4 ms·

Ok, there’s a lot of criticism in the comments, but I think the intent here is quite clear. How would you phrase this better, in order to prohibit use in n “AI”

Ok, there’s a lot of criticism in the comments, but I think the intent here is quite clear. How would you phrase this better, in order to prohibit use in n “AI” without effectively banning normal uses? (Putting aside issues like fair use and enforceability)

FridgeSeal 3y ago
It is completely on-brand for HN commenters to go down a rabbit hole nitpicking some minor quibble and missing/ignoring the overall point completely.
- dartos 3y ago
  Actually the behavior of the users of hn don’t constitute the brand itself. Idk if hn really has a “brand” per se, since it’s just a yconbinator subdomain.
Topfi 3y ago
> Ok, there’s a lot of criticism in the comments, but I think the intent here is quite clear. I am not 100% convinced of that, considering we have an almost even split in commentators who believe this to be a serious effort in creating a license and those genuienly taking this to be a more satirical form of joke protest, pointing out the deficiencies of LLMs. Do you think the intent was to create a serious license or poke at LLM deficiencies? I started with the former but have now read the latter so much I am starting to drift... > How would you phrase this better, in order to prohibit use in n “AI” without effectively banning normal uses? If we go with this being a serious effort and I had faith in this being a problem that could be addressed via a license, I'd start with researching what I am actually trying to restrict. Copyright law, other licenses with goals of enforcing specific behavior such as GPL and their history, how LLMs are trained and whether this may count as transformative or even fair-use and what the implications of the latter would be if that were to be found to be the case by courts, why content has historically been "crawlable" by search engines and other third-parties, etc. Look at the implications of what I am actually trying to accomplish here and how to go about it. Then, as a cornerstone of my efforts, explain in detail what the cut-off is for "technologies designed to simulate human intelligence" (what is intelligence, what simulates intelligence, etc.) and, just to name one of the numerous examples, why search engine crawlers would not be covered by that. Or, alternatively, state outright that those would and should be restricted from using any content covered under this license too, and lay out to any potential user what that may mean for them, again keeping in mind the historic background of why website owners have allowed crawlers in the first place. On top of that, for such an effort as creating a license designed to narrowly restrict very specific use cases, I'd definitely contact and consult with at least a few professionals in the legal, copyright and research spaces. If you approach such a project with a well-thought-out concept and concrete questions to flesh it out, there tends to be a lot of amazing, concrete and highly professional support you can get contacting academia, in my experience. They'll also highlight any aspects that require additional focus and help you address questions before they arise. I do, however, believe that if the creator of this site had approached some experts with the concept they ended up publishing, they'd quickly be told that restricting the training of "AI" without also disallowing crawling by search engines, etc. in the manner they described is akin to the many decades-long and persistent attempts at manifesting encryption that includes a backdoor, only accessible by "good guys," without harming privacy or safety for the end user. Very much considered somewhere between incredibly challenging and landing a person on the sun. Due to this, I feel that anyone whose solution is such a poorly thought-out one as these two licenses is either not serious in their efforts or so poorly informed on the topic and its complexities that their efforts won't yield anything positive, not even sparking valuable debate, as such poor ideas always poison discussions, detracting from real solutions. To stick with the encryption analogy, the continued attempt by some lawmakers to engineer a magical safe black box encryption with LEO-backdoor takes valuable time and resources, as well as public attention, away from actually addressing real ways of fighting those very crimes that are often mentioned when trying to justify weakening encryption for the wider public. > (Putting aside issues like fair use and enforceability) I also very much believe any serious discussion can never put these two issues aside. Again, to stay with my encryption analogy, that's like putting "privacy and due process" aside. Any discussion that, from the outset, necessitates ignoring such crucial aspects cannot yield fruitful results.
- gampleman 3y ago
  I mostly agree with your comment, but I think we can put aside fair use and enforceability of the license in following manner: 1. I think whether AI training is fair use is for the courts to decide. In some sense a licence such as this could land a good case to force the courts to do so, as it could prohibit any argument that the training was in accordance to license and as such would require the trainers to rely on fair use exclusively. 2. Enforceability is always a problem with copyleft licenses. You can't expect that putting a restrictive license will completely stop infrigenment, but you create legal peril for anyone who decides to do so.

FridgeSeal 3y ago

It is completely on-brand for HN commenters to go down a rabbit hole nitpicking some minor quibble and missing/ignoring the overall point completely.

dartos 3y ago
Actually the behavior of the users of hn don’t constitute the brand itself. Idk if hn really has a “brand” per se, since it’s just a yconbinator subdomain.

Topfi 3y ago

> Ok, there’s a lot of criticism in the comments, but I think the intent here is quite clear. I am not 100% convinced of that, considering we have an almost even split in commentators who believe this to be a serious effort in creating a license and those genuienly taking this to be a more satirical form of joke protest, pointing out the deficiencies of LLMs. Do you think the intent was to create a serious license or poke at LLM deficiencies? I started with the former but have now read the latter so much I am starting to drift... > How would you phrase this better, in order to prohibit use in n “AI” without effectively banning normal uses? If we go with this being a serious effort and I had faith in this being a problem that could be addressed via a license, I'd start with researching what I am actually trying to restrict. Copyright law, other licenses with goals of enforcing specific behavior such as GPL and their history, how LLMs are trained and whether this may count as transformative or even fair-use and what the implications of the latter would be if that were to be found to be the case by courts, why content has historically been "crawlable" by search engines and other third-parties, etc. Look at the implications of what I am actually trying to accomplish here and how to go about it. Then, as a cornerstone of my efforts, explain in detail what the cut-off is for "technologies designed to simulate human intelligence" (what is intelligence, what simulates intelligence, etc.) and, just to name one of the numerous examples, why search engine crawlers would not be covered by that. Or, alternatively, state outright that those would and should be restricted from using any content covered under this license too, and lay out to any potential user what that may mean for them, again keeping in mind the historic background of why website owners have allowed crawlers in the first place. On top of that, for such an effort as creating a license designed to narrowly restrict very specific use cases, I'd definitely contact and consult with at least a few professionals in the legal, copyright and research spaces. If you approach such a project with a well-thought-out concept and concrete questions to flesh it out, there tends to be a lot of amazing, concrete and highly professional support you can get contacting academia, in my experience. They'll also highlight any aspects that require additional focus and help you address questions before they arise. I do, however, believe that if the creator of this site had approached some experts with the concept they ended up publishing, they'd quickly be told that restricting the training of "AI" without also disallowing crawling by search engines, etc. in the manner they described is akin to the many decades-long and persistent attempts at manifesting encryption that includes a backdoor, only accessible by "good guys," without harming privacy or safety for the end user. Very much considered somewhere between incredibly challenging and landing a person on the sun. Due to this, I feel that anyone whose solution is such a poorly thought-out one as these two licenses is either not serious in their efforts or so poorly informed on the topic and its complexities that their efforts won't yield anything positive, not even sparking valuable debate, as such poor ideas always poison discussions, detracting from real solutions. To stick with the encryption analogy, the continued attempt by some lawmakers to engineer a magical safe black box encryption with LEO-backdoor takes valuable time and resources, as well as public attention, away from actually addressing real ways of fighting those very crimes that are often mentioned when trying to justify weakening encryption for the wider public. > (Putting aside issues like fair use and enforceability) I also very much believe any serious discussion can never put these two issues aside. Again, to stay with my encryption analogy, that's like putting "privacy and due process" aside. Any discussion that, from the outset, necessitates ignoring such crucial aspects cannot yield fruitful results.

gampleman 3y ago
I mostly agree with your comment, but I think we can put aside fair use and enforceability of the license in following manner: 1. I think whether AI training is fair use is for the courts to decide. In some sense a licence such as this could land a good case to force the courts to do so, as it could prohibit any argument that the training was in accordance to license and as such would require the trainers to rely on fair use exclusively. 2. Enforceability is always a problem with copyleft licenses. You can't expect that putting a restrictive license will completely stop infrigenment, but you create legal peril for anyone who decides to do so.