5 ms·

I think there's a fundamental difference between information passed in confidence for a specific purpose and information made publically available with an inten

I think there's a fundamental difference between information passed in confidence for a specific purpose and information made publically available with an intended range of purposes. I do not believe that the latter is morally protected from unintended use.

godelski 3y ago
Sure, but as is a big discussion in this thread, that public private distinction is quite messy. We don't have just private chats and old twitter style where everyone can see everything. Facebook has posts which you can share with only friends, or with even more limited groups. This changes your perceived privacy levels and expectations. We have various group chats with widely different expectations of privacy. But RTFA, because what it is discussing is not public facebook/twitter posts. I'm not sure why the discussion keeps moving there as if that's the only case. Besides, a public facebook post is still only visible to those on facebook. It is as public as a private country club, even if it's easy to get access. What about what you write in copilot? What about your code on github? In a private repo? The article mentions this is already protected under current law as personal information. The fundamental problem here is about consent. What would a reasonable person expect? 10 years ago certainly no one expected this. Mass gathering of data was only for the biggest of tech and governments. Now it's in the hands of anyone that wants to train an LLM. Things changed very fast and I think a lot of people are forgetting that.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  > The fundamental problem here is about consent. What would a reasonable person expect? 10 years ago certainly no one expected this. I just don't think that's the right angle. I think if you're in the public sphere, the way that you anticipated your creations to be used just shouldn't matter at all. If you've given something to the public, the public should not be limited to whatever you thought they'd use it for. And the conversation keeps coming back to that because people keep making that argument. I specifically agree that private Facebook posts are not covered under this argument! However, I also think that consent as a basis for analysis just doesn't apply to public posts.
  - godelski 3y ago
    Why does everything have to be binary these days? We aren't machines. The world is messy and so are we humans. Removing nuance from conversations and ideas does not help anything. The scenario you laid out, continued, leaves no person with privacy anywhere. I specifically don't want to explain because I specifically want more people thinking and thinking hard. To specifically attempt to break from their way of thinking and try to see things from a different point of view. This is important especially when there is disagreement. You don't have to be convinced by my arguments, but you certainly do have to understand them. There definitely isn't enough of that happening these days. Our interconnectedness has only made the world more complicated, not more simple. It has made communication more difficult too, as we talk with many who have far larger differences in priors than we would were we constrained to in person communication. As for consent, you may disagree, but that's how our entire legal framework works, and I for one am happy about this. Consent is the foundation of any democracy. A world without consent isn't figuratively tyranny, it is literally tyranny. Agree or not, the law does not give you the right to use any information (words spoken, pictures taken, bits, or whatever) that is publicly available/viewable in whatever way you want. There are rules. It is why Taylor Swift can't even post a picture of herself on Instagram and why you can't follow someone around all day taking pictures of them (aka. stalking). There are limitations because we live in a society and I for one think this is a good thing. Yes, you are right when posting something public that people shouldn't limits on use for only what the poster explicitly intended. But that freedom is neither unlimited. That's the point I'm making. The line of public and private is getting blurrier by the day. These laws are always made by that of a reasonable expectation. Certainly no one that posted on Facebook 10 years ago had a reasonable expectation that their post would be used to train an LLM.
    - FeepingCreature 3y ago
      Personally speaking: all the art I consume is remixes. Almost all the books I read are fanfics. If the repurposing of cultural content without the consent of the author becomes illegal, my cultural universe will vanish overnight. As such, I think I'm just on the other side of that fight. If we have to lose privacy and control in order to keep our participatory culture, I'm sorry, I'll take culture. If it's a multidimensional topic, I'm for tightening privacy in private spaces and loosening privacy in public spaces. If there's only one axis, I'll push the lever towards loose.

godelski 3y ago

Sure, but as is a big discussion in this thread, that public private distinction is quite messy. We don't have just private chats and old twitter style where everyone can see everything. Facebook has posts which you can share with only friends, or with even more limited groups. This changes your perceived privacy levels and expectations. We have various group chats with widely different expectations of privacy. But RTFA, because what it is discussing is not public facebook/twitter posts. I'm not sure why the discussion keeps moving there as if that's the only case. Besides, a public facebook post is still only visible to those on facebook. It is as public as a private country club, even if it's easy to get access. What about what you write in copilot? What about your code on github? In a private repo? The article mentions this is already protected under current law as personal information. The fundamental problem here is about consent. What would a reasonable person expect? 10 years ago certainly no one expected this. Mass gathering of data was only for the biggest of tech and governments. Now it's in the hands of anyone that wants to train an LLM. Things changed very fast and I think a lot of people are forgetting that.

FeepingCreature 3y ago
> The fundamental problem here is about consent. What would a reasonable person expect? 10 years ago certainly no one expected this. I just don't think that's the right angle. I think if you're in the public sphere, the way that you anticipated your creations to be used just shouldn't matter at all. If you've given something to the public, the public should not be limited to whatever you thought they'd use it for. And the conversation keeps coming back to that because people keep making that argument. I specifically agree that private Facebook posts are not covered under this argument! However, I also think that consent as a basis for analysis just doesn't apply to public posts.
- godelski 3y ago
  Why does everything have to be binary these days? We aren't machines. The world is messy and so are we humans. Removing nuance from conversations and ideas does not help anything. The scenario you laid out, continued, leaves no person with privacy anywhere. I specifically don't want to explain because I specifically want more people thinking and thinking hard. To specifically attempt to break from their way of thinking and try to see things from a different point of view. This is important especially when there is disagreement. You don't have to be convinced by my arguments, but you certainly do have to understand them. There definitely isn't enough of that happening these days. Our interconnectedness has only made the world more complicated, not more simple. It has made communication more difficult too, as we talk with many who have far larger differences in priors than we would were we constrained to in person communication. As for consent, you may disagree, but that's how our entire legal framework works, and I for one am happy about this. Consent is the foundation of any democracy. A world without consent isn't figuratively tyranny, it is literally tyranny. Agree or not, the law does not give you the right to use any information (words spoken, pictures taken, bits, or whatever) that is publicly available/viewable in whatever way you want. There are rules. It is why Taylor Swift can't even post a picture of herself on Instagram and why you can't follow someone around all day taking pictures of them (aka. stalking). There are limitations because we live in a society and I for one think this is a good thing. Yes, you are right when posting something public that people shouldn't limits on use for only what the poster explicitly intended. But that freedom is neither unlimited. That's the point I'm making. The line of public and private is getting blurrier by the day. These laws are always made by that of a reasonable expectation. Certainly no one that posted on Facebook 10 years ago had a reasonable expectation that their post would be used to train an LLM.
  - FeepingCreature 3y ago
    Personally speaking: all the art I consume is remixes. Almost all the books I read are fanfics. If the repurposing of cultural content without the consent of the author becomes illegal, my cultural universe will vanish overnight. As such, I think I'm just on the other side of that fight. If we have to lose privacy and control in order to keep our participatory culture, I'm sorry, I'll take culture. If it's a multidimensional topic, I'm for tightening privacy in private spaces and loosening privacy in public spaces. If there's only one axis, I'll push the lever towards loose.