5 ms·

Depending on the outcome of the NYT case, I.P. may in fact be the death of (profitable) AI. One problem with AI (vs e.g. Google search) is that there is no mec

Depending on the outcome of the NYT case, I.P. may in fact be the death of (profitable) AI. One problem with AI (vs e.g. Google search) is that there is no mechanism for attribution. So it is impossible for rights holders to understand whether their works are being monetised (unlike, say, Spotify). Should NYT win, then either AI services will have to pay into a (very large) common pot for rights holders, which likely will make AI uneconomic (even if it does turn out to have some business benefit), or (paid) AI services will simply be banned.

TuringNYC 3y ago
>> One problem with AI (vs e.g. Google search) is that there is no mechanism for attribution. Sorry if this is a silly question, but is that really the case? Can we not train an LLM on successively larger training sets, each will uniquely ID's model and associated better performance?
djohnston 3y ago
There’s no way AI services are going anywhere. If the US kneecaps itself for parasitic rent seekers then China will win and benefit from the productivity these tools produce.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  So the proposal of sociopathic thieves is that we turn into china and steal people’s property? What an odd take.
  - djohnston 3y ago
    It’s a hard world and we need to play to win.
    - gumballindie 3y ago
      Yeah by stealing things from our own people? Thats a dumb way to win.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Win what? This is about making pretty pictures or words, not a resource war. You think Chinese Hollywood will suddenly pop up and topple the US's?
wredue 3y ago
It’s not impossible. AI developers can 100% trace node that contribute to a result during the processing of a prompt, therefore they can be attributed. They’ll never do this, of course, cause they’re riding high on wins of stupid people pushing “you can’t work backward from a result to find the nodes” (which is probably somewhat grounded in reality). Attribution is absolutely not impossible, they just want to think it’s not possible, because enabling such a thing would show just how egregious the copying actually is.
- Ukv 3y ago
  > they just want to think it’s not possible As far as I'm aware, what you propose really isn't a solved issue. Most naive approaches you'd think might work are either infeasible or give chaotic nonsense results. Partial matching between the output text and the training data is possible as a step after generation (though doesn't determine whether it's coincidence).
booleandilemma 3y ago
I'm not sure I like the direction AI is going anyway. Right now we're on a path towards just a handful of megacorps with AI agents that will make large numbers of white collar workers redundant. Imagine something like closed-source software only much worse.
- hadlock 3y ago
  In the last six months model size has come way down and quality has gone way up through different training styles/methods. There is an incentive to release separate models capable of running on 8/16/32gb ram. On my laptop I have something like six free/open source models installed. LLMs are getting so easy to make that people are doing this in their spare time as a hobby. This is starting to feel like a small stepping stone towards AGI but only time will tell.
gumballindie 3y ago
So essentially ai is profitable only if it resells stolen property. Almost as if it’s not intelligent and it only procedurally generates output. The more the better.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  How is it 'stolen' if it was part of a public dataset? Is the argument that OpenAI was scraping data that should have been behind a paywall?
  - noitpmeder 3y ago
    Just because it's publicly viewable does not mean it's free for reuse. Imagine an author who uploads chapters of their book to their own website. You cant take that and claim it's yours. Similarly with all the publically viewable source codes on GitHub/Lab. Just because you can view the code doesn't mean there aren't licenses in play for how you are able to use it. Further, what happens if stolen information is posted publicly? (E.g. wholesale copies of full books on html pages? Just because it's public doesn't mean the viewer has freedom to use it as they see fit.
    - yokem55 3y ago
      That 'usage' is taking statistical notes about the work (creating factual statements about the work) and imputing those notes into a database, averaged with a few billion other notes about other works. That is a usage that copyright under current law simply doesn't cover or protect for. It doesn't even need the analysis if 'fair use' because, there's no copying or public performance happing in the creation/training of the model. Where infringement arguably can happen is when that model is used in the generation of content - and if the user is prompting regenerate a protected work, then that is where the infringement happens. But not before. Maybe the various ai services can adequately guard against that illicit usage. Maybe not. And if not, its those live services that would need to be shut down. But the creation and training of a model, and even distributing that model for people to use with their own computers in private does not engage in copyright infringement.
mindcandy 3y ago
> there is no mechanism for attribution. What if there was? What if I hand-painted an image (without AI) and God himself came down from heaven and explained to the world that my painting was derived 10% from my observations of the collected works of Lisa Frank, 3% from looking at Davinci paintings, and 87% a long tail of various sources. And then I sell my painting for $100. OK. Now what?
- teddyh 3y ago
  > OK. Now what? Do I owe Lisa Frank $10? No, because copyright law says that if you hand-paint an image (without AI), then as long as the images isn’t deemed (by a court, if necessary) to be a derivative work, then you, and nobody else, own the copyright. The word of God is not necessarily considered by the law. And even if the court takes the word of God as gospel, a 10% derivative work might not exceed the necessary threshold of infringement.
  - mindcandy 3y ago
    Very good! Alternatively, if I created a large body of works that were 90% Lisa Frank and brought it to a large market distribution, making significant revenue, then she could sue me for damaging her market and her brand. Which she has done to others in the past and rightly won. Go Lisa Frank! But, if I used an AI tool in the process of making an image that came out 10% Lisa Frank, she wouldn't have a strong case against me. Nor does she have a case against the million random teenagers hand-copying her style but not making significant revenue from their copies. Either way, AI doesn't really factor in here. The results are the results and the markets are the markets regardless of AI or paint brushes.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      Do you think it's reasonable for artists to want a way to forbid major AI corporations from training on their work? Because some people will stop producing/stop making available their work if they don't get access to a different way of doing so. Much like how some artists are uncomfortable with making high-quality scans of their work available online, because it becomes prohibitively difficult to prevent people from selling prints. Forget the current legal framework, it seems fair to me to say "I don't want that happening to my art" when "that" is a corporation finding a way to monetize it. Even if the AI is using less than a pixel of your work, I think it's fair to ask that it not.
chmod600 3y ago
Are there other examples where the law crushed fundamental technological shifts? (Not just delayed briefly by starving investment or something.)
- somewhereoutth 3y ago
  That assumes that the current crop of LLMs are a fundamental technological shift. Furthermore, rights holders did it for file sharing, why not AI too?
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  Stem cells
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Crypto is the most recent one.

TuringNYC 3y ago

>> One problem with AI (vs e.g. Google search) is that there is no mechanism for attribution. Sorry if this is a silly question, but is that really the case? Can we not train an LLM on successively larger training sets, each will uniquely ID's model and associated better performance?

djohnston 3y ago

There’s no way AI services are going anywhere. If the US kneecaps itself for parasitic rent seekers then China will win and benefit from the productivity these tools produce.

gumballindie 3y ago
So the proposal of sociopathic thieves is that we turn into china and steal people’s property? What an odd take.
- djohnston 3y ago
  It’s a hard world and we need to play to win.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    Yeah by stealing things from our own people? Thats a dumb way to win.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Win what? This is about making pretty pictures or words, not a resource war. You think Chinese Hollywood will suddenly pop up and topple the US's?

wredue 3y ago

It’s not impossible. AI developers can 100% trace node that contribute to a result during the processing of a prompt, therefore they can be attributed. They’ll never do this, of course, cause they’re riding high on wins of stupid people pushing “you can’t work backward from a result to find the nodes” (which is probably somewhat grounded in reality). Attribution is absolutely not impossible, they just want to think it’s not possible, because enabling such a thing would show just how egregious the copying actually is.

Ukv 3y ago
> they just want to think it’s not possible As far as I'm aware, what you propose really isn't a solved issue. Most naive approaches you'd think might work are either infeasible or give chaotic nonsense results. Partial matching between the output text and the training data is possible as a step after generation (though doesn't determine whether it's coincidence).

booleandilemma 3y ago

I'm not sure I like the direction AI is going anyway. Right now we're on a path towards just a handful of megacorps with AI agents that will make large numbers of white collar workers redundant. Imagine something like closed-source software only much worse.

hadlock 3y ago
In the last six months model size has come way down and quality has gone way up through different training styles/methods. There is an incentive to release separate models capable of running on 8/16/32gb ram. On my laptop I have something like six free/open source models installed. LLMs are getting so easy to make that people are doing this in their spare time as a hobby. This is starting to feel like a small stepping stone towards AGI but only time will tell.

gumballindie 3y ago

So essentially ai is profitable only if it resells stolen property. Almost as if it’s not intelligent and it only procedurally generates output. The more the better.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
suoduandao3 3y ago
How is it 'stolen' if it was part of a public dataset? Is the argument that OpenAI was scraping data that should have been behind a paywall?
- noitpmeder 3y ago
  Just because it's publicly viewable does not mean it's free for reuse. Imagine an author who uploads chapters of their book to their own website. You cant take that and claim it's yours. Similarly with all the publically viewable source codes on GitHub/Lab. Just because you can view the code doesn't mean there aren't licenses in play for how you are able to use it. Further, what happens if stolen information is posted publicly? (E.g. wholesale copies of full books on html pages? Just because it's public doesn't mean the viewer has freedom to use it as they see fit.
  - yokem55 3y ago
    That 'usage' is taking statistical notes about the work (creating factual statements about the work) and imputing those notes into a database, averaged with a few billion other notes about other works. That is a usage that copyright under current law simply doesn't cover or protect for. It doesn't even need the analysis if 'fair use' because, there's no copying or public performance happing in the creation/training of the model. Where infringement arguably can happen is when that model is used in the generation of content - and if the user is prompting regenerate a protected work, then that is where the infringement happens. But not before. Maybe the various ai services can adequately guard against that illicit usage. Maybe not. And if not, its those live services that would need to be shut down. But the creation and training of a model, and even distributing that model for people to use with their own computers in private does not engage in copyright infringement.

mindcandy 3y ago

> there is no mechanism for attribution. What if there was? What if I hand-painted an image (without AI) and God himself came down from heaven and explained to the world that my painting was derived 10% from my observations of the collected works of Lisa Frank, 3% from looking at Davinci paintings, and 87% a long tail of various sources. And then I sell my painting for $100. OK. Now what?

teddyh 3y ago
> OK. Now what? Do I owe Lisa Frank $10? No, because copyright law says that if you hand-paint an image (without AI), then as long as the images isn’t deemed (by a court, if necessary) to be a derivative work, then you, and nobody else, own the copyright. The word of God is not necessarily considered by the law. And even if the court takes the word of God as gospel, a 10% derivative work might not exceed the necessary threshold of infringement.
- mindcandy 3y ago
  Very good! Alternatively, if I created a large body of works that were 90% Lisa Frank and brought it to a large market distribution, making significant revenue, then she could sue me for damaging her market and her brand. Which she has done to others in the past and rightly won. Go Lisa Frank! But, if I used an AI tool in the process of making an image that came out 10% Lisa Frank, she wouldn't have a strong case against me. Nor does she have a case against the million random teenagers hand-copying her style but not making significant revenue from their copies. Either way, AI doesn't really factor in here. The results are the results and the markets are the markets regardless of AI or paint brushes.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Do you think it's reasonable for artists to want a way to forbid major AI corporations from training on their work? Because some people will stop producing/stop making available their work if they don't get access to a different way of doing so. Much like how some artists are uncomfortable with making high-quality scans of their work available online, because it becomes prohibitively difficult to prevent people from selling prints. Forget the current legal framework, it seems fair to me to say "I don't want that happening to my art" when "that" is a corporation finding a way to monetize it. Even if the AI is using less than a pixel of your work, I think it's fair to ask that it not.

chmod600 3y ago

Are there other examples where the law crushed fundamental technological shifts? (Not just delayed briefly by starving investment or something.)

somewhereoutth 3y ago
That assumes that the current crop of LLMs are a fundamental technological shift. Furthermore, rights holders did it for file sharing, why not AI too?
Workaccount2 3y ago
Stem cells
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Crypto is the most recent one.