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Because we are humans and our capability of abusing those rights is limited. The scale and speed at which LLMs can abuse copyrighted work to threaten the liveli

• visarga 3y ago
  Writing good text with LLM is actually slow and takes a lot of fixing.
• unfamiliar 3y ago
  I don’t think it is. What you describe is similar to any other industry disruption, and I don’t think those are unethical. I’d actually argue that preventing disruption is often (not always) unethical, because you artificially prolong an inefficient or inferior alternative.
  • wheelie_boy 3y ago
    I think the big difference is that it's not a direct replacement - it feeds off of the existing people while making it much harder for them to make a living. It would be as if instead of cars running on gasoline, they ran on chopped up horseflesh. Not good for the horses, and not sustainable in the long term.
  • bayindirh 3y ago
    So you're saying that, we should stop pursuing art and prose? Because when you fine tune midjourney with 30 or so images of an artist, it can create any image with the artist's style. You removed the value and authenticity that artist in 30 minutes, you applauded it, and defended that it should be the norm. OK then, we can close down all entertainment business, and generate everything with AI, because it can mimic styles, clone sounds, animate things with gaussian splats, and so on. Maybe we can hire coders to "code" films? Oh sorry. ChatGPT can do that too. So we need a keypad then, only the most wealthy can press. Press 1 for a movie, 2 for a new music album, 3 for a new book, and so on. We need 10 buttons or so, as far as I can see. Maybe I can ask ChatGPT 4 to code one for me.
    • gedy 3y ago
      > Because when you fine tune midjourney with 30 or so images of an artist, it can create any image with the artist's style. Artists style is not copyrightable, at least in the US. And if they changed that because of "AI"? My word, the lawsuits that would arise between artists...
      • bayindirh 3y ago
        Doesn't matter. You pay the artist for their style of rendering things. Consider XKCD, PHD Comics, Userfriendly, etc. At least 50% of the charm is the style, remaining 50% is the characters and the story arc. You can't copyright style of a Rolex, but people pay a fortune to get the real deal. Same thing. > My word, the lawsuits that would arise between artists... Artists imitate/copy artists as a compliment, at least in illustration and comics world. Unless you do it in bad faith, I don't think artists gonna do that. Artists have a sense of humor to begin with, because art is making fun of this world, in a sense.
        • beernutz 3y ago
          No, you pay them for the finished product. The STYLE is independent. Lots of artists have similar styles. They don't all pay each other for copying their styles.
          • bayindirh 3y ago
            Every artist has their own style, because it's their way of creating the product. Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks have different styles, same for actors, writers, and designers, too. You can generally tell who made what by reading, looking, listening, etc. I can recognize a song by Deep Purple or John Mayer or Metallica, just by their guitar tone, or their mastering profile (yes, your ear can recognize that), in a couple of seconds. If style was that easy, we could have 50 Picassos, 200 John Mayers, 45 Ara Gulers (A photographer) which you can't tell them apart, but it doesn't work that way. XKCD took a couple of guest artists because of personal reasons. It was very evident, even if the drawing style was the same. People, art, and hand made things are much more complex than it looks. Many programmers forget because everything is rendered with their favorite font, but no two hand-made thing is ever the same. Eat the same recipe from two different cooks, even if you measure the ingredients independently and give them beforehand, you'll have different tastes. Style is a reflection of who you are. You can maybe imitate it, but you can't be it. Heck, even two people implementing the same algorithm in the same programming language doesn't write the same thing.
  • the_gastropod 3y ago
    Don't even try to stop my grocery-store-sample-hoarding robot army, Wegmans! You're being unethical in your pathetic attempt to prevent your sampling disruption!
  • makeworld 3y ago
    Some "disruptions" are unethical, some are not. It's about what they actually consist of. Labelling many things as "industry disruption" abstracts beyond usefulness.
  • nullptr_deref 3y ago
    Yes, that is true. I 100% agree. It is needed without a doubt. For one moment, let's think it this way. You are a 20-year experienced engineer who is making whatever money you are making. Suddenly, your skills are invalidated because of a new disruption. And you have another friend in, the same situation. Fortunately for you, luck played out and you could transition! You found a way into life, meaning and value. Your joy and your everyday life continued as it is. But the other friend enjoyed the process, and liked doing what they were doing and there was no suitable transition for them. Humans are adaptable, but to them, nothing mattered because the whole existence didn't offer any value. The sole act of doing was robbed WITHOUT ANY ALTERNATIVE. The experience and value of a person rendered worthless. Can you relate to that feeling? If yes, thank you. If no, your words are empty and hold no value. Artist went through the similar phase during the invention of photography. Now, it is rather soul-crushing because anything an artist make can easily be replicated, making the whole artistic journey a moot.
    • derangedHorse 3y ago
      > Can you relate to that feeling? If yes, thank you. > If no, your words are empty and hold no value. Being sympathetic towards those people doesn't mean you should bend to their will if you don't believe it's the right thing to do. I can be sympathetic to a child who cries over not being able to ride a roller coaster because they aren't tall enough without thinking the height requirement should be removed.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  • mkipper 3y ago
    Do you really feel that way universally? Would it be ethical to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry by removing all restrictions around drug trials? Heck, you could probably speed things up even further if you could administer experimental drugs to subjects without their consent. Obviously this is a bit facetious, but basing your ethical framework on utilitarianism and _nothing_ else is pretty radical.
    • ChadNauseam 3y ago
      If having those restrictions makes the world worse overall, then it would be ethical to remove them. But I assume the restrictions are designed by intelligent people with the intention of making the world better, so I don’t see any reason to think that’s the case. I agree that the current crop of artists are worse off with AI art tools being generally available. But consumers of art, and people who like making art with AI art tools, are better off with those tools being available. To me it’s clear that the benefit of the consumers outweighs the cost to the artists, and I would say the same if it was coders being put out of jobs instead. You can prove this to yourself by applying it to anything else that’s been automated. Recording music playback put thousands of musicians out of work, but do you really regret recorded music playback having been invented? P.S. Adobe firefly is pretty competent and is only trained on material that adobe has the license to. If copyright were the real reason people didn’t like AI art tools, you would see artists telling everyone to get Adobe subscriptions instead of Midjourney.
      • the_gastropod 3y ago
        > If having those restrictions makes the world worse overall, then it would be ethical to remove them Worse how? As defined by whom? You could make a pretty compelling argument that "the world" would be better off by, e.g., forcing cancer patients through drug trials against their will. We basically could speed run a cure to cancer! These longtermist, ends justify the means, ideas can easily turn extremely gross.
• Vvector 3y ago
  > ...reason enough to consider it unethical. But unethical =/= illegal, unfortunately.
  • orangecat 3y ago
    But unethical =/= illegal, unfortunately. That is very much fortunate.
• derangedHorse 3y ago
  "abusing those rights" is a subjective phrase. What about it is "abuse"? If I learned how to draw cartoon characters from copying Family Guy and released a cartoon where the characters are drawn in a similar style, would that be abuse (assuming my show takes some of Family Guy's viewership)? Is your ethical hangup with the fact it's wrong to use the data of others to influence one's work (which could potentially be an algorithm) or that people are losing opportunities based on the influenced work? If it's the latter how do we find the line between what's acceptable and what's not? For example, most people wouldn't be against the creation and release of a cure for cancer developed in this way. It would lead to the loss of opportunities for cancer researchers but I believe most people would deem that an acceptable tradeoff. A grayer area would be an AI art generator used to generate the designs for a cancer research donation page. If it could potentially lead to a 10% increase in donations, does that make it worth it?
  • scythe 3y ago
    >For example, most people wouldn't be against the creation and release of a cure for cancer developed in this way. Intellectual property law does presently restrict the development of cancer treatments and demands in many cases exorbitant royalties from patients and practitioners, so I'm not convinced that this is accurate. If people believed that the loss of opportunities would constrain innovation in the field of cancer research, I think they'd expect the AI users to pay royalties as well.
    • derangedHorse 3y ago
      I never made a legal appeal in my previous comment so legalities are irrelevant. It also differs from my argument on derivative/transformative works rather than specific works. What I was questioning was whether people would think it's morally right or not to generate inspired works. For example, if someone made an algorithm to read the relevant papers and make a cancer treatment that addresses the same areas/conditions of a method under IP law but don't equate to the exact method, I don't see that as a morally wrong action by itself.
    • s1artibartfast 3y ago
• Wissenschafter 3y ago
  Because we are humans and our capability of abusing those rights is limited. The scale and speed at which looms can abuse copyrighted work to threaten the livelihoods of the seamstresses of those works is reason enough to consider it unethical. Replace loom for printing press etc, you realize you're a luddite?
  • halostatue 3y ago
    Ned Ludd was onto something. He wasn't anti-progress. He was anti-labour theft. The problem was not that people were losing their jobs, but that they were being punished by society for losing their jobs and not being given the ability to adapt, all to satisfy the greed of the ownership class. I am hearing a strong rhyme. Commercialized LLMs are absolutely labour theft even if they are useful.
    • Wissenschafter 3y ago
      Capatalism has really done a number on the human psyche, WE WANT OUR LABOR STOLEN. That's the whole point, so we don't have to labor anymore. Boggles my mind how warped peoples thinking is.
      • halostatue 3y ago
        We do not want our labour stolen. We want to labour less, and we want to be fairly compensated for when we have to labour. The Luddites and the original saboteurs (from the French sabot) had a problem where the capital class invested in machines that let them (a) get more work done per person, (b) employ fewer people, and (c) pay those fewer people less because now they weren't working as hard. The people they fired? They (and the governments of the day — just like now) basically told them to go starve. > The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers which > opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, and often destroyed the > machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines > in "a fraudulent and deceitful manner" to replace the skilled labour of workers and > drive down wages by producing inferior goods.[1][2] Members of the group referred to > themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver > whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and > government officials.[3] Yes, we want to work less. But fair work should result in fair compensation. Ultimately, this is something that the copyright washing of current commercialized LLMs cannot achieve.
• Vvector 3y ago
  Are photocopy machines illegal? Are CD-ROM burners illegal? Both allow near-unlimited copies of copyrighted material at a scale much faster than a human could do alone. The tools are not the problem, it's how humans use them.
  • chlorion 3y ago
    >CD-ROM burners They can be used in an illegal way if used to copy copyrighted material, yes.
    • Vvector 3y ago
      Same as an LLM, they can be used in an illegal way if used to copy copyrighted material. So I can't tell it to reproduce a copyrighted work. But it can create new material in the style of another artist.
      • chlorion 3y ago
        The difference is that the LLM is still copying copyrighted material in your case, but if I burn a Linux ISO, that is not happening. You do not have to produce an exact copy of something to violate copyright, and I think anything the LLM outputs is violating copyright for everything it has ever trained on, unless the operator (the person operating the LLM and/or the person prompting it) has rights to that content.
    • squidbeak 3y ago
      And are the burners themselves illegal because you can name illegal uses for them?
      • chlorion 3y ago
        No, and I don't think anyone is arguing that LLMs should be illegal either. I personally am not against LLMs training on things the operator has rights to, and even training on copyrighted things, but I am against it laundering those things back out and claiming it's legal.