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Here's a point that I struggle with. Let's imagine a point in the future where technology has progressed to the point that a machine can become "assisted memory

Here's a point that I struggle with. Let's imagine a point in the future where technology has progressed to the point that a machine can become "assisted memory" for a human. This could be useful for degraded memory conditions or even just to buff up human capabilities. In this scenario how do we deal with licensing and copyright? The "memory" is trained on books, artwork, etc and then human intelligence accesses that computer aided memory and constructs something new. Seems like this lawsuit could set precedence that the future I describe would not be allowed.

distract8901 3y ago
I think it depends on the use. The kind of AI you're suggesting wouldn't need to ingest the entirety of every book and movie you've seen, it would just need to store a summary and a location for the original file. It's legal for me to make digital copies of copyrighted works I own so long as they're not redistributed. If I have a local AI maintaining my personal data for reasons other than generating competing works, that shouldn't involve copyright at all.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
I think the question boils down to what is fair use in these situations. I actually think it would be useful to have a public effort to build a pan humanity model that claims fair use for public benefit and consumes all productions of humanity. What specifically hurts OpenAI is the monetization and commercial benefit from other people’s work. They also fall clearly in the space of civil claims of copyright violation, if not criminal (however the use of models to produce copyright materials is likely criminal infringement). (IANAL, but a law professor friend made these claims to me, YMMV)
munksbeer 3y ago
I think this is all mostly huff and puff and frankly going to be irrelevant. At some point anyone with a decent enough home computer will be able to train their own models and use them as they see fit. Any law that tries to stop that is going to be stifling and unwieldy in the extreme. And it'll be cross border, so even more difficult to enforce.

distract8901 3y ago

I think it depends on the use. The kind of AI you're suggesting wouldn't need to ingest the entirety of every book and movie you've seen, it would just need to store a summary and a location for the original file. It's legal for me to make digital copies of copyrighted works I own so long as they're not redistributed. If I have a local AI maintaining my personal data for reasons other than generating competing works, that shouldn't involve copyright at all.

fnordpiglet 3y ago

I think the question boils down to what is fair use in these situations. I actually think it would be useful to have a public effort to build a pan humanity model that claims fair use for public benefit and consumes all productions of humanity. What specifically hurts OpenAI is the monetization and commercial benefit from other people’s work. They also fall clearly in the space of civil claims of copyright violation, if not criminal (however the use of models to produce copyright materials is likely criminal infringement). (IANAL, but a law professor friend made these claims to me, YMMV)

munksbeer 3y ago

I think this is all mostly huff and puff and frankly going to be irrelevant. At some point anyone with a decent enough home computer will be able to train their own models and use them as they see fit. Any law that tries to stop that is going to be stifling and unwieldy in the extreme. And it'll be cross border, so even more difficult to enforce.