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You know why we put up with copyrighted info in the human brain right? Because those are human beings, it’s unavoidable. This? Avoidable. Also, the model isn’t

You know why we put up with copyrighted info in the human brain right? Because those are human beings, it’s unavoidable. This? Avoidable. Also, the model isn’t a human brain. Nobody has invented a human brain. And the model might not infringe if its inputs are licensed but that doesn’t seem to be the case for most and it’s not clearly transparent they don’t. If the inputs are bad, the intent of the user is meaningless. I can ask for a generic super hero and not mean to get superman but if I do I can’t blame that on myself, I had no role in it, heck even the model doesn’t know what it’s doing, it’s just a function. If I Xerox Superman my intent is clear.

tpmoney 1y ago
> You know why we put up with copyrighted info in the human brain right? Because those are human beings, it’s unavoidable. I would hope we put up with it because "copyright" is only useful to us insofar as it advances good things that we want in our society. I certainly don't want to live in a world where if we could forcibly remove copyrighted information from human brains as soon as the "license" expired that we would do so. That seems like a dystopian hell worse than even the worst possible predictions of AI's detractors. > I can ask for a generic super hero and not mean to get superman but if I do I can’t blame that on myself, I had no role in it, heck even the model doesn’t know what it’s doing, it’s just a function. And if you turn around and discard that output and ask for something else, then no harm has been caused. Just like when artists trace other artists work for practice, no harm is caused and while it might be copyright infringement in a "literal meaning of the words" it's also not something that as a society we consider meaningfully infringing. If on the other hand, said budding artist started selling copies of those traces, or making video games using assets scanned from those traces, then we do consider it infringement worth worrying about. > If I Xerox Superman my intent is clear. Is it? If you have a broken xerox machine and you think you have it fixed, grab the nearest papers you can find and as a result of testing the machine xerox Superman, what is your intent? I don't think it was to commit copyright infringement, even if again in the "literal meaning of the words" sense you absolutely did.
- Riverheart 1y ago
  I’m saying that retaining information is a natural, accepted part of being human and operating in society. Don’t know why it needed to be turned into an Orwell sequel.
  - tpmoney 1y ago
    I had assumed when you said that a human retaining information was "unavoidable" and a machine retaining it was "avoidable" that the implication was we wouldn't tolerate humans retaining information if it was also "avoidable". Otherwise I'm unclear what the intent of distinguishing between "avoidable" and "unavoidable" was, and I'm unclear what it has to do with whether or not an AI model that was trained with "unlicensed" content is or isn't copyright infringing on its own.
    - Riverheart 1y ago
      I’m in the camp that believes that it’s neither necessary nor desirable to hold humans and software to the same standard of law. Society exists for our collective benefit and we make concessions with each other to ensure it functions smoothly and I don’t think those concessions should necessarily extend to automated processes even if they do in fact mimic humans for the myriad ways in which they differ from us.
      - tpmoney 1y ago
        So what benefit do we derive as a society from deciding that the capability for copyright infringement is in and of itself infringement? What do we gain by overturning the current protections the law (or society) currently has for technologies like xerox machines, VHS tapes, blank CDs and DVDs, media ripping tools, and site scraping tools? Open source digital media encoding, blank media, site scraping tools and bit-torrent enable copyright infringement on a massive scale to the tune of millions or more dollars in losses every year if you believe the media companies. And yet, I would argue as a society we would be worse off without those tools. In fact, I'd even argue that as a society we'd be worse off without some degree of tolerated copyright infringement. How many pieces of interesting media have been "saved" from the dust bin of history and preserved for future generations by people committing copyright infringement for their own purposes? Things like early seasons of Dr Who or other TV shows that were taped over and so the only extant copies are from people's home collections taped off the TV. The "De-specialized" editions of Star Wars are probably the most high quality and true to the original cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy that exist, and they are unequivocally pure copyright infringement. Or consider the youtube video "Fan.tasia"[1]. That is a collection of unlicensed video clips, combined with another individual's work which itself is a collection of unlicensed audio clips mashed together into a amalgamation of sight and sound to produce something new and I would argue original, but very clearly also full of copyright infringement and facilitated by a bunch of technologies that enable doing infringement at scale. It is (IMO) far more obviously copyright infringement than anything an AI model is. Yet I would argue a world in which that media and the technologies that enable it were made illegal, or heavily restricted to only the people that could afford to license all of the things that went into it from the people who created all the original works, would be a worse world for us all. The ability to easily commit copyright infringement at scale enabled the production of new and interesting art that would not have existed otherwise, and almost certainly built skills (like editing and mixing) for the people involved. That, to me, is more valuable to society than ensuring that all the artists and studios whose work went into that media got whatever fractions of a penny they lost from having their works infringed. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-6xk4W6N20&pp=ygUJZmFuLnRhc2lh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-6xk4W6N20&pp=ygUJZmFuLnRhc...

tpmoney 1y ago

> You know why we put up with copyrighted info in the human brain right? Because those are human beings, it’s unavoidable. I would hope we put up with it because "copyright" is only useful to us insofar as it advances good things that we want in our society. I certainly don't want to live in a world where if we could forcibly remove copyrighted information from human brains as soon as the "license" expired that we would do so. That seems like a dystopian hell worse than even the worst possible predictions of AI's detractors. > I can ask for a generic super hero and not mean to get superman but if I do I can’t blame that on myself, I had no role in it, heck even the model doesn’t know what it’s doing, it’s just a function. And if you turn around and discard that output and ask for something else, then no harm has been caused. Just like when artists trace other artists work for practice, no harm is caused and while it might be copyright infringement in a "literal meaning of the words" it's also not something that as a society we consider meaningfully infringing. If on the other hand, said budding artist started selling copies of those traces, or making video games using assets scanned from those traces, then we do consider it infringement worth worrying about. > If I Xerox Superman my intent is clear. Is it? If you have a broken xerox machine and you think you have it fixed, grab the nearest papers you can find and as a result of testing the machine xerox Superman, what is your intent? I don't think it was to commit copyright infringement, even if again in the "literal meaning of the words" sense you absolutely did.

Riverheart 1y ago
I’m saying that retaining information is a natural, accepted part of being human and operating in society. Don’t know why it needed to be turned into an Orwell sequel.
- tpmoney 1y ago
  I had assumed when you said that a human retaining information was "unavoidable" and a machine retaining it was "avoidable" that the implication was we wouldn't tolerate humans retaining information if it was also "avoidable". Otherwise I'm unclear what the intent of distinguishing between "avoidable" and "unavoidable" was, and I'm unclear what it has to do with whether or not an AI model that was trained with "unlicensed" content is or isn't copyright infringing on its own.
  - Riverheart 1y ago
    I’m in the camp that believes that it’s neither necessary nor desirable to hold humans and software to the same standard of law. Society exists for our collective benefit and we make concessions with each other to ensure it functions smoothly and I don’t think those concessions should necessarily extend to automated processes even if they do in fact mimic humans for the myriad ways in which they differ from us.
    - tpmoney 1y ago
      So what benefit do we derive as a society from deciding that the capability for copyright infringement is in and of itself infringement? What do we gain by overturning the current protections the law (or society) currently has for technologies like xerox machines, VHS tapes, blank CDs and DVDs, media ripping tools, and site scraping tools? Open source digital media encoding, blank media, site scraping tools and bit-torrent enable copyright infringement on a massive scale to the tune of millions or more dollars in losses every year if you believe the media companies. And yet, I would argue as a society we would be worse off without those tools. In fact, I'd even argue that as a society we'd be worse off without some degree of tolerated copyright infringement. How many pieces of interesting media have been "saved" from the dust bin of history and preserved for future generations by people committing copyright infringement for their own purposes? Things like early seasons of Dr Who or other TV shows that were taped over and so the only extant copies are from people's home collections taped off the TV. The "De-specialized" editions of Star Wars are probably the most high quality and true to the original cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy that exist, and they are unequivocally pure copyright infringement. Or consider the youtube video "Fan.tasia"[1]. That is a collection of unlicensed video clips, combined with another individual's work which itself is a collection of unlicensed audio clips mashed together into a amalgamation of sight and sound to produce something new and I would argue original, but very clearly also full of copyright infringement and facilitated by a bunch of technologies that enable doing infringement at scale. It is (IMO) far more obviously copyright infringement than anything an AI model is. Yet I would argue a world in which that media and the technologies that enable it were made illegal, or heavily restricted to only the people that could afford to license all of the things that went into it from the people who created all the original works, would be a worse world for us all. The ability to easily commit copyright infringement at scale enabled the production of new and interesting art that would not have existed otherwise, and almost certainly built skills (like editing and mixing) for the people involved. That, to me, is more valuable to society than ensuring that all the artists and studios whose work went into that media got whatever fractions of a penny they lost from having their works infringed. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-6xk4W6N20&pp=ygUJZmFuLnRhc2lh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-6xk4W6N20&pp=ygUJZmFuLnRhc...