5 ms·

I think it’s a weak argument anyway. A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? The legal responsibility always has bee

I think it’s a weak argument anyway. A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? The legal responsibility always has been and should continue to be on the person publishing or making available the work. And at any rate, a country banning this tech will be missing the revolution. Protecting the buggy whip manufacturers and all that.

ziddoap 3y ago
A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? Speed and scale make these completely unrelated in my opinion.
- cwillu 3y ago
  Speed and scale also makes the printing press completely different than the pencil, but the principle that the user is responsible for the output remains practical.
  - ziddoap 3y ago
    My opinion is that people should just state that conclusion rather than make these silly comparisons.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - exe34 3y ago
      Not everybody thinks in the same way. Some, maybe most people benefit from intuition pumps such as analogies. Good analogies clarify the point, poor ones obscure it.
      - ziddoap 3y ago
        >Good analogies clarify the point, poor ones obscure it. I definitely agree with this, but I think a "good analogy" is really rare. In this case, I think that the analogy just obscures the main point about copyright. I think the original comment would have been stronger by omitting the analogy and just discussing where the legal responsibility falls. In almost every case an analogy is made, people discuss the validity of the analogy over the actual point of the comment (I'm guilty here too! my comment ended up being about the analogy rather than the main point).
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The printing press also indirectly triggered the Reformation, and through that the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, and through all those together the invention of the concept of Westphalian sovereignty. And in the UK the "Licensing of the Press Act 1662" (full title "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses" so guess what they cared about here). While the ideals of freedom these brought may be desirable, we may want to avoid repeating the bloodshed from this particular bit of history. And that goes double for anyone in government who takes personal exception to being treated like French royalty.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  You will still eventually run into absurd contradictions whenever you blame a tool for the actions of its user. Subjective factors like "scale and speed" should have no place in the law, even though they often do. Never mind that every regulation that constrains AI development in the West is a giftwrapped blessing to China and other actors that DGAF about copyright law.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  Cripple the future so we don't have to leave the ways of the past...
- agilob 3y ago
  So if I use 500 pages/minute scanner it will be fine?
  - ziddoap 3y ago
    My comment doesn't say what my opinion on the topic is, just that pencils and LLMs are hardly comparable due to difference in speed and scale.
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      Congratulations, by attaching qualitative legal importance to scale, speed, and size, you just successfully argued that the First Amendment doesn't apply on the Internet. You'll make friends on both sides of the political aisle with that position, but it's a shame to see it so readily accepted around here. (Can't reply due to HN's rate limiting algorithm that penalizes me after four or five posts while allowing the most-corrosive trolls imaginable to party all day, so I edited to clarify.)
      - ziddoap 3y ago
        Congratulations, you just successfully argued that the First Amendment doesn't apply on the Internet. What?
- mmmpetrichor 3y ago
  How though? You don't need an LLM to copy and paste a Disney character and post it on a million websites. An LLM returning an output isn't the same as publishing something. It's not being redistributed by virtue of just being output by the LLM.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
What's the difference between picking a cherry tomato from your streetside garden and eating it, and driving a combine harvester over your lawn and taking everything?
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Pathetically incongruent analogy
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Exactly, as was the previous one. Catching on to this stuff I see.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Piling on to a bad example with a much dumber example is not helpful
- Spivak 3y ago
  I'm usually sympathetic to arguments where scale can change the fundamental nature of the thing but this doesn't really track. Because the argument is that LLMs are tools -- you can disagree with that but that's the parent's position, and those tools can be used to create copyrighted material. The quality, availability, and ease of use of those tools don't particularly matter. The difference as far as copyright is concerned if one person has a scanner, camera, or blank cassette tape or everyone has them are the same.
- mdorazio 3y ago
  Legally, the scale of the punishment / fine, but not the legality of the base act. Also, the latter involves trespassing and probably property damage.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I'm not a lawmaker, but it's probably pretty hard to write a law that effectively distinguishes between "doing X" and "doing X at scale". As another commenter mentions, if you target the means of doing it (human doing X vs. machine doing X), someone will just use Mechanical Turk or something to hire 10,000 humans to do X. If telling AI to study Spiderman and then output 10 pictures of Spiderman is illegal, how is that different from hiring 10,000 artists to study Spiderman, having them each do a drawing, and then hiring 100 talent judges to pick the top 10?
bakugo 3y ago
I just tried asking my pencil to draw me a picture of Mario but nothing happened. What gives?
- notatoad 3y ago
  You're holding it wrong.
  - rvnx 3y ago
    You need to use Google Images, and you will get millions of unauthorized electronic reproductions of Mario.
bee_rider 3y ago
What’s the work? Would you say it ought to be legal to distribute a really good prompt to generate a copyright character? What about an embedding?
- criley2 3y ago
  I would say it ought to be as legal as distributing a "how to draw mickey mouse" tutorial or a "how to sing taylor swift song" video or perhaps even a "how to make a twitter clone" tutorial.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    In that case it seems like it would be much easier to just make it legal to distribute the copyright material in the first place.
    - criley2 3y ago
      That doesn't follow at all? Just because you can create something doesn't mean you can distribute it. Just because I drew Mickey Mouse doesn't mean I can sell it. Just because I sing Taylor's song doesn't mean I can upload it to Spotify. Just because GPT can return an image doesn't mean I'm allowed to sell it. Creation and distribution are different, and the reality is that the 90% of consumers will never create, they will consume distribution.
amluto 3y ago
> A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. This is a very weak argument. A pencil, an empty USB stick, an LLM without weights, and a small child can all be used to reproduce copyrighted works. A USB stick with a copy of a movie on it, an LLM trained on a book, and a human that has watched a Disney film can all actually infringe copyright. There's an issue beyond copyright, though. A lot of companies seem to think it's okay to train LLMs on data that they at least have no moral rights to and possibly have no legal rights to either. (A TOS saying that anyone posting anything privately, IMO, does not mean that the person posting it had rights to it, nor do I believe that fine print ought to give anyone rights to anyone else's private information.) And a person that read all your email and an LLM that has been trained on all your email can both easily infringe your rights to privacy.
itishappy 3y ago
> A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? I find this a pretty week argument too. Does an LLM use a pencil? Can an LLM use a pencil? Does a pencil watch anime or read the NYT? Does a pencil create new work when upon request? Are these things really comparable? Are they even related?

ziddoap 3y ago

A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? Speed and scale make these completely unrelated in my opinion.

cwillu 3y ago
Speed and scale also makes the printing press completely different than the pencil, but the principle that the user is responsible for the output remains practical.
- ziddoap 3y ago
  My opinion is that people should just state that conclusion rather than make these silly comparisons.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - exe34 3y ago
    Not everybody thinks in the same way. Some, maybe most people benefit from intuition pumps such as analogies. Good analogies clarify the point, poor ones obscure it.
    - ziddoap 3y ago
      >Good analogies clarify the point, poor ones obscure it. I definitely agree with this, but I think a "good analogy" is really rare. In this case, I think that the analogy just obscures the main point about copyright. I think the original comment would have been stronger by omitting the analogy and just discussing where the legal responsibility falls. In almost every case an analogy is made, people discuss the validity of the analogy over the actual point of the comment (I'm guilty here too! my comment ended up being about the analogy rather than the main point).
- ben_w 3y ago
  The printing press also indirectly triggered the Reformation, and through that the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, and through all those together the invention of the concept of Westphalian sovereignty. And in the UK the "Licensing of the Press Act 1662" (full title "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses" so guess what they cared about here). While the ideals of freedom these brought may be desirable, we may want to avoid repeating the bloodshed from this particular bit of history. And that goes double for anyone in government who takes personal exception to being treated like French royalty.
CamperBob2 3y ago
You will still eventually run into absurd contradictions whenever you blame a tool for the actions of its user. Subjective factors like "scale and speed" should have no place in the law, even though they often do. Never mind that every regulation that constrains AI development in the West is a giftwrapped blessing to China and other actors that DGAF about copyright law.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Cripple the future so we don't have to leave the ways of the past...
agilob 3y ago
So if I use 500 pages/minute scanner it will be fine?
- ziddoap 3y ago
  My comment doesn't say what my opinion on the topic is, just that pencils and LLMs are hardly comparable due to difference in speed and scale.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Congratulations, by attaching qualitative legal importance to scale, speed, and size, you just successfully argued that the First Amendment doesn't apply on the Internet. You'll make friends on both sides of the political aisle with that position, but it's a shame to see it so readily accepted around here. (Can't reply due to HN's rate limiting algorithm that penalizes me after four or five posts while allowing the most-corrosive trolls imaginable to party all day, so I edited to clarify.)
    - ziddoap 3y ago
      Congratulations, you just successfully argued that the First Amendment doesn't apply on the Internet. What?
mmmpetrichor 3y ago
How though? You don't need an LLM to copy and paste a Disney character and post it on a million websites. An LLM returning an output isn't the same as publishing something. It's not being redistributed by virtue of just being output by the LLM.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

What's the difference between picking a cherry tomato from your streetside garden and eating it, and driving a combine harvester over your lawn and taking everything?

jncfhnb 3y ago
Pathetically incongruent analogy
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Exactly, as was the previous one. Catching on to this stuff I see.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Piling on to a bad example with a much dumber example is not helpful
Spivak 3y ago
I'm usually sympathetic to arguments where scale can change the fundamental nature of the thing but this doesn't really track. Because the argument is that LLMs are tools -- you can disagree with that but that's the parent's position, and those tools can be used to create copyrighted material. The quality, availability, and ease of use of those tools don't particularly matter. The difference as far as copyright is concerned if one person has a scanner, camera, or blank cassette tape or everyone has them are the same.
mdorazio 3y ago
Legally, the scale of the punishment / fine, but not the legality of the base act. Also, the latter involves trespassing and probably property damage.
ryandrake 3y ago
I'm not a lawmaker, but it's probably pretty hard to write a law that effectively distinguishes between "doing X" and "doing X at scale". As another commenter mentions, if you target the means of doing it (human doing X vs. machine doing X), someone will just use Mechanical Turk or something to hire 10,000 humans to do X. If telling AI to study Spiderman and then output 10 pictures of Spiderman is illegal, how is that different from hiring 10,000 artists to study Spiderman, having them each do a drawing, and then hiring 100 talent judges to pick the top 10?

bakugo 3y ago

I just tried asking my pencil to draw me a picture of Mario but nothing happened. What gives?

notatoad 3y ago
You're holding it wrong.
- rvnx 3y ago
  You need to use Google Images, and you will get millions of unauthorized electronic reproductions of Mario.

bee_rider 3y ago

What’s the work? Would you say it ought to be legal to distribute a really good prompt to generate a copyright character? What about an embedding?

criley2 3y ago
I would say it ought to be as legal as distributing a "how to draw mickey mouse" tutorial or a "how to sing taylor swift song" video or perhaps even a "how to make a twitter clone" tutorial.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  In that case it seems like it would be much easier to just make it legal to distribute the copyright material in the first place.
  - criley2 3y ago
    That doesn't follow at all? Just because you can create something doesn't mean you can distribute it. Just because I drew Mickey Mouse doesn't mean I can sell it. Just because I sing Taylor's song doesn't mean I can upload it to Spotify. Just because GPT can return an image doesn't mean I'm allowed to sell it. Creation and distribution are different, and the reality is that the 90% of consumers will never create, they will consume distribution.

amluto 3y ago

> A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. This is a very weak argument. A pencil, an empty USB stick, an LLM without weights, and a small child can all be used to reproduce copyrighted works. A USB stick with a copy of a movie on it, an LLM trained on a book, and a human that has watched a Disney film can all actually infringe copyright. There's an issue beyond copyright, though. A lot of companies seem to think it's okay to train LLMs on data that they at least have no moral rights to and possibly have no legal rights to either. (A TOS saying that anyone posting anything privately, IMO, does not mean that the person posting it had rights to it, nor do I believe that fine print ought to give anyone rights to anyone else's private information.) And a person that read all your email and an LLM that has been trained on all your email can both easily infringe your rights to privacy.

itishappy 3y ago

> A pencil can be used to recreate copyrighted works. Why should a LLM be different? I find this a pretty week argument too. Does an LLM use a pencil? Can an LLM use a pencil? Does a pencil watch anime or read the NYT? Does a pencil create new work when upon request? Are these things really comparable? Are they even related?