4 ms·

This whole argument rests on the absurd assumption that you can "own" a voice as if it's property. Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in ai

This whole argument rests on the absurd assumption that you can "own" a voice as if it's property. Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
You can own your likeness. Does that mean you can own the photos that represent your face? Yes, yes you can. Why should you voice be different?
- 3np 2y ago
  Easy: The air is free but the electromagnetic spectrum is regulated. /s
- unraveller 2y ago
  Human voices store shared accent data too not just biometrics, your siblings/twins/sorority sisters likely present with extremely similar voices which can cause the same confusion as AI clones. is it most famous sibling first gets the copyright or are siblings the only ones with the power to supersede it or must they alter their voice? Simple voice never really was guaranteed to be a unique part of identity since it changes so easily over time and ages.
- carmackfan 2y ago
  > You can own your likeness. How?
  - npteljes 2y ago
    By law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
kube-system 2y ago
Intellectual property is, in fact, recognized by many legal jurisdictions. And audio works are typically included in that. However, in this situation, the right of publicity is probably more applicable.
- carmackfan 2y ago
  Appeal to law fallacy.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - kube-system 2y ago
    The fact that 93% of the world's legal jurisdictions, including the entire democratic world, doesn't agree with your assertion of absurdity, is pretty good evidence that you are the one with a radical opinion.
  - consteval 2y ago
    You can't just say "Appeal to law fallacy", nothing else, and then move on. You haven't made an argument. In order for this to be a FALLACY, you have to explain how an appeal to law doesn't work here. Simply appealing to law itself isn't a fallacy.
PhasmaFelis 2y ago
"Why should child porn be illegal? It's just a pattern of bits on a computer!" Describing a reasonable legal principle in terms of physics phenomena does not make it unreasonable.
- carmackfan 2y ago
  You're missing the point. Ownership implies the resource is scarce. If the resource is a pattern, which cannot be physically owned and my usage of the pattern doesn't prevent others from using the pattern, it's nonsensical to say it can be owned by anybody.
  - PhasmaFelis 2y ago
    If you make, say, a webcomic, a big publisher is not allowed to collect and print your comic, or republish it on their ad-riddled website, unless they get your permission and offer whatever compensation you demand. They also can't copy your characters exactly and publish new stories about them, even if all the art and writing is original. This is a good thing, even though your comic is nothing but a bunch of JPGs--digital patterns--that can be copied infinitely without depriving anyone. Voice-reproduction rights can get complicated in the AI age, and I don't claim to have the objective moral truth. But there are very good reasons to give legal protection to the creators of digital patterns, as a general principle.
bcook 2y ago
With enough of a "vibration pattern", it becomes a fingerprint.
astrostl 2y ago
More like owning an identity or likeness, which is a fundamental basis of many fraud cases. It seems that Jeff Geerling is a resident of Missouri which also has Supreme Court precedent to test for "Right of Publicity" [1]: "If a product is being sold that predominantly exploits the commercial value of an individual's identity, that product should be held to violate the right of publicity and not be protected by the First Amendment, even if there is some "expressive" content in it that might qualify as "speech" in other circumstances." Whether or not the voice is determined to be predominant would be for courts to decide, of course, but there's clearly an argument. 1: https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/court-of-appeals/2006/ed85283-2.html https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/court-of-appeals/2006/...
npteljes 2y ago
>Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical. If you argue similarly, then the whole juridical system is nonsensical, because everything is just particles and waves, and different configurations thereof - not to mention the many protected things that are acts, which are neither particles nor waves, and are completely made up. I'd say it's desirable to regulate something like this, however nonsensical-seeming, so that we can at least somewhat protect the individuals, and the general well-being of society.
- carmackfan 2y ago
  That wasn't my point. We can own physical items, land etc. Because it's a scarce resource. If me "owning" something doesn't prevent you from also "owning" it, the concept of ownership of that item is absurd.
  - npteljes 2y ago
    My voice is even more scarce, there is only one of them in the whole world! I think. Also, we can both own the same land. I do understand rivalry in economics, but that's not the issue here. The issue is the need to protect individuals from abuse, part of which is the one's right to their own likeness. This likeness is not free for the taking. Now, we can call this owning the likeness, or we can call it something else, but having something, that is not free for taking, sounds an awful lot like owning something.
throwaway0123_5 2y ago
Ownership as a whole is a social/legal construct, no? [1] You only "own" something insofar as you control it. Societies build frameworks that aid people in controlling things based on who they think deserves control of those things. This clearly can vary widely between societies; the USA used to think owning people was perfectly OK and some places still do. Nobody has absolute control over (almost?) anything, and I think if a society provides many legal protections to something like a voice (who can profit off of it, who goes to jail if they try to copy it), it can be "owned" to as meaningful an extent as anything else. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership
- carmackfan 2y ago
  Many social/legal constructs are for lack of a better term, idiotic. Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies? Exclusive control over a scarce resource. If a resource isn't scarce, where your control over it doesn't impede or restrict other peoples control over it, there is no feasible model that explains why one person has control or ownership of it over another. Social/legal constructs like owning ideas or the sound of a voice exist not because they make any sort of logical sense, they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others.
  - throwaway0123_5 2y ago
    > Many social/legal constructs are for lack of a better term, idiotic. Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies? Exclusive control over a scarce resource. It implies whatever society decides that it implies, no? For example, many societies had or have conceptions of land ownership that are dramatically different from the western model, oftentimes to the extent of not having individual land ownership at all. > Social/legal constructs like owning ideas or the sound of a voice exist not because they make any sort of logical sense They don't make logical sense to you. Consider that for a very long time in the US the idea of owning people made logical sense to the majority. > they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others. Do not almost all forms of ownership do this? Some people own hundreds of thousands to millions of acres of land that I have no right to access. Massive swathes of the surface of the planet that we all share. Is the ability to own land not a far greater privilege than the ability to protect your voice from being cloned without your consent?

This whole argument rests on the absurd assumption that you can "own" a voice as if it's property. Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago

You can own your likeness. Does that mean you can own the photos that represent your face? Yes, yes you can. Why should you voice be different?

3np 2y ago
Easy: The air is free but the electromagnetic spectrum is regulated. /s
unraveller 2y ago
Human voices store shared accent data too not just biometrics, your siblings/twins/sorority sisters likely present with extremely similar voices which can cause the same confusion as AI clones. is it most famous sibling first gets the copyright or are siblings the only ones with the power to supersede it or must they alter their voice? Simple voice never really was guaranteed to be a unique part of identity since it changes so easily over time and ages.
carmackfan 2y ago
> You can own your likeness. How?
- npteljes 2y ago
  By law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

kube-system 2y ago

Intellectual property is, in fact, recognized by many legal jurisdictions. And audio works are typically included in that. However, in this situation, the right of publicity is probably more applicable.

carmackfan 2y ago
Appeal to law fallacy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kube-system 2y ago
  The fact that 93% of the world's legal jurisdictions, including the entire democratic world, doesn't agree with your assertion of absurdity, is pretty good evidence that you are the one with a radical opinion.
- consteval 2y ago
  You can't just say "Appeal to law fallacy", nothing else, and then move on. You haven't made an argument. In order for this to be a FALLACY, you have to explain how an appeal to law doesn't work here. Simply appealing to law itself isn't a fallacy.

PhasmaFelis 2y ago

"Why should child porn be illegal? It's just a pattern of bits on a computer!" Describing a reasonable legal principle in terms of physics phenomena does not make it unreasonable.

carmackfan 2y ago
You're missing the point. Ownership implies the resource is scarce. If the resource is a pattern, which cannot be physically owned and my usage of the pattern doesn't prevent others from using the pattern, it's nonsensical to say it can be owned by anybody.
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago
  If you make, say, a webcomic, a big publisher is not allowed to collect and print your comic, or republish it on their ad-riddled website, unless they get your permission and offer whatever compensation you demand. They also can't copy your characters exactly and publish new stories about them, even if all the art and writing is original. This is a good thing, even though your comic is nothing but a bunch of JPGs--digital patterns--that can be copied infinitely without depriving anyone. Voice-reproduction rights can get complicated in the AI age, and I don't claim to have the objective moral truth. But there are very good reasons to give legal protection to the creators of digital patterns, as a general principle.

bcook 2y ago

With enough of a "vibration pattern", it becomes a fingerprint.

astrostl 2y ago

More like owning an identity or likeness, which is a fundamental basis of many fraud cases. It seems that Jeff Geerling is a resident of Missouri which also has Supreme Court precedent to test for "Right of Publicity" [1]: "If a product is being sold that predominantly exploits the commercial value of an individual's identity, that product should be held to violate the right of publicity and not be protected by the First Amendment, even if there is some "expressive" content in it that might qualify as "speech" in other circumstances." Whether or not the voice is determined to be predominant would be for courts to decide, of course, but there's clearly an argument. 1: https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/court-of-appeals/2006/ed85283-2.html https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/court-of-appeals/2006/...

npteljes 2y ago

>Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical. If you argue similarly, then the whole juridical system is nonsensical, because everything is just particles and waves, and different configurations thereof - not to mention the many protected things that are acts, which are neither particles nor waves, and are completely made up. I'd say it's desirable to regulate something like this, however nonsensical-seeming, so that we can at least somewhat protect the individuals, and the general well-being of society.

carmackfan 2y ago
That wasn't my point. We can own physical items, land etc. Because it's a scarce resource. If me "owning" something doesn't prevent you from also "owning" it, the concept of ownership of that item is absurd.
- npteljes 2y ago
  My voice is even more scarce, there is only one of them in the whole world! I think. Also, we can both own the same land. I do understand rivalry in economics, but that's not the issue here. The issue is the need to protect individuals from abuse, part of which is the one's right to their own likeness. This likeness is not free for the taking. Now, we can call this owning the likeness, or we can call it something else, but having something, that is not free for taking, sounds an awful lot like owning something.

throwaway0123_5 2y ago

Ownership as a whole is a social/legal construct, no? [1] You only "own" something insofar as you control it. Societies build frameworks that aid people in controlling things based on who they think deserves control of those things. This clearly can vary widely between societies; the USA used to think owning people was perfectly OK and some places still do. Nobody has absolute control over (almost?) anything, and I think if a society provides many legal protections to something like a voice (who can profit off of it, who goes to jail if they try to copy it), it can be "owned" to as meaningful an extent as anything else. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership

carmackfan 2y ago
Many social/legal constructs are for lack of a better term, idiotic. Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies? Exclusive control over a scarce resource. If a resource isn't scarce, where your control over it doesn't impede or restrict other peoples control over it, there is no feasible model that explains why one person has control or ownership of it over another. Social/legal constructs like owning ideas or the sound of a voice exist not because they make any sort of logical sense, they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others.
- throwaway0123_5 2y ago
  > Many social/legal constructs are for lack of a better term, idiotic. Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies? Exclusive control over a scarce resource. It implies whatever society decides that it implies, no? For example, many societies had or have conceptions of land ownership that are dramatically different from the western model, oftentimes to the extent of not having individual land ownership at all. > Social/legal constructs like owning ideas or the sound of a voice exist not because they make any sort of logical sense They don't make logical sense to you. Consider that for a very long time in the US the idea of owning people made logical sense to the majority. > they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others. Do not almost all forms of ownership do this? Some people own hundreds of thousands to millions of acres of land that I have no right to access. Massive swathes of the surface of the planet that we all share. Is the ability to own land not a far greater privilege than the ability to protect your voice from being cloned without your consent?