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Let's start with I think a case that everyone agrees with. If I were to take an image, and compress it or encrypt it, and then show you data file, you would no

Let's start with I think a case that everyone agrees with. If I were to take an image, and compress it or encrypt it, and then show you data file, you would not be able to see the original copyrighted material anywhere in the data. But if you had the right computer program, you could use it to regenerate the original image flawlessly. I think most people would easily agree that distributing the encrypted file without permission is still a distribution of a copyrighted work and against the law. What if you used _lossy_ encryption, and can merely reproduce a poor quality jpeg of the original image? I think still copyright infringement, right? Would it matter if you distributed it with an executable that only rendered the image non-deterministically? Maybe one out of 10 times? Or if the command to reproduce it was undocumented? Okay, so now we have AI. We can ignore the algorithm entirely and how it works, because it's not relevant. There is a large amount of data that it operates on, the weights of the model and so on. You _can_ with the correct prompts, sometimes generate a copy of a copyrighted work, to some degree of fidelity or another. I do not think it is meaningfully different from the simpler example, just with a lot of extra steps. I think, legally, it's pretty clear that it is illegally distributing copyrighted material without permission. I think calling it an "ai" just needlessly anthropomorphizes everything. It's a computer program that distributes copyrighted work without permission. It doesn't matter if it's the primary purpose or not. I think probably there needs to be some kind of new law to fix this situation, but under the current law as it exists, it seems to me to be clearly illegal.

gruez 1y ago
>Okay, so now we have AI. We can ignore the algorithm entirely and how it works, because it's not relevant. There is a large amount of data that it operates on, the weights of the model and so on. You _can_ with the correct prompts, sometimes generate a copy of a copyrighted work, to some degree of fidelity or another. Suppose we accept all of the above. What does that hold for human learning?
- empath75 1y ago
  If a human were to reproduce, from memory, a copyrighted work, that would be illegal as well, and multiple people have been sued over it, even doing it unintentionally. I'm not talking about learning. I'm talking about the complete reproduction of a copyrighted work. It doesn't matter how it happens.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >I'm not talking about learning. I'm talking about the complete reproduction of a copyrighted work. It doesn't matter how it happens. In that case I don't think there's anything controversial here? Nobody thinks that if you ask AI to reproduce something verbatim, that you should get a pass because it's AI. All the controversy in this thread seems to be around the training process and whether that breaks copyright laws.
    - empath75 1y ago
      No -- the controversy is also over whether distributing the weights and software is a copyright violation. I believe that is. The copyrighted material is present in the software in some form, even if the process for regenerating it is quite convoluted.
      - gruez 1y ago
        It's not as clear-cut as you think. The courts have held that both google thumbnails and google books are fair use, even though they're far closer to verbatim copies than an AI model.
        const_cast 1y ago
        The reason those are allowed is because they don't compete with the source material. A thumbnail of a movie is never a substitute for a movie. LLMs seek to be a for-profit replacement for a variety of paid sources. They say "hey, you can get the same thing as Service X for less money with us!" That's a problem, regardless of how you go about it. It's probably fine if I watch a movie with my friends, who cares. But distributing it over the internet for free is a different issue.
        gruez 1y ago
        >The reason those are allowed is because they don't compete with the source material. A thumbnail of a movie is never a substitute for a movie. >LLMs seek to be a for-profit replacement for a variety of paid sources. They say "hey, you can get the same thing as Service X for less money with us!" What's an LLM supposed to be a substitute for? Are people using them to generate entire books or news articles, rather than buying a book or an issue of the new york times? Same goes for movies. No one is substituting marvel movies with sora video.
Workaccount2 1y ago
The crux of the debate is a motte and bailey. AI is capable of reproducing copyright (motte) therefore training on copyright is illegal (bailey).
- kevlened 1y ago
  This critique deserves more attention. Humans are capable of reproducing copyright illegally, but we allow them to train on copyrighted material legally. Perhaps measures should be taken to prevent illegal reproduction, but if that's impossible, or too onerous, there should be utilitarian considerations. Then the crux becomes a debate over utility, which often becomes a religious debate.
- nickpsecurity 1y ago
  That's just the reproducing part. They also shared copies of scraped web sites, etc without the authors' permission. Unauthorized copying has been widely known to be illegal for a long time. They've already broken the law before the training process even begins.
halkony 1y ago
> I do not think it is meaningfully different from the simpler example, just with a lot of extra steps. Those extra steps are meaningfully different. In your description, a casual observer could compare the two JPEGs and recognize the inferior copy. However, AI has become so advanced that such detection is becoming impossible. It is clearly voodoo.
mr_toad 1y ago
The model is not compressed data, it’s the compression algorithm. The prompt is compressed data. When you feed it a prompt it produces the uncompressed result (usually with some loss). This is not an analogy by the way, it’s a mathematical equivalence. You can try and argue that a compression algorithm is some kind of copy of the training data, but that’s an untested legal theory.

gruez 1y ago

>Okay, so now we have AI. We can ignore the algorithm entirely and how it works, because it's not relevant. There is a large amount of data that it operates on, the weights of the model and so on. You _can_ with the correct prompts, sometimes generate a copy of a copyrighted work, to some degree of fidelity or another. Suppose we accept all of the above. What does that hold for human learning?

empath75 1y ago
If a human were to reproduce, from memory, a copyrighted work, that would be illegal as well, and multiple people have been sued over it, even doing it unintentionally. I'm not talking about learning. I'm talking about the complete reproduction of a copyrighted work. It doesn't matter how it happens.
- gruez 1y ago
  >I'm not talking about learning. I'm talking about the complete reproduction of a copyrighted work. It doesn't matter how it happens. In that case I don't think there's anything controversial here? Nobody thinks that if you ask AI to reproduce something verbatim, that you should get a pass because it's AI. All the controversy in this thread seems to be around the training process and whether that breaks copyright laws.
  - empath75 1y ago
    No -- the controversy is also over whether distributing the weights and software is a copyright violation. I believe that is. The copyrighted material is present in the software in some form, even if the process for regenerating it is quite convoluted.
    - gruez 1y ago
      It's not as clear-cut as you think. The courts have held that both google thumbnails and google books are fair use, even though they're far closer to verbatim copies than an AI model.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        The reason those are allowed is because they don't compete with the source material. A thumbnail of a movie is never a substitute for a movie. LLMs seek to be a for-profit replacement for a variety of paid sources. They say "hey, you can get the same thing as Service X for less money with us!" That's a problem, regardless of how you go about it. It's probably fine if I watch a movie with my friends, who cares. But distributing it over the internet for free is a different issue.
        gruez 1y ago
        >The reason those are allowed is because they don't compete with the source material. A thumbnail of a movie is never a substitute for a movie. >LLMs seek to be a for-profit replacement for a variety of paid sources. They say "hey, you can get the same thing as Service X for less money with us!" What's an LLM supposed to be a substitute for? Are people using them to generate entire books or news articles, rather than buying a book or an issue of the new york times? Same goes for movies. No one is substituting marvel movies with sora video.

Workaccount2 1y ago

The crux of the debate is a motte and bailey. AI is capable of reproducing copyright (motte) therefore training on copyright is illegal (bailey).

kevlened 1y ago
This critique deserves more attention. Humans are capable of reproducing copyright illegally, but we allow them to train on copyrighted material legally. Perhaps measures should be taken to prevent illegal reproduction, but if that's impossible, or too onerous, there should be utilitarian considerations. Then the crux becomes a debate over utility, which often becomes a religious debate.
nickpsecurity 1y ago
That's just the reproducing part. They also shared copies of scraped web sites, etc without the authors' permission. Unauthorized copying has been widely known to be illegal for a long time. They've already broken the law before the training process even begins.

halkony 1y ago

> I do not think it is meaningfully different from the simpler example, just with a lot of extra steps. Those extra steps are meaningfully different. In your description, a casual observer could compare the two JPEGs and recognize the inferior copy. However, AI has become so advanced that such detection is becoming impossible. It is clearly voodoo.

mr_toad 1y ago

The model is not compressed data, it’s the compression algorithm. The prompt is compressed data. When you feed it a prompt it produces the uncompressed result (usually with some loss). This is not an analogy by the way, it’s a mathematical equivalence. You can try and argue that a compression algorithm is some kind of copy of the training data, but that’s an untested legal theory.