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One nitpick with this: “Ordinary” people mostly don’t own any IP that earns them any income. Most who earn their income from IP are society’s elites. Perhaps t

by xp84 2y ago

One nitpick with this: “Ordinary” people mostly don’t own any IP that earns them any income. Most who earn their income from IP are society’s elites. Perhaps the lowest-paid least elite IP profession I can think of is journalists, and I’m pretty sure they are doing works for hire and not owning the copyright. Arguably when it comes to the IP questions, ordinary people are far more likely to be benefiting from AI (for instance getting it to make art they couldn’t express because of lack of talent) than they are to be be robbed of their IP in a way that matters. Obviously the question of AI harming ordinary people in terms of automating mundane jobs is a very real one, but interestingly it’s totally irrelevant to the IP issues.

bumby 2y ago
I think the counter argument is that it works provide a pathway for “ordinary” people to monetize IP. Copyrights exist as soon as a creative work is made, it’s an entirely different IP tool than, say, a patent that has a more arduous process.
- visarga 2y ago
  Yes but most LLM usage is for a single reader - the user who prompted the model. The output is rarely published. Maybe there should be a different rule for using LLM text to author public books and articles.
  - bumby 2y ago
    AFAIK copyright laws do not make such a distinction. The most common exemption is fair use, but it requires the addition of some new creative aspect. Whether or not LLMs are creative or derivative may be an area that the courts are forced to define. Given the recent rulings that put this determination squarely on the court, I’m not sure the courts have the expertise to do so.
    - visarga 2y ago
      > but it requires the addition of some new creative aspect That is one thing I can't get. Why is everyone not seeing the elephant in the room? The user and the user prompt - they add new intention and purpose to the material being referenced. Not only that, but a LLM response is usually shorter than a full length article or book. On top of that, LLMs retrieve from multiple sources when they use search, and respond from even more sources when they generate answers in closed-book mode. They are clearly doing synthesis. LLMs are not even good tools for infringement. You have to work really hard to put the LLM into an infringing mood, and it requires snippets from the target content, and only works like 1% of the time. If you have snippets, you probably have the whole thing already. Copying is so much easier and faster. LLMs would just reproduce approximatively a desired content. What a LLM gets from a source text in closed-book mode is on the same level with a image thumbnail from a full resolution image. What LLMs do well is to recombine ideas in new ways, as demanded by the prompt. Should that be infringing? If the answer is yes, then humans should also be barred from recombining ideas. After all, any human could secretly be using LLMs. But that would just tank creativity for fear of litigation. Isn't it strange how copyright promotes creativity by restricting it? Even the name "copyright" refers to copying, as it was initially envisioned. Now authors want to expand it to idea ownership. I think it's a power grab.
      - bumby 2y ago
        >Should that be infringing? That’s the big question I was alluding to. Does the prompt provide sufficient novelty to avoid claims of copyright? Or is it too derivative? I don’t have a strong opinion but can see both sides and suspect eventually it will be decided by the courts. The distinction you may be missing is that copyright refers to licensed reproduction. IP is, after all, about property/ownership rights.
        Kim_Bruning 2y ago
        Not everyone agrees with that view, of course. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
        2y ago
biggestdummy 2y ago
I am an author. While 99% of "ordinary people" are not authors, 99% of authors are "ordinary people". Under your moral logic, everyone should just be free to pirate/steal any creative work, as why shouldn't the un-talented (or un-trained, or un-dedicated) have equal rights to the works. All this leads to a case where there is no longer an incentive to create and popularize creative work, and suddenly all that is available are AI rehashes of AI summaries. I, for one, don't look forward to such a marketplace of non-ideas.
- thecrash 2y ago
  > there is no longer an incentive to create and popularize creative work It's reasonable to be worried about this scenario. If there was no incentive to produce creative work, our society would be much worse. But the notion that there's only one way to prevent this scenario, and it requires a drastic expansion of the already sweeping "intellectual property" regime...well it just lacks creativity. It's not that we want to eliminate the incentive to be creative, it's that we believe there are better ways to prevent that scenario than to further entrench a broken system.
- ycombinatrix 2y ago
  I don't think I should be able to steal or pirate your work. I do think I should be allowed to read your book & do math with it.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    >I do think I should be allowed to read your book & do math with it. This is such a painfully obtuse construction of what is occurring that it escapes any reasonable discussion.
    - ycombinatrix 2y ago
      Up to you. You can stop people from reading your book but you can't stop people from doing math.
soco 2y ago
Ordinary people would also benefit from free cars and free lunches, yet we are not advocating for those are we? Why should the creators bear the blunt of those politics then?
- butlike 2y ago
  ...because they're the creators. They could have created anything, and they created this.
JohnFen 2y ago
> “Ordinary” people mostly don’t own any IP that earns them any income. I'm not sure why this is a relevant point. Is IP only important if it's earning money?
- c22 2y ago
  Yes. Earning money is the only argument anyone's been able to make for why we should respect IP as a society, and even that argument is a bit of a stretch.
  - pigeons 2y ago
    While I admit it can be controversial to some, certainly in many countries an argument is made for "the moral rights of the author."
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    I think the original argument for copyright isn't directly based on money and isn't a stretch. The argument is that it encourages people to distribute their own works by reducing the risks of doing so, which is a thing that benefits us all. I don't think that copyright restrictions really apply to the use of data to train LLMs, and that fact is why I, and a number of others, have removed our works from the public web entirely. There is no other real way to protect ourselves from people using the works in a way we object to.
    - c22 2y ago
      What non-monetary risks of distribution does copyright hedge against? I can see risks of distribution like potential liability risks, but copyright doesn't seem to protect against this. I can understand how things like the GPL leverage the copyright systems to enact non-monetary restrictions, but in a world without the concept of copyright would something like that even be necessary? As you say, removing your content from the public sphere is the only way to protect yourself from people using it in ways you object to. This would seem to be the case regardless of the state of copyright protection since people gonna do what people gonna do.

by xp84 2y ago

bumby 2y ago

I think the counter argument is that it works provide a pathway for “ordinary” people to monetize IP. Copyrights exist as soon as a creative work is made, it’s an entirely different IP tool than, say, a patent that has a more arduous process.

visarga 2y ago
Yes but most LLM usage is for a single reader - the user who prompted the model. The output is rarely published. Maybe there should be a different rule for using LLM text to author public books and articles.
- bumby 2y ago
  AFAIK copyright laws do not make such a distinction. The most common exemption is fair use, but it requires the addition of some new creative aspect. Whether or not LLMs are creative or derivative may be an area that the courts are forced to define. Given the recent rulings that put this determination squarely on the court, I’m not sure the courts have the expertise to do so.
  - visarga 2y ago
    > but it requires the addition of some new creative aspect That is one thing I can't get. Why is everyone not seeing the elephant in the room? The user and the user prompt - they add new intention and purpose to the material being referenced. Not only that, but a LLM response is usually shorter than a full length article or book. On top of that, LLMs retrieve from multiple sources when they use search, and respond from even more sources when they generate answers in closed-book mode. They are clearly doing synthesis. LLMs are not even good tools for infringement. You have to work really hard to put the LLM into an infringing mood, and it requires snippets from the target content, and only works like 1% of the time. If you have snippets, you probably have the whole thing already. Copying is so much easier and faster. LLMs would just reproduce approximatively a desired content. What a LLM gets from a source text in closed-book mode is on the same level with a image thumbnail from a full resolution image. What LLMs do well is to recombine ideas in new ways, as demanded by the prompt. Should that be infringing? If the answer is yes, then humans should also be barred from recombining ideas. After all, any human could secretly be using LLMs. But that would just tank creativity for fear of litigation. Isn't it strange how copyright promotes creativity by restricting it? Even the name "copyright" refers to copying, as it was initially envisioned. Now authors want to expand it to idea ownership. I think it's a power grab.
    - bumby 2y ago
      >Should that be infringing? That’s the big question I was alluding to. Does the prompt provide sufficient novelty to avoid claims of copyright? Or is it too derivative? I don’t have a strong opinion but can see both sides and suspect eventually it will be decided by the courts. The distinction you may be missing is that copyright refers to licensed reproduction. IP is, after all, about property/ownership rights.
      - Kim_Bruning 2y ago
        Not everyone agrees with that view, of course. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
        2y ago

biggestdummy 2y ago

I am an author. While 99% of "ordinary people" are not authors, 99% of authors are "ordinary people". Under your moral logic, everyone should just be free to pirate/steal any creative work, as why shouldn't the un-talented (or un-trained, or un-dedicated) have equal rights to the works. All this leads to a case where there is no longer an incentive to create and popularize creative work, and suddenly all that is available are AI rehashes of AI summaries. I, for one, don't look forward to such a marketplace of non-ideas.

thecrash 2y ago
> there is no longer an incentive to create and popularize creative work It's reasonable to be worried about this scenario. If there was no incentive to produce creative work, our society would be much worse. But the notion that there's only one way to prevent this scenario, and it requires a drastic expansion of the already sweeping "intellectual property" regime...well it just lacks creativity. It's not that we want to eliminate the incentive to be creative, it's that we believe there are better ways to prevent that scenario than to further entrench a broken system.
ycombinatrix 2y ago
I don't think I should be able to steal or pirate your work. I do think I should be allowed to read your book & do math with it.
- freejazz 2y ago
  >I do think I should be allowed to read your book & do math with it. This is such a painfully obtuse construction of what is occurring that it escapes any reasonable discussion.
  - ycombinatrix 2y ago
    Up to you. You can stop people from reading your book but you can't stop people from doing math.

soco 2y ago

Ordinary people would also benefit from free cars and free lunches, yet we are not advocating for those are we? Why should the creators bear the blunt of those politics then?

butlike 2y ago
...because they're the creators. They could have created anything, and they created this.

JohnFen 2y ago

> “Ordinary” people mostly don’t own any IP that earns them any income. I'm not sure why this is a relevant point. Is IP only important if it's earning money?

c22 2y ago
Yes. Earning money is the only argument anyone's been able to make for why we should respect IP as a society, and even that argument is a bit of a stretch.
- pigeons 2y ago
  While I admit it can be controversial to some, certainly in many countries an argument is made for "the moral rights of the author."
- JohnFen 2y ago
  I think the original argument for copyright isn't directly based on money and isn't a stretch. The argument is that it encourages people to distribute their own works by reducing the risks of doing so, which is a thing that benefits us all. I don't think that copyright restrictions really apply to the use of data to train LLMs, and that fact is why I, and a number of others, have removed our works from the public web entirely. There is no other real way to protect ourselves from people using the works in a way we object to.
  - c22 2y ago
    What non-monetary risks of distribution does copyright hedge against? I can see risks of distribution like potential liability risks, but copyright doesn't seem to protect against this. I can understand how things like the GPL leverage the copyright systems to enact non-monetary restrictions, but in a world without the concept of copyright would something like that even be necessary? As you say, removing your content from the public sphere is the only way to protect yourself from people using it in ways you object to. This would seem to be the case regardless of the state of copyright protection since people gonna do what people gonna do.