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> We don't need to kill it. Just pay your dang labor. > But if we are treating proper compensation as stifling technology, I'm not surprised people are against

> We don't need to kill it. Just pay your dang labor. > But if we are treating proper compensation as stifling technology, I'm not surprised people are against it. That's just it, nobody looking to get paid by OpenAI actually did any labor for OpenAI. They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it. OpenAI found a way to benefit by learning from these images. The same way that every artist on the planet benefits by learning from the images of their fellow artists. OpenAI just uses technology to do it much more efficiently. This has never been considered labor in the past. We've never asked artists to "properly compensate" each other for learning/inspiration in the past. I don't know why it should be considered labor or proper compensation now. But we shall see what the courts decide!

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it. True, sadly most of those copyright are probably owned by other megacorp. So they either collude to surppess the entire industry or eat each other alive in legal clashes. The latter is happening as we speak (the writers for NYT are probably long retired, but NYT still owns the words) so I guess we'll see how that goes. >OpenAI found a way to benefit by learning from these images. The same way that every artist on the planet benefits by learning from the images of their fellow artists. If we treat AI like humans, art historically has an equally thin line between inspiration and plagiarism. There are simply more objective metrics to measure now because we can indeed go inside an AI's proverbial brain. So the metaphor is pretty apt, except with more scrutiny able to be applied.
egypturnash 3y ago
There are many ways an artist can compensate their influences. Some of them are monetary. When discussing our work, we can name them. When one of our influences comes out with a new body of work, we can gush about it to our own fans. When we find ourselves in a position of authority, we can offer work to our influences. No animation studio is really complete without someone old enough to be a grandfather hanging out helping to teach the new kids the ropes in between doing an amazing job on their own scenes, and maybe putting together a few pitches, for instance. We can draw fan art and send it to them. None of these are mandatory, but artists tend to do this, because we are humans, and we recognize that we exist in a community of other artists, and these all just feel like normal human things to do for your community. And if an artist suddenly starts wholesale swiping another artist's style without crediting them, their peers get angry. [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Giffen#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Giffen#Controversy OpenAI isn't gonna tell you that it was going for a Cat & Girl kind of feel in this drawing. OpenAI isn't gonna offer Dorothy Gambrell a job. OpenAI isn't going to tell you that she just came out with a new collection and she's still at the top of her game, and that you should buy it. OpenAI's not going to send her a painting of Cat & Girl that it did for fun. OpenAI isn't going to do anything for her unless the courts force it to, because OpenAI is a corporation who has found a way to make money by strip-mining the stuff people post publicly on the Internet because they want other humans to be able to see it.
- csallen 3y ago
  Most people know 20,000-40,000 words. Let's call it 30,000. You've learned 99.999% of those 30,000 people from other people. And don't get me started on phrases, cliches, sentence structures, etc. How many of those words do you remember learning? How many can you confidently say you remember the person or the book that taught you the word? 5? 10? Maybe 100? That's how brains work. We ingest vast amounts of information that other people put out into the world. We consume and it incorporate it and start using it on our own work. And we forget where we even got it. My brain works this way. Your brain works this way. Artists' brains work this way. GPT-4 works this way. The idea that a visual artist can somehow recall where they first saw many of the billions of images stored in their brain -- the photos, movies, architecture, paintings, and real-life scenes that play out every second of every day -- is laughable. Almost all of that goes uncredited, and always will. This is what it is to learn.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Individual words aren't comparable to the things people are worried about getting copied. People are much more able to tell you where they learned about more sophisticated concepts and styles.
    - csallen 3y ago
      The same principle applies, though. They can tell you maybe a dozen, maybe a few dozen, concepts they've learned and use in their work. But what about the thousands of concepts they use in their work they can't tell you about? The patterns they've noticed, the concepts that don't even have names, but that came from seeing things in the world world that were all created by other people?
      - WereAllMadHere 3y ago
        For example, how many artists drawing street scenes credit the designer at Ford Motors for teaching them what a generic car looks like? How many even know which designers created their mental model of a car?
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> That's just it, nobody looking to get paid by OpenAI actually did any labor for OpenAI. They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it Nobody working on a new cancer drug actually did any work for me. They did labour for other reasons, and were happy with it. There it is okay for me to steal their recipe and sell their cancer drug.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Nope, but it’s ok for you to read their recipe if they place it on the internet (research paper), and use it to make your own drug.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    And that is a good thing we should all celebrate.
  - WereAllMadHere 3y ago
    The entire point of the patent system was to say inventors can put their design on the net without it being stolen; so future inventors can build on their work.
guappa 3y ago
> They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it. They were happy until their copyright got stolen, I guess. Then got unhappy.
KingMob 3y ago
> We've never asked artists to "properly compensate" each other for learning/inspiration in the past. LLMs are collections of GPUs crunching numbers. "Inspiration" doesn't really apply to them. A better analogy is sampling, and musicians remixing music are very much required to pay for the samples they use.
- mlrtime 3y ago
  Only if the "use" where use means distribute. If I sample a track and play it in my home I don't properly compensate anyone. If I ask GPT to create a cool new comic based on the article and then delete or use it privately it, same applies.
  - KingMob 3y ago
    Assuming that's true, GPT is the one "distributing" in your second example, so that still applies to them (if not you).
bluefirebrand 3y ago
> That's just it, nobody looking to get paid by OpenAI actually did any labor for OpenAI. To me this is a strong point in favor of the idea that OpenAI has no business using their work. How can you even think it's ok for OpenAI to use work that was not done for them without paying some kind of license? They aren't entitled to the free labor of everyone on the internet!
- rpdillon 3y ago
  > How can you even think it's ok for OpenAI to use work that was not done for them without paying some kind of license? At the risk of answering a rhetorical question: because copyright covers four rights: copying, distribution, creation of derivative works, and public performance, and LLM training doesn't fit cleanly into any of these, which is why many think copying-for-the-purpose-of-training might be fair use (courts have yet to rule here). I think the most sane outcome would be to find that: - Training is fair use - Direct, automated output of AI models cannot be copyrighted (I think this has already been ruled on[0] in the US). - Use of an genAI to create works that would otherwise be considered a "derivative work" under copyright law can still be challenged under copyright. The end result here would be that AI can continue to be a useful tool, but artists still have legal teeth to come after folks using the tool to create infringing works. Of course, determining whether a work is similar enough to be considered infringing remains a horribly difficult challenge, but that's nothing new[1], and will continue to hinge on how courts assess the four factors that govern fair use[2]. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receive-copyrights-us-court-says-2023-08-21/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receiv... [1]: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-sides-against-andy-warhol-foundation-in-copyright-infringement-cas https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-side... [2]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it. True, sadly most of those copyright are probably owned by other megacorp. So they either collude to surppess the entire industry or eat each other alive in legal clashes. The latter is happening as we speak (the writers for NYT are probably long retired, but NYT still owns the words) so I guess we'll see how that goes. >OpenAI found a way to benefit by learning from these images. The same way that every artist on the planet benefits by learning from the images of their fellow artists. If we treat AI like humans, art historically has an equally thin line between inspiration and plagiarism. There are simply more objective metrics to measure now because we can indeed go inside an AI's proverbial brain. So the metaphor is pretty apt, except with more scrutiny able to be applied.

egypturnash 3y ago

There are many ways an artist can compensate their influences. Some of them are monetary. When discussing our work, we can name them. When one of our influences comes out with a new body of work, we can gush about it to our own fans. When we find ourselves in a position of authority, we can offer work to our influences. No animation studio is really complete without someone old enough to be a grandfather hanging out helping to teach the new kids the ropes in between doing an amazing job on their own scenes, and maybe putting together a few pitches, for instance. We can draw fan art and send it to them. None of these are mandatory, but artists tend to do this, because we are humans, and we recognize that we exist in a community of other artists, and these all just feel like normal human things to do for your community. And if an artist suddenly starts wholesale swiping another artist's style without crediting them, their peers get angry. [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Giffen#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Giffen#Controversy OpenAI isn't gonna tell you that it was going for a Cat & Girl kind of feel in this drawing. OpenAI isn't gonna offer Dorothy Gambrell a job. OpenAI isn't going to tell you that she just came out with a new collection and she's still at the top of her game, and that you should buy it. OpenAI's not going to send her a painting of Cat & Girl that it did for fun. OpenAI isn't going to do anything for her unless the courts force it to, because OpenAI is a corporation who has found a way to make money by strip-mining the stuff people post publicly on the Internet because they want other humans to be able to see it.

csallen 3y ago
Most people know 20,000-40,000 words. Let's call it 30,000. You've learned 99.999% of those 30,000 people from other people. And don't get me started on phrases, cliches, sentence structures, etc. How many of those words do you remember learning? How many can you confidently say you remember the person or the book that taught you the word? 5? 10? Maybe 100? That's how brains work. We ingest vast amounts of information that other people put out into the world. We consume and it incorporate it and start using it on our own work. And we forget where we even got it. My brain works this way. Your brain works this way. Artists' brains work this way. GPT-4 works this way. The idea that a visual artist can somehow recall where they first saw many of the billions of images stored in their brain -- the photos, movies, architecture, paintings, and real-life scenes that play out every second of every day -- is laughable. Almost all of that goes uncredited, and always will. This is what it is to learn.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Individual words aren't comparable to the things people are worried about getting copied. People are much more able to tell you where they learned about more sophisticated concepts and styles.
  - csallen 3y ago
    The same principle applies, though. They can tell you maybe a dozen, maybe a few dozen, concepts they've learned and use in their work. But what about the thousands of concepts they use in their work they can't tell you about? The patterns they've noticed, the concepts that don't even have names, but that came from seeing things in the world world that were all created by other people?
    - WereAllMadHere 3y ago
      For example, how many artists drawing street scenes credit the designer at Ford Motors for teaching them what a generic car looks like? How many even know which designers created their mental model of a car?

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> That's just it, nobody looking to get paid by OpenAI actually did any labor for OpenAI. They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it Nobody working on a new cancer drug actually did any work for me. They did labour for other reasons, and were happy with it. There it is okay for me to steal their recipe and sell their cancer drug.

Aeolun 3y ago
Nope, but it’s ok for you to read their recipe if they place it on the internet (research paper), and use it to make your own drug.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  And that is a good thing we should all celebrate.
- WereAllMadHere 3y ago
  The entire point of the patent system was to say inventors can put their design on the net without it being stolen; so future inventors can build on their work.

guappa 3y ago

> They did labor for other reasons, and were happy with it. They were happy until their copyright got stolen, I guess. Then got unhappy.

KingMob 3y ago

> We've never asked artists to "properly compensate" each other for learning/inspiration in the past. LLMs are collections of GPUs crunching numbers. "Inspiration" doesn't really apply to them. A better analogy is sampling, and musicians remixing music are very much required to pay for the samples they use.

mlrtime 3y ago
Only if the "use" where use means distribute. If I sample a track and play it in my home I don't properly compensate anyone. If I ask GPT to create a cool new comic based on the article and then delete or use it privately it, same applies.
- KingMob 3y ago
  Assuming that's true, GPT is the one "distributing" in your second example, so that still applies to them (if not you).

bluefirebrand 3y ago

> That's just it, nobody looking to get paid by OpenAI actually did any labor for OpenAI. To me this is a strong point in favor of the idea that OpenAI has no business using their work. How can you even think it's ok for OpenAI to use work that was not done for them without paying some kind of license? They aren't entitled to the free labor of everyone on the internet!

rpdillon 3y ago
> How can you even think it's ok for OpenAI to use work that was not done for them without paying some kind of license? At the risk of answering a rhetorical question: because copyright covers four rights: copying, distribution, creation of derivative works, and public performance, and LLM training doesn't fit cleanly into any of these, which is why many think copying-for-the-purpose-of-training might be fair use (courts have yet to rule here). I think the most sane outcome would be to find that: - Training is fair use - Direct, automated output of AI models cannot be copyrighted (I think this has already been ruled on[0] in the US). - Use of an genAI to create works that would otherwise be considered a "derivative work" under copyright law can still be challenged under copyright. The end result here would be that AI can continue to be a useful tool, but artists still have legal teeth to come after folks using the tool to create infringing works. Of course, determining whether a work is similar enough to be considered infringing remains a horribly difficult challenge, but that's nothing new[1], and will continue to hinge on how courts assess the four factors that govern fair use[2]. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receive-copyrights-us-court-says-2023-08-21/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receiv... [1]: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-sides-against-andy-warhol-foundation-in-copyright-infringement-cas https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-side... [2]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/