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Humans are allowed to train themselves on copyrighted works without custom contracts, even though we may then go on to generate profitable work from our experie

Humans are allowed to train themselves on copyrighted works without custom contracts, even though we may then go on to generate profitable work from our experience. An aspiring musician will be heavily influenced by what they’ve already heard, even borrowing melodies or styles from existing songs. Maybe current AI output is still too similar to the training data, but that seems like more of a reason to regulate the output and not the input. We already have legal frameworks to prevent people from replicating the work of others. I don’t understand why there needs to be a distinction from using copyrighted works to train computers vs people.

deleted 3y ago
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youssefabdelm 3y ago
Exactly. For those who want a good film to watch regarding why this is the case: https://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-remastered https://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-re...
CharlesW 3y ago
> I don’t understand why there needs to be a distinction from using copyrighted works to train computers vs people. The problem isn't that the works are copyrighted. It's perfectly ethical to build a business on licensed works in order to generate new text, imagery, audio, etc. based on those works. Adobe Firefly is an example of ethical generative AI trained on imagery Adobe owns, licenses, or is in the public domain.
- artninja1988 3y ago
  Except the majority of people could have never conceived something like ai image gen existing, when they signed away their license to be used. And adobe isn't exactly a friendly company to deal with. This is exactly why I am for a free for all. If we make it so only big license holders and big tech can create these models, you'll have to go through some proprietary subscription service that goes down every couple days, while the creators get paid a couple of cent.
  - wokwokwok 3y ago
    > while the creators get paid a couple of cent As opposed to a “free for all” where they get literally nothing? Are we really arguing the morality of who gets to screw over artists? :| My sympathy for people who want to be a part of that screwing them over rather than letting big companies get all the glory of screwing them over isn’t really very high.
NamTaf 3y ago
Humans can’t automate and industrialise the process in the same way that AI can. That is to say, if I spend years learning how to write music and being influenced by a suite of prior artists, I can’t then package myself up and arbitrarily clone my capability such that an infinite number of people can ask me to spit out new music drawing inspiration from those prior artists. Human capacity is rate-limited, and that’s an important distinction. Another point: humans exist for a finite time. If I learn how to write music per the above, I’ve only got a set period of time wherein I’m collecting from the talents given to me by the shoulders upon which I’m standing. Sooner or later I retire/die and someone else must become the cultural torchbearer. If you consider some finite amount of capacity in the world to gainfully support all artists, I’m only drawing from that for a finite period of time. Contrast that with AI, where, theoretically, in 50 years a model will still be just as able to create outputs as it is today. Having said all that, I don’t have enough skin in the game to decide whether that builds an argument for regulating input vs output. I’m certainly sympathetic to the idea that it might, though. It’s a complex topic and saying “humans work this way, computers are fine to as well” doesn’t IMO capture the nuance of the debate.
- abracadaniel 3y ago
  Those are good points. The debate seems heavily focused on the "I don't like people using my stuff" argument, which falls apart pretty quickly for me. The real distinctions are more nuanced as you point out.
  - sheepshear 3y ago
    You don't see how one is shorthand for the other?
  - __loam 3y ago
    I don't know, I think "I'd rather a billion dollar tech company not profit off my work without my knowledge or consent" is a petty good argument.
    - boppo1 3y ago
orbifold 3y ago
The word train is highly misleading here. Training a humans and “training” in Machine leaning refer to fundamentally different processes.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

youssefabdelm 3y ago

Exactly. For those who want a good film to watch regarding why this is the case: https://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-remastered https://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-re...

CharlesW 3y ago

> I don’t understand why there needs to be a distinction from using copyrighted works to train computers vs people. The problem isn't that the works are copyrighted. It's perfectly ethical to build a business on licensed works in order to generate new text, imagery, audio, etc. based on those works. Adobe Firefly is an example of ethical generative AI trained on imagery Adobe owns, licenses, or is in the public domain.

artninja1988 3y ago
Except the majority of people could have never conceived something like ai image gen existing, when they signed away their license to be used. And adobe isn't exactly a friendly company to deal with. This is exactly why I am for a free for all. If we make it so only big license holders and big tech can create these models, you'll have to go through some proprietary subscription service that goes down every couple days, while the creators get paid a couple of cent.
- wokwokwok 3y ago
  > while the creators get paid a couple of cent As opposed to a “free for all” where they get literally nothing? Are we really arguing the morality of who gets to screw over artists? :| My sympathy for people who want to be a part of that screwing them over rather than letting big companies get all the glory of screwing them over isn’t really very high.

NamTaf 3y ago

Humans can’t automate and industrialise the process in the same way that AI can. That is to say, if I spend years learning how to write music and being influenced by a suite of prior artists, I can’t then package myself up and arbitrarily clone my capability such that an infinite number of people can ask me to spit out new music drawing inspiration from those prior artists. Human capacity is rate-limited, and that’s an important distinction. Another point: humans exist for a finite time. If I learn how to write music per the above, I’ve only got a set period of time wherein I’m collecting from the talents given to me by the shoulders upon which I’m standing. Sooner or later I retire/die and someone else must become the cultural torchbearer. If you consider some finite amount of capacity in the world to gainfully support all artists, I’m only drawing from that for a finite period of time. Contrast that with AI, where, theoretically, in 50 years a model will still be just as able to create outputs as it is today. Having said all that, I don’t have enough skin in the game to decide whether that builds an argument for regulating input vs output. I’m certainly sympathetic to the idea that it might, though. It’s a complex topic and saying “humans work this way, computers are fine to as well” doesn’t IMO capture the nuance of the debate.

abracadaniel 3y ago
Those are good points. The debate seems heavily focused on the "I don't like people using my stuff" argument, which falls apart pretty quickly for me. The real distinctions are more nuanced as you point out.
- sheepshear 3y ago
  You don't see how one is shorthand for the other?
- __loam 3y ago
  I don't know, I think "I'd rather a billion dollar tech company not profit off my work without my knowledge or consent" is a petty good argument.
  - boppo1 3y ago

orbifold 3y ago

The word train is highly misleading here. Training a humans and “training” in Machine leaning refer to fundamentally different processes.