863/ https://hedonometer.org/books/v3/863/ Edit: Apparently he was working on an LLM project. https://twitter.com/stealcase/status/1688721685585809408 https://twitter.com/stealcase/status/1688721685585809408. It's unclear whether he was planning to use the books he scraped (although as @stealcase points out, GPT-Neox itself was trained on books that were pirated).

randallsquared 3y ago
If he says he didn't do something, the pitchfork mob will simply tell each other that he is lying. They will do this in the most confused and twisted way possible, driven by lack of understanding of what was happening combined with a need to drive outrage and thereby advertise their work. If he says he didn't intend to do that thing, this is still compatible with a later update that he didn't do that thing, but immediately dampens the outrage machine. The reader who knows nothing about either side relaxes -- "No need for me to get worked up, because we won". Conveniently, saying he didn't intend to do the thing is also compatible with a later reveal that he was doing the thing (perhaps for later release, since he wasn't clearly doing the thing here). Therefore, regardless of whether he was doing what he was accused of doing, this is the lowest energy response, and probably the default unless this was the hill he wanted to defend.
- b112 3y ago
  The best response, for us all collectively, is to always ignore everyone's opinion online. There is zero value in anything on reddit, twitter, facebook, the media these days. Just ignore it. All of it. Outrage or not. I see downvotes, but I mean it. You know who you listen to? Your friends. Your neighbours. Your local community. You listen to PEOPLE, not sockpuppets. You listen to legitimate human beings, not AI generated blather, or curated news stories, or groups working together to generate hate, outrage, to stoke anger, upset. You listen to actual, real PEOPLE. You want to go to reddit? Twitter? Anything? Fine. But treat it as 100% fiction, pure entertainment, and never let it affect YOU.
  - slg 3y ago
    I'm genuinely curious, why do you post here if you have this mindset?
    - b112 3y ago
      This is not twitter, with its tiny little snippets of text, which are useless for meaningful communication, and its culture which incites groupthink. This is not Reddit, with its hostile, hate filled voting system, with its peer pressure laden culture. This is not Facebook, literally designed to drive hate, and anger, and upset, to increase engagement. This is Hackernews. It's not perfect, but it's far more palatable. And it's certainly not like any of the above. Lastly, my advice still applies. When I detect hate here, I ignore it. When I detect peer pressure, I don't care.
      - slg 3y ago
        Your two comments here could each fit in a Tweet and Reddit has basically the same voting mechanism as HN. There is also plenty of groupthink here too. That was basically the reason behind my comment to see what distinction you are making. People here seem to often deride social media while pretending HN is not social media. HN is effectively just Reddit with only a few subreddits and moderation that is stronger than average, but within the range you will find on certain subreddits.
h11h 3y ago
Even Facebook's Llama was trained on books3, a dump of pirated books.
- stusmall 3y ago
  It's so mind blowing to me that it made it past corporate legal. I don't get what defense there could be besides "lmao try and stop me, nerds"
  - imchillyb 3y ago
    "...but, but, that's illegal." Jenkins huffed out in an almost whisper. "Jenkins, take out your wallet, and place it on the table. If you speak, I'll fire you on the spot. Do it." the CEO spat. Jenkins trembled with rage but reached his right hand deftly into the inner folds of his suit, and produced his billfold. He waved it a bit and set it in front of him. "Good, now push the package forward, and keep silent." the CEO growled at Jenkins. Jenkins pushed his wallet out further from himself, and with a last shove pushed the wallet beyond his fingertips. Jenkins wiggled his fingers and sat back, raising his eyebrows at his bosses boss. "Harold!" CEO Barcliff barked. "Take the package to logistics." "Right away, sir." Harold nodded, retrieved the package and left the room. "What the hell Barcliff!" Jenkins exploded. "I suggest you call the card companies, and the DMV, for replacements." Barcliff stated in a deadpan low growl. "Screw you Barcliff, call him back. I want my wallet. That's my life in there man!" Jenkins now yell-whined. "Connely, Mirasu, Fender, Scotts, did any of you see this wallet Jenkins is whining about?" Barcliff almost sneered. "No sir, I observed Jenkins deliver a package to Harold to be taken to logistics." Scotts spoke out before the others could speak. Nods all around though. "You see Jenkins, illegal is only what you can prove. You can't prove shit. Just like they can't prove shit. Now get out of here before I fire your ass. Don't forget to say hi to the wife for me." Barcliff purred.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    Fair use is basically the whole defense.
    - 3y ago
fenomas 3y ago
> However, the apology [0] says that the creator did not "intend" to participate in AI that can "create zero-effort impersonations of artists." I'm not sure if the wording is unintentionally vague, or if there is some way his project could be used in that way. This seems FUDdy. "Intend" isn't in the apology at all, and the wording that is there says clearly that generative AI came after prosecraft, so there's no way the tool could be used for it. > It's unclear whether he was planning to use the books he scraped This also seems unwarranted. The tweet about fine-tuning an LLM came 5-6 years after the guy made prosecraft; why suggest they might involve the same dataset?
- actuallyalys 3y ago
  I apologize for the quotes around intend. I wrote it without, then I forgot it was a paraphrase and added them back again. Unfortunately, I cannot edit my comment to fix that. I do think “intend” is a reasonable paraphrase of “never wanted to.” (Edited to add) I don’t think prosecraft was a finished project and he was definitely still working on his other tool for writers that incorporates some of the same tools. > The tweet about fine-tuning an LLM came 5-6 years after the guy made prosecraft; why suggest they might involve the same dataset? The reason being that he had mentioned he was planning to use the scraped books for future analysis.
  - Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
    So you can edit your OP and this comment but can’t edit “intend”?
    - fenomas 3y ago
      HN comments cannot be edited once two hours have past.

randallsquared 3y ago

If he says he didn't do something, the pitchfork mob will simply tell each other that he is lying. They will do this in the most confused and twisted way possible, driven by lack of understanding of what was happening combined with a need to drive outrage and thereby advertise their work. If he says he didn't intend to do that thing, this is still compatible with a later update that he didn't do that thing, but immediately dampens the outrage machine. The reader who knows nothing about either side relaxes -- "No need for me to get worked up, because we won". Conveniently, saying he didn't intend to do the thing is also compatible with a later reveal that he was doing the thing (perhaps for later release, since he wasn't clearly doing the thing here). Therefore, regardless of whether he was doing what he was accused of doing, this is the lowest energy response, and probably the default unless this was the hill he wanted to defend.

b112 3y ago
The best response, for us all collectively, is to always ignore everyone's opinion online. There is zero value in anything on reddit, twitter, facebook, the media these days. Just ignore it. All of it. Outrage or not. I see downvotes, but I mean it. You know who you listen to? Your friends. Your neighbours. Your local community. You listen to PEOPLE, not sockpuppets. You listen to legitimate human beings, not AI generated blather, or curated news stories, or groups working together to generate hate, outrage, to stoke anger, upset. You listen to actual, real PEOPLE. You want to go to reddit? Twitter? Anything? Fine. But treat it as 100% fiction, pure entertainment, and never let it affect YOU.
- slg 3y ago
  I'm genuinely curious, why do you post here if you have this mindset?
  - b112 3y ago
    This is not twitter, with its tiny little snippets of text, which are useless for meaningful communication, and its culture which incites groupthink. This is not Reddit, with its hostile, hate filled voting system, with its peer pressure laden culture. This is not Facebook, literally designed to drive hate, and anger, and upset, to increase engagement. This is Hackernews. It's not perfect, but it's far more palatable. And it's certainly not like any of the above. Lastly, my advice still applies. When I detect hate here, I ignore it. When I detect peer pressure, I don't care.
    - slg 3y ago
      Your two comments here could each fit in a Tweet and Reddit has basically the same voting mechanism as HN. There is also plenty of groupthink here too. That was basically the reason behind my comment to see what distinction you are making. People here seem to often deride social media while pretending HN is not social media. HN is effectively just Reddit with only a few subreddits and moderation that is stronger than average, but within the range you will find on certain subreddits.

h11h 3y ago

Even Facebook's Llama was trained on books3, a dump of pirated books.

stusmall 3y ago
It's so mind blowing to me that it made it past corporate legal. I don't get what defense there could be besides "lmao try and stop me, nerds"
- imchillyb 3y ago
  "...but, but, that's illegal." Jenkins huffed out in an almost whisper. "Jenkins, take out your wallet, and place it on the table. If you speak, I'll fire you on the spot. Do it." the CEO spat. Jenkins trembled with rage but reached his right hand deftly into the inner folds of his suit, and produced his billfold. He waved it a bit and set it in front of him. "Good, now push the package forward, and keep silent." the CEO growled at Jenkins. Jenkins pushed his wallet out further from himself, and with a last shove pushed the wallet beyond his fingertips. Jenkins wiggled his fingers and sat back, raising his eyebrows at his bosses boss. "Harold!" CEO Barcliff barked. "Take the package to logistics." "Right away, sir." Harold nodded, retrieved the package and left the room. "What the hell Barcliff!" Jenkins exploded. "I suggest you call the card companies, and the DMV, for replacements." Barcliff stated in a deadpan low growl. "Screw you Barcliff, call him back. I want my wallet. That's my life in there man!" Jenkins now yell-whined. "Connely, Mirasu, Fender, Scotts, did any of you see this wallet Jenkins is whining about?" Barcliff almost sneered. "No sir, I observed Jenkins deliver a package to Harold to be taken to logistics." Scotts spoke out before the others could speak. Nods all around though. "You see Jenkins, illegal is only what you can prove. You can't prove shit. Just like they can't prove shit. Now get out of here before I fire your ass. Don't forget to say hi to the wife for me." Barcliff purred.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  Fair use is basically the whole defense.
  - 3y ago

fenomas 3y ago

> However, the apology [0] says that the creator did not "intend" to participate in AI that can "create zero-effort impersonations of artists." I'm not sure if the wording is unintentionally vague, or if there is some way his project could be used in that way. This seems FUDdy. "Intend" isn't in the apology at all, and the wording that is there says clearly that generative AI came after prosecraft, so there's no way the tool could be used for it. > It's unclear whether he was planning to use the books he scraped This also seems unwarranted. The tweet about fine-tuning an LLM came 5-6 years after the guy made prosecraft; why suggest they might involve the same dataset?

actuallyalys 3y ago
I apologize for the quotes around intend. I wrote it without, then I forgot it was a paraphrase and added them back again. Unfortunately, I cannot edit my comment to fix that. I do think “intend” is a reasonable paraphrase of “never wanted to.” (Edited to add) I don’t think prosecraft was a finished project and he was definitely still working on his other tool for writers that incorporates some of the same tools. > The tweet about fine-tuning an LLM came 5-6 years after the guy made prosecraft; why suggest they might involve the same dataset? The reason being that he had mentioned he was planning to use the scraped books for future analysis.
- Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
  So you can edit your OP and this comment but can’t edit “intend”?
  - fenomas 3y ago
    HN comments cannot be edited once two hours have past.