The problem is the word "training". It's too anthropomorphic. Humans absolutely do learn from their inputs, but they are also capable of recognizing those influ

The problem is the word "training". It's too anthropomorphic. Humans absolutely do learn from their inputs, but they are also capable of recognizing those influences and adopting or rejecting them. Current generation AI technology doesn't do that - which is why Stable Diffusion loves to draw, say, incomprehensible mutations of the Getty Images watermark. Machine learning models are trained by rather simplistic fixed code - akin to the expert systems that ML replaced - and that code does not know the difference between the copyrightable and uncopyrightable features of a source image. e.g. the training set had a lot of Getty Images watermarks in it, so the model is updated to draw those watermarks. In terms of ethics, there IS a difference: AI is cheap. It does not require food, shelter, or much of anything, really. If your fellow man learns how to draw off your work, he does not become an existential threat to your livelihood in the same way an AI model potentially would. This is not an inherent problem with machines that think[1], but the rationales for investing into AI. Generative models probably can't currently replace real human artists or programmers, but that's what your boss is hearing. The capitalist class is chock full of people who would love nothing more than to fire all workers so that they can reap 100% of the benefits of automation. Economists talk of how robots and automation didn't put humans out of a job, it just shifted the jobs around and made humans more productive, but the reality is that the people who owned the factories were hoping it would. And they're perfectly willing to take further swings at the "problem" of there being a working class. Remember: Breaking looms was the Luddites' tactic, not their goal. In terms of copyright, a system that is nominally intended to protect artists, but doesn't do a very good job of it: the Internet is not Public Domain[0]. If you - an AI system or a human - train on a copyrighted work and produce something substantially similar to that same copyrighted work, you've infringed. To put this in other words: if Microsoft thinks it's perfectly OK to train on anything on the Internet, then he'll be OK with my LLaMA finetune on Windows NT source code leaks[2]. If I can get the model to output the source code to Windows that means I own it now, right? [0] no matter what Eric Bauman thinks [1] We must negate the machines-that-think. Humans must set their own guidelines. This is not something machines can do. Reasoning depends upon programming, not on hardware, and we are the ultimate program! Our Jihad is a "dump program." We dump the things which destroy us as humans! [2] I would love to see someone do this, get sued, and then claim Microsoft is estopped from asserting copyright infringement because they said training on other people's work is OK. It wouldn't work and Microsoft would ruin their lives but it'd be funny.