5 ms·

This argument might hold more water when generative models are more than fancy compression algorithms/text completion engines. A more practical way of looking

by d4mi3n 3y ago

This argument might hold more water when generative models are more than fancy compression algorithms/text completion engines. A more practical way of looking at this is: who is making money off of these models? How did they get their training data? I’m not a fan of copyright in general, but we have serious outstanding issues with companies and organizations stealing or plastering work without compensating the original creators of said works. Thusfar, LLMs are becoming another method to concentrate wealth to whoever has the resources to train and sell these models at scale.

ben_w 3y ago
> This argument might hold more water when generative models are more than fancy compression algorithms/text completion engines. I doubt that part of the argument would change even if we perfected brain uploads. Now, if you gave the current LLMs a robot body with a cute face, that'll probably change minds faster, regardless of the underlying architecture. > who is making money off of these models? When the models are open source, or at least may be downloaded and used locally for no cost, that would be the users of the models. And back to the biological comparison: I learned to read (and also to code) in part from the Commodore 64 user manual, should I owe the shareholders anything for my lifetime earnings? As I got to the end of that sentence, a thought struck me: taxes do that. And in the UK the question of if university should be funded by taxes or by the students themselves followed the same lines.
- d4mi3n 3y ago
  > When the models are open source, or at least may be downloaded and used locally for no cost, that would be the users of the models. I think there's a bit more nuance to this. The profits go to those with the ability to run these models and to those with the infrastructure (or capitol) to run said models. I'm hoping this will change and we'll see lower barriers to entry as LLMs are made more accessible over time. > And back to the biological comparison: I learned to read (and also to code) in part from the Commodore 64 user manual, should I owe the shareholders anything for my lifetime earnings? This is more a philosophical question than anything else. I don't think there's right or wrong answer, but in my opinion the answers we arrive at should provide as much benefit to as many people as possible. > As I got to the end of that sentence, a thought struck me: taxes do that. And in the UK the question of if university should be funded by taxes or by the students themselves followed the same lines. I agree with your assessment and this model lines up well with my own opinions on reasonable ways to ensure equitable benefit from AI (be it ML, LLMs, or some theoretical general AI in the future).
jcgrillo 3y ago
> I’m not a fan of copyright in general, but we have serious outstanding issues with companies and organizations stealing or plastering work without compensating the original creators of said works. Would you mind unpacking this one a bit? It sounds like you denigrate copyright (some "general" grievance) but then immediately execute an about-face and begin to extoll its virtues. Is copyright not the thing that allows us to share works without fear they'll be stolen?
- feanaro 3y ago
  I think they are expressing a view that we ought to offer less protection / more scrutiny to larger commercial entities, which concentrate disproportionate amounts of wealth and power, compared to smaller entities. I tend to agree.
  - d4mi3n 3y ago
    This is more or less correct. We can have systems to compensate creators that aren't identical to the copyright system we have today. If I were to rephrase my previous statement, I'd clarify instead saying: "I do not like copyright as it exists today." As a society we want to incentivize innovation and reward things that advance society. One of the ways we do that today is copyright. It doesn't need to be the only way, or be done in the ways we do it now.
andsoitis 3y ago
> I’m not a fan of copyright in general, but we have serious outstanding issues with companies and organizations stealing or plastering work without compensating the original creators of said works Copyright is meant to give the original creator a monopoly over their creation (so that others don't profit off of their work). Are you not a fan of copyright in its current scope / implementation? Because it sounds like you do agree with its goal.
- d4mi3n 3y ago
  > Copyright is meant to give the original creator a monopoly over their creation (so that others don't profit off of their work). Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the goal of copyright is to incentivize innovation (specifically of art and culture) and to provide innovators a way recoup (and profit) off of innovation they've made public. I view it as similar to how patents work in that it's an incentive for people to publicize and share their works more broadly. > Are you not a fan of copyright in its current scope / implementation? Because it sounds like you do agree with its goal. I have a differing understanding of the goal of copyright based off of what you've said, but I think our understandings are similar in that the copyright holder benefits from copyright/patents of their works. I dislike the ways our current implementations of copyright are abused. I think the concept of fair use makes copyright as it is today workable. I also think our current copyright laws (at least in the US) have a lot of failure modes that subvert what I believe the purpose of copyright should be: to advance art and culture with legal and economic incentive.

by d4mi3n 3y ago

ben_w 3y ago

> This argument might hold more water when generative models are more than fancy compression algorithms/text completion engines. I doubt that part of the argument would change even if we perfected brain uploads. Now, if you gave the current LLMs a robot body with a cute face, that'll probably change minds faster, regardless of the underlying architecture. > who is making money off of these models? When the models are open source, or at least may be downloaded and used locally for no cost, that would be the users of the models. And back to the biological comparison: I learned to read (and also to code) in part from the Commodore 64 user manual, should I owe the shareholders anything for my lifetime earnings? As I got to the end of that sentence, a thought struck me: taxes do that. And in the UK the question of if university should be funded by taxes or by the students themselves followed the same lines.

d4mi3n 3y ago
> When the models are open source, or at least may be downloaded and used locally for no cost, that would be the users of the models. I think there's a bit more nuance to this. The profits go to those with the ability to run these models and to those with the infrastructure (or capitol) to run said models. I'm hoping this will change and we'll see lower barriers to entry as LLMs are made more accessible over time. > And back to the biological comparison: I learned to read (and also to code) in part from the Commodore 64 user manual, should I owe the shareholders anything for my lifetime earnings? This is more a philosophical question than anything else. I don't think there's right or wrong answer, but in my opinion the answers we arrive at should provide as much benefit to as many people as possible. > As I got to the end of that sentence, a thought struck me: taxes do that. And in the UK the question of if university should be funded by taxes or by the students themselves followed the same lines. I agree with your assessment and this model lines up well with my own opinions on reasonable ways to ensure equitable benefit from AI (be it ML, LLMs, or some theoretical general AI in the future).

jcgrillo 3y ago

> I’m not a fan of copyright in general, but we have serious outstanding issues with companies and organizations stealing or plastering work without compensating the original creators of said works. Would you mind unpacking this one a bit? It sounds like you denigrate copyright (some "general" grievance) but then immediately execute an about-face and begin to extoll its virtues. Is copyright not the thing that allows us to share works without fear they'll be stolen?

feanaro 3y ago
I think they are expressing a view that we ought to offer less protection / more scrutiny to larger commercial entities, which concentrate disproportionate amounts of wealth and power, compared to smaller entities. I tend to agree.
- d4mi3n 3y ago
  This is more or less correct. We can have systems to compensate creators that aren't identical to the copyright system we have today. If I were to rephrase my previous statement, I'd clarify instead saying: "I do not like copyright as it exists today." As a society we want to incentivize innovation and reward things that advance society. One of the ways we do that today is copyright. It doesn't need to be the only way, or be done in the ways we do it now.

andsoitis 3y ago

> I’m not a fan of copyright in general, but we have serious outstanding issues with companies and organizations stealing or plastering work without compensating the original creators of said works Copyright is meant to give the original creator a monopoly over their creation (so that others don't profit off of their work). Are you not a fan of copyright in its current scope / implementation? Because it sounds like you do agree with its goal.

d4mi3n 3y ago
> Copyright is meant to give the original creator a monopoly over their creation (so that others don't profit off of their work). Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the goal of copyright is to incentivize innovation (specifically of art and culture) and to provide innovators a way recoup (and profit) off of innovation they've made public. I view it as similar to how patents work in that it's an incentive for people to publicize and share their works more broadly. > Are you not a fan of copyright in its current scope / implementation? Because it sounds like you do agree with its goal. I have a differing understanding of the goal of copyright based off of what you've said, but I think our understandings are similar in that the copyright holder benefits from copyright/patents of their works. I dislike the ways our current implementations of copyright are abused. I think the concept of fair use makes copyright as it is today workable. I also think our current copyright laws (at least in the US) have a lot of failure modes that subvert what I believe the purpose of copyright should be: to advance art and culture with legal and economic incentive.