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Generative AI. Anything that can create detailed content out of a broad / short prompt. This currently means diffusion for images, large language models for tex

Generative AI. Anything that can create detailed content out of a broad / short prompt. This currently means diffusion for images, large language models for text. That may change as multi-modality and other developments play out in this space. This capability is clearly different from the examples you list. Just because there may be no precise engineering definition does not mean that we cannot arrive at a suitable legal/political definition. The ability to create new content out of whole cloth is quite separate from filters, cropping, and generic "pre-AI" image post-processing. Ditto for spellcheck and word processors for text. The line actually is pretty clear here.

hellojesus 3y ago
How do you expect to regulate this and prove generative models were used? What stops a company from purchasing art from a third party where they receive a photo from a prompt, where that company isn't US based?
- AnIrishDuck 3y ago
  > How do you expect to regulate this and prove generative models were used? Disseminating or creating copies of content derived from generative models without attribution would open that actor up to some form of liability. There's no need for onerous regulation here. The burden of proof should probably lie upon whatever party would initiate legal action. I am not a lawyer, and won't speculate further on how that looks. The broad existing (and severely flawed!) example of copyright legislation seems instructive. All I'll opine is that the main goal here isn't really to prevent Jonny Internet from firing up llama to create a reddit bot. It's to incentivize large commercial and political interests to disclose their usage of generative AI. Similar to current copyright law, the fear of legal action should be sufficient to keep these parties compliant if the law is crafted properly. > What stops a company from purchasing art from a third party where they receive a photo from a prompt, where that company isn't US based? Not really sure why the origin of the company(s) in question is relevant here. If they distribute generative content without attribution, they should be liable. Same as if said "third party" gave them copyright-violating content. EDIT: I'll take this as an opportunity to say that the devil is in the details and some really crappy legislation could arise here. But I'm not convinced by the "It's not possible!" and "Where's the line!?" objections. This clearly is doable, and we have similar legal frameworks in place already. My only additional note is that I'd much prefer we focus on problems and questions like this, instead of the legislative capture path we are currently barrelling down.
  - hellojesus 3y ago
    > It's to incentivize large commercial and political interests to disclose their usage of generative AI. You would be okay allowing small businesses exception from this regulation but not large businesses? Fine. As a large business I'll have a mini subsidiary operate the models and exempt myself from the regulation. I still fail to see what the benefit this holds is. Why do you care if something is generative? We already have laws against libal and against false advertising.
    - AnIrishDuck 3y ago
      > You would be okay allowing small businesses exception from this regulation but not large businesses? That's not what I said. Small businesses are not exempt from copyright laws either. They typically don't need to dedicate the same resources to compliance as large entities though, and this feels fair to me. > I still fail to see what the benefit this holds is. I have found recent arguments by Harari (and others) that generative AI is particularly problematic for discourse and democracy to be persuasive [1][2]. Generative content has the potential, long-term, to be as disruptive as the printing press. Step changes in technological capabilities require high levels of scrutiny, and often new legislative regimes. EDIT: It is no coincidence that I see parallels in the current debate over generative AI in education, for similar reasons. These tools are ok to use, but their use must be disclosed so the work done can be understood in context. I desire the ability to filter the content I consume on "generated by AI". The value of that, to me, is self-evident. 1. https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/04/28/yuval-noah-harari-argues-that-ai-has-hacked-the-operating-system-of-human-civilisation https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/04/28/yuval-noa... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-c...
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > They typically don't need to dedicate the same resources to compliance as large entities though, and this feels fair to me. They typically don't actually dedicate the same resources because they don't have much money or operate at sufficient scale for anybody to care about so nobody bothers to sue them, but that's not the same thing at all. We regularly see small entities getting harassed under these kinds of laws, e.g. when youtube-dl gets a DMCA takedown even though the repository contains no infringing code and has substantial non-infringing uses.

hellojesus 3y ago

How do you expect to regulate this and prove generative models were used? What stops a company from purchasing art from a third party where they receive a photo from a prompt, where that company isn't US based?

AnIrishDuck 3y ago
> How do you expect to regulate this and prove generative models were used? Disseminating or creating copies of content derived from generative models without attribution would open that actor up to some form of liability. There's no need for onerous regulation here. The burden of proof should probably lie upon whatever party would initiate legal action. I am not a lawyer, and won't speculate further on how that looks. The broad existing (and severely flawed!) example of copyright legislation seems instructive. All I'll opine is that the main goal here isn't really to prevent Jonny Internet from firing up llama to create a reddit bot. It's to incentivize large commercial and political interests to disclose their usage of generative AI. Similar to current copyright law, the fear of legal action should be sufficient to keep these parties compliant if the law is crafted properly. > What stops a company from purchasing art from a third party where they receive a photo from a prompt, where that company isn't US based? Not really sure why the origin of the company(s) in question is relevant here. If they distribute generative content without attribution, they should be liable. Same as if said "third party" gave them copyright-violating content. EDIT: I'll take this as an opportunity to say that the devil is in the details and some really crappy legislation could arise here. But I'm not convinced by the "It's not possible!" and "Where's the line!?" objections. This clearly is doable, and we have similar legal frameworks in place already. My only additional note is that I'd much prefer we focus on problems and questions like this, instead of the legislative capture path we are currently barrelling down.
- hellojesus 3y ago
  > It's to incentivize large commercial and political interests to disclose their usage of generative AI. You would be okay allowing small businesses exception from this regulation but not large businesses? Fine. As a large business I'll have a mini subsidiary operate the models and exempt myself from the regulation. I still fail to see what the benefit this holds is. Why do you care if something is generative? We already have laws against libal and against false advertising.
  - AnIrishDuck 3y ago
    > You would be okay allowing small businesses exception from this regulation but not large businesses? That's not what I said. Small businesses are not exempt from copyright laws either. They typically don't need to dedicate the same resources to compliance as large entities though, and this feels fair to me. > I still fail to see what the benefit this holds is. I have found recent arguments by Harari (and others) that generative AI is particularly problematic for discourse and democracy to be persuasive [1][2]. Generative content has the potential, long-term, to be as disruptive as the printing press. Step changes in technological capabilities require high levels of scrutiny, and often new legislative regimes. EDIT: It is no coincidence that I see parallels in the current debate over generative AI in education, for similar reasons. These tools are ok to use, but their use must be disclosed so the work done can be understood in context. I desire the ability to filter the content I consume on "generated by AI". The value of that, to me, is self-evident. 1. https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/04/28/yuval-noah-harari-argues-that-ai-has-hacked-the-operating-system-of-human-civilisation https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/04/28/yuval-noa... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-c...
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > They typically don't need to dedicate the same resources to compliance as large entities though, and this feels fair to me. They typically don't actually dedicate the same resources because they don't have much money or operate at sufficient scale for anybody to care about so nobody bothers to sue them, but that's not the same thing at all. We regularly see small entities getting harassed under these kinds of laws, e.g. when youtube-dl gets a DMCA takedown even though the repository contains no infringing code and has substantial non-infringing uses.