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> I'm always reticent to fully engage in "The Dialogue," regardless of its momentary configuration. It's a smoothie made from shibboleths; you have to be able t

> I'm always reticent to fully engage in "The Dialogue," regardless of its momentary configuration. It's a smoothie made from shibboleths; you have to be able to detect them at only a few parts per million because once these things metastasize, they stop being about whatever they were about and instead become increasingly loud recitations of various catechisms and loyalty oaths. Boy does that ring true.

CharlesW 3y ago
Yes, the entire post (it's short) is well worth a read.
- ineptech 3y ago
  And from the following day, their paraphrasing of https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/4/23946353/generative-ai-copyright-training-data-openai-microsoft-google-meta-stabilityai https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/4/23946353/generative-ai-co... is succinct: > Meta: We stole so much stuff that, actually, we didn't steal any stuff > Google: If things were different, things would be totally different > Andreeson Horowitz: But we already spent so much money > Microsoft: Think about how this would hurt the little guys, like us > Anthropic: Fucking shut up about it > Hugging Face: It's super legal but honestly it might not be idk > StabilityAI: It's legal in places that aren't here
  - ineptech 3y ago
    This is a little oblique, but isn't there a parallel to the music piracy debates of the 90s here? The defense of those who steal training data, "It's not stealing because I'm only taking a little tiny piece from a whole bunch of people", seems like a neat inversion of the defense offered by people torrenting mp3s in their dorm rooms. It's worth noting that, back when it suddenly became technically feasible to copy all songs for free, the response from the rightsholders of music was, essentially, to demand that we all collectively pretend it isn't. It might make sense for the rightsholders of training data to try to do the same, if they could speak with one voice and if they had lobbyists, but I guess the fact that they can't and don't settles that.
    - petercooper 3y ago
      I like a good metaphor, so I see your point, though it doesn't quite fit for me. To me, training a model is less like redistribution and more like reading something and having it influence your thoughts. You may be able to reproduce certain memorable sections of things you've read verbatim (common with poetry, for example) and you may well be able to reproduce a 'style', but you don't have the entirety of the source material memorized in a way that it could be redistributed in full (but if you did, that may be well an infringement at such a time).
      - ineptech 3y ago
        I agree that copying music is not all that similar to an AI model using training data, but they're both examples of a superficially similar activity being transformed by automation and scale. The difference between manually copying a song on cassette for a friend and uploading that song to napster resembles the difference between a human learning to draw in an established artist's style to an AI model learning to draw in an established artist's style. In both cases, the offender's defense is a variation on, "It was okay when humans did this slowly..."
yieldcrv 3y ago
but if you call it virtue signaling, you get categorized into the group that uses that loyalty oath most often, instead of the non-group member that is simply frustrated by the accuracy of it occurring
- fragmede 3y ago
  well yeah, because you'd have to be virtuous to be able to virtue signal, and the ones who bring that up generally aren't.
  - doublespanner 3y ago
    It's the implication of virtue signalling that it's a facade? If Steve the megarapist is writing articles about the latest popular injustice, does that make Steve virtuous?
    - aspenmayer 3y ago
      Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so they say.
pmcp 3y ago
Side comment: I respect the author’s right to choose words that ring well to them, but jeez, as a non native english speaker, reading this, i am happy my device has a dictionary function.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cooper_ganglia 3y ago
  As a native English speaker, I agree!
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  That's Jerry's "thing." Jerry Holkins has always enjoyed how weird English is and what you can do to someone's brain with a few precisely-chosen words aligned in the right order; it's his writing style. If he applied his approach to Python coding, he'd be one of those folks who isn't happy until their entire program is a single `do()` method that executes by using decorators to synthesize classes and metaclasses out of thin air, that themselves generate the Python code as strings, that itself gets `eval()`'d to execute the intended program.
  - isoprophlex 3y ago
    Which is all fun and game until you want to get some actual shit done, or in this case, communicate...
    - Kye 3y ago
      They're into their second half century doing this. Would they have made it this far without being a little weird? Maybe, but it's hard to A/B something like that. I understand it well enough after following the comic that long. It's not for you. (this is a reference to an ancient Penny Arcade bit: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures-of-twisp-and-catsby https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures...)

CharlesW 3y ago

Yes, the entire post (it's short) is well worth a read.

ineptech 3y ago
And from the following day, their paraphrasing of https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/4/23946353/generative-ai-copyright-training-data-openai-microsoft-google-meta-stabilityai https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/4/23946353/generative-ai-co... is succinct: > Meta: We stole so much stuff that, actually, we didn't steal any stuff > Google: If things were different, things would be totally different > Andreeson Horowitz: But we already spent so much money > Microsoft: Think about how this would hurt the little guys, like us > Anthropic: Fucking shut up about it > Hugging Face: It's super legal but honestly it might not be idk > StabilityAI: It's legal in places that aren't here
- ineptech 3y ago
  This is a little oblique, but isn't there a parallel to the music piracy debates of the 90s here? The defense of those who steal training data, "It's not stealing because I'm only taking a little tiny piece from a whole bunch of people", seems like a neat inversion of the defense offered by people torrenting mp3s in their dorm rooms. It's worth noting that, back when it suddenly became technically feasible to copy all songs for free, the response from the rightsholders of music was, essentially, to demand that we all collectively pretend it isn't. It might make sense for the rightsholders of training data to try to do the same, if they could speak with one voice and if they had lobbyists, but I guess the fact that they can't and don't settles that.
  - petercooper 3y ago
    I like a good metaphor, so I see your point, though it doesn't quite fit for me. To me, training a model is less like redistribution and more like reading something and having it influence your thoughts. You may be able to reproduce certain memorable sections of things you've read verbatim (common with poetry, for example) and you may well be able to reproduce a 'style', but you don't have the entirety of the source material memorized in a way that it could be redistributed in full (but if you did, that may be well an infringement at such a time).
    - ineptech 3y ago
      I agree that copying music is not all that similar to an AI model using training data, but they're both examples of a superficially similar activity being transformed by automation and scale. The difference between manually copying a song on cassette for a friend and uploading that song to napster resembles the difference between a human learning to draw in an established artist's style to an AI model learning to draw in an established artist's style. In both cases, the offender's defense is a variation on, "It was okay when humans did this slowly..."

yieldcrv 3y ago

but if you call it virtue signaling, you get categorized into the group that uses that loyalty oath most often, instead of the non-group member that is simply frustrated by the accuracy of it occurring

fragmede 3y ago
well yeah, because you'd have to be virtuous to be able to virtue signal, and the ones who bring that up generally aren't.
- doublespanner 3y ago
  It's the implication of virtue signalling that it's a facade? If Steve the megarapist is writing articles about the latest popular injustice, does that make Steve virtuous?
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so they say.

pmcp 3y ago

Side comment: I respect the author’s right to choose words that ring well to them, but jeez, as a non native english speaker, reading this, i am happy my device has a dictionary function.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cooper_ganglia 3y ago
As a native English speaker, I agree!
shadowgovt 3y ago
That's Jerry's "thing." Jerry Holkins has always enjoyed how weird English is and what you can do to someone's brain with a few precisely-chosen words aligned in the right order; it's his writing style. If he applied his approach to Python coding, he'd be one of those folks who isn't happy until their entire program is a single `do()` method that executes by using decorators to synthesize classes and metaclasses out of thin air, that themselves generate the Python code as strings, that itself gets `eval()`'d to execute the intended program.
- isoprophlex 3y ago
  Which is all fun and game until you want to get some actual shit done, or in this case, communicate...
  - Kye 3y ago
    They're into their second half century doing this. Would they have made it this far without being a little weird? Maybe, but it's hard to A/B something like that. I understand it well enough after following the comic that long. It's not for you. (this is a reference to an ancient Penny Arcade bit: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures-of-twisp-and-catsby https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures...)