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I think it is an RLHF problem and that you are right - this will blow up in the faces of the NYT. Specifically, the NYT examples all seem to be cases where the

I think it is an RLHF problem and that you are right - this will blow up in the faces of the NYT. Specifically, the NYT examples all seem to be cases where they asked the AI to repeat their articles verbatim? So they ask it to violate copyright and because it's a helpful bot with a good memory, it does so. Solution: teach the model to refuse requests to repeat articles verbatim. It's easily capable of recognizing when it's being asked to do that. And that's exactly what OpenAI have now done. So the direct problem the NYT is complaining about - a paywall bypass - is already rectified. Now it would seem to me like the case is quite weak. They could demand OpenAI pay them damages for the time ChatGPT wasn't refusing, but wouldn't they have to prove damages actually happened? It seems unlikely many people used ChatGPT as a paywall bypass for the NYT specifically in the past year. It only knows old articles. OpenAI could be ordered to search their logs for cases where this happened, for example, and then the NYT could be ordered to show their working for the value of displaying a single old article to a non-subscriber, and from that damages could be computed. But it wouldn't be a lot. That's presumably why the case goes further and argues that OpenAI is in violation even when it isn't repeating text verbatim. That's the only way the NYT can get any significant money out of this situation. But this case seems much weaker to me. Beyond all the obvious human analogies, there is precedent in the case of search engines where they crawl - and the NYT let them crawl - specifically to enable the creation of a derived data structure. Search engine indexes are understood to be fair use, and they actually do repeat parts of the page verbatim in their snippets. Google once even showed cached versions of whole pages. And browser makers all allow extensions in their stores that strip ads and bypass paywalls, and the NYT hasn't sued them over that either.

cycomanic 3y ago
This is not how copyright works though. The verbatim quoting of articles is because when people brought up these questions initially the argument was that the NN doesn't really contain the training data or really just in an abstract, condensed way that does not constitute copying of the content. This demonstrates that no, the NN actually does contain the full articles, copied into the NN. Do you think any normal person would get away with copying MS windows by e.g. zipping it together with some other OS on the same medium. Why should we let OpenAI get away with this?
- mike_hearn 3y ago
  Search indexes contain exact copies of the pages they index, and that isn't a copyright violation. > Why should we let OpenAI get away with this? IP rights, like other private property rights, are a compromise between creators and consumers. What "should" be the case is essentially an argument about what balance creates the best overall outcomes. LLMs, for now, require large amounts of text to train, so the question is one of whether we want LLMs to exist or not. That's really a question for Congress and not the courts, but it'll be decided in the courts first.

cycomanic 3y ago

This is not how copyright works though. The verbatim quoting of articles is because when people brought up these questions initially the argument was that the NN doesn't really contain the training data or really just in an abstract, condensed way that does not constitute copying of the content. This demonstrates that no, the NN actually does contain the full articles, copied into the NN. Do you think any normal person would get away with copying MS windows by e.g. zipping it together with some other OS on the same medium. Why should we let OpenAI get away with this?

mike_hearn 3y ago
Search indexes contain exact copies of the pages they index, and that isn't a copyright violation. > Why should we let OpenAI get away with this? IP rights, like other private property rights, are a compromise between creators and consumers. What "should" be the case is essentially an argument about what balance creates the best overall outcomes. LLMs, for now, require large amounts of text to train, so the question is one of whether we want LLMs to exist or not. That's really a question for Congress and not the courts, but it'll be decided in the courts first.