4 ms·

Bill to Restrict AI Companies Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Works for Training

31 points by OutOfHere 1y ago

OutOfHere 1y ago
This is the AI killer bill that would give a hard victory to China.
- pyman 1y ago
  This narrative is nonsense. You are not Oppenheimer, and China is not building an AI bomb.
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    I never said China is doing something evil. The point is that American AI will be left in the dust without copyrighted training data to train over, whereas China will have no such restriction and so the Chinese AI will win.
    - pyman 1y ago
      China has built its tech empire on years of IP theft and disregard for creator rights, the answer isn't to copy that behaviour, it's to double down on fairness, transparency, and proper compensation. Don't you think? If everyone else is playing by the rules except China, it's easier to hold them accountable.
      - OutOfHere 1y ago
        No, I don't think so. China is a sovereign country and there is no holding it accountable. Moreover, the entire world will then be using Chinese AI.
        pyman 1y ago
        There are two paths: 1) do whatever it takes, like China, even if it's illegal, to win the AI race. Or 2) governments that play by the rules can introduce regulations and the rest of the world can ban the use of Chinese AI.
        OutOfHere 1y ago
        No, it's not illegal in China. It is a sovereign country that doesn't have to respect your silly laws or your silly self-suiting belief system. It is playing by its own rules. Regarding suggesting a ban of Chinese AI, I don't know which world you're living in, but it's not the real world.
      - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        The history of industry and technology of the world is just one of IP theft. Long term IP diffuses, you can’t really stop it with anything short of impassable boundaries. If China trains better models than the rest of the world by using all the data it can acquire, it will simply win. You can’t throw China in jail for not playing by same rules as other countries, you can’t economically isolate it longer than a few years, and even then 70-80% of the world won’t care about embargoes even in those few years. The best solutions will diffuse into the world eventually.
        pyman 1y ago
        What does it mean to win the AI race?
        seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        It means you have the best toys (products, tech, services) that AI enables. And you get to sell them to the rest of the world vs. your competitors (who have to catch up).
        pyman 1y ago
        Winning the AI race gives China or the US a commercial advantage, but only if the rest of the world allows it. That advantage can be regulated. For example, in America and Europe people don't use WeChat, and in China they don't use ChatGPT. If you're talking about military power, where AI gives an edge in cyber security and warfare, then China has already won. They are ahead in tech, AI and quantum computing. The moment you step foot in China you realise they're easily ten years ahead. And that didn't happen overnight. It's the result of long term investment in infrastructure, education, and technology. The arches of power are shifting, and the US can't stop it. Companies like OpenAI are built on the promise of developing a secret weapon called AGI that will rebuild the US economy, solve social problems, and give the US a technological edge to control the rest of the world. But that's never going to happen. It's a nice story they tell politicians and regulators to get away with theft and also get investors like Microsoft to give them more infra and money. Question: Did OpenAI made its API publicly available to generate revenue, or share responsibility and distribute the ethical risk with developers, startups, and enterprise customers, hoping that widespread use would eventually influence legal systems over time? Let's be honest, the US government and defence sector has massive budgets for AI, and OpenAI could have taken that route, just like SpaceX did. Especially after claiming they're in a tech war with China. But they didn't, which feels contradictory and raises some red flags.
      - OutOfHere 1y ago
        Stop to think for a second that maybe the concept of "creator rights" is what's nonsense, that everything builds upon everything that came before it. Some people think that "creator rights" is exactly the opposite of fairness. Physics doesn't care who invented or created something. If you want compensation, sell the world something that someone actually wants to pay for.
Frieren 1y ago
> and liable legally—when they breach consumer privacy, collecting, monetizing or sharing personal information without express consent This part is even more important. Personal data is being used to train models. All is very dystopian with a cyber punk flavor.
- pyman 1y ago
  We failed to stop Microsoft and Facebook from using our private data and WhatsApp messages to train their algorithms. Now we need to learn from the mess they created and stop Microsoft and OpenAI from using our conversations with AI to train their models, build LLM versions of ourselves, and sell them to banks, recruiters, or anyone willing to pay good money to get inside our minds.
pyman 1y ago
Imagine if we stole all the documents stored on Google's private servers and all their proprietary code, research, and everything they've built, and used it to create a new company called Poogle that competes directly with them. And just like that, after 24hs of stealing all their IP, we launch: - Poogle Maps - Poogle Search - Poogle Docs - Poogle AI - Poogle Phone - Poogle Browser And here's the funny part: we claim the theft of their data is "fair use" because we changed the name of the company, and rewrote their code in another language. Doesn't sound right, does it? So why are Microsoft (OpenAI, Anthropic) and Google financing the biggest act of IP theft in the history of the internet and telling people and businesses that stealing their private data and content to build competing products is somehow "fair use"? Just like accountants log every single transaction, companies should log every book, article, photo, or video used to train their models, and compensate the copyright holders every time that content is used to generate something new. The whole "our machines are black boxes, they’re so intelligent we don't even know what they're doing" excuse doesn't cut it anymore. Stop with the nonsense. It's software, not voodoo.
- gewbie 1y ago
  [dead]
- pyman 1y ago
  Also, did OpenAI made its API publicly available to generate revenue, or share responsibility and distribute the ethical risk with developers, startups, and enterprise customers, hoping that widespread use would eventually influence legal systems over time? Let's be honest, the US government and defence sector has massive budgets for AI, and OpenAI could have taken that route, just like SpaceX did. Especially after claiming they're in a tech war with China. But they didn't, which feels contradictory and raises some red flags.
  - pyman 1y ago
    I bet the OpenAI employees are struggling to answer this one. Double standards?
- edgineer 1y ago
CaptainFever 1y ago
This is an expansion of copyright law, which, just as a reminder, is already pretty insane with its 100 year durations and all.
- ronsor 1y ago
  People will readily sink the boat the AI companies are on without realizing they're on the same boat too. If copyright were significantly shorter, then I could see the case for adding more restrictions.
nunez 1y ago
Finally glad to see big name politicians rally around this. That this is a bipartisan effort was extremely surprising to see.
- nullc 1y ago
  This would basically grant facebook and google a monopoly on AI -- as they'll put training on your material as part of their TOS and then be the only players with enough market power to get adequate amounts of training material.
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    It would grant China an even bigger victory since China's models do not have to abide by any US copyrights.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - pyman 1y ago
      Google and Microsoft are using proxy companies to steal all the copyrighted content ever produced, and you're blaming China, or suggesting it'd be worse if they did it? Right.
      - OutOfHere 1y ago
        I never blamed China. Without copyrighted material to train over, China will be the AI winner, leaving American AI in the dust due to an insufficiency of training data.
    - nullc 1y ago
      Indeed, and perhaps not just China. The US started off not acknowledging foreign copyrights for a long time-- until it had a large enough base of material it wanted reciprocally protected. If not adopting these rules grants you the ability to produce SOTA AI's while most of the US can't we can expect it to be widespread. This actually gives me a little hope-- the US cutting it's own throat this way vs other countries would be better than granting google and facebook a monopoly.

31 points by OutOfHere 1y ago

OutOfHere 1y ago

This is the AI killer bill that would give a hard victory to China.

pyman 1y ago
This narrative is nonsense. You are not Oppenheimer, and China is not building an AI bomb.
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  I never said China is doing something evil. The point is that American AI will be left in the dust without copyrighted training data to train over, whereas China will have no such restriction and so the Chinese AI will win.
  - pyman 1y ago
    China has built its tech empire on years of IP theft and disregard for creator rights, the answer isn't to copy that behaviour, it's to double down on fairness, transparency, and proper compensation. Don't you think? If everyone else is playing by the rules except China, it's easier to hold them accountable.
    - OutOfHere 1y ago
      No, I don't think so. China is a sovereign country and there is no holding it accountable. Moreover, the entire world will then be using Chinese AI.
      - pyman 1y ago
        There are two paths: 1) do whatever it takes, like China, even if it's illegal, to win the AI race. Or 2) governments that play by the rules can introduce regulations and the rest of the world can ban the use of Chinese AI.
        OutOfHere 1y ago
        No, it's not illegal in China. It is a sovereign country that doesn't have to respect your silly laws or your silly self-suiting belief system. It is playing by its own rules. Regarding suggesting a ban of Chinese AI, I don't know which world you're living in, but it's not the real world.
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      The history of industry and technology of the world is just one of IP theft. Long term IP diffuses, you can’t really stop it with anything short of impassable boundaries. If China trains better models than the rest of the world by using all the data it can acquire, it will simply win. You can’t throw China in jail for not playing by same rules as other countries, you can’t economically isolate it longer than a few years, and even then 70-80% of the world won’t care about embargoes even in those few years. The best solutions will diffuse into the world eventually.
      - pyman 1y ago
        What does it mean to win the AI race?
        seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        It means you have the best toys (products, tech, services) that AI enables. And you get to sell them to the rest of the world vs. your competitors (who have to catch up).
        pyman 1y ago
        Winning the AI race gives China or the US a commercial advantage, but only if the rest of the world allows it. That advantage can be regulated. For example, in America and Europe people don't use WeChat, and in China they don't use ChatGPT. If you're talking about military power, where AI gives an edge in cyber security and warfare, then China has already won. They are ahead in tech, AI and quantum computing. The moment you step foot in China you realise they're easily ten years ahead. And that didn't happen overnight. It's the result of long term investment in infrastructure, education, and technology. The arches of power are shifting, and the US can't stop it. Companies like OpenAI are built on the promise of developing a secret weapon called AGI that will rebuild the US economy, solve social problems, and give the US a technological edge to control the rest of the world. But that's never going to happen. It's a nice story they tell politicians and regulators to get away with theft and also get investors like Microsoft to give them more infra and money. Question: Did OpenAI made its API publicly available to generate revenue, or share responsibility and distribute the ethical risk with developers, startups, and enterprise customers, hoping that widespread use would eventually influence legal systems over time? Let's be honest, the US government and defence sector has massive budgets for AI, and OpenAI could have taken that route, just like SpaceX did. Especially after claiming they're in a tech war with China. But they didn't, which feels contradictory and raises some red flags.
    - OutOfHere 1y ago
      Stop to think for a second that maybe the concept of "creator rights" is what's nonsense, that everything builds upon everything that came before it. Some people think that "creator rights" is exactly the opposite of fairness. Physics doesn't care who invented or created something. If you want compensation, sell the world something that someone actually wants to pay for.

Frieren 1y ago

> and liable legally—when they breach consumer privacy, collecting, monetizing or sharing personal information without express consent This part is even more important. Personal data is being used to train models. All is very dystopian with a cyber punk flavor.

pyman 1y ago
We failed to stop Microsoft and Facebook from using our private data and WhatsApp messages to train their algorithms. Now we need to learn from the mess they created and stop Microsoft and OpenAI from using our conversations with AI to train their models, build LLM versions of ourselves, and sell them to banks, recruiters, or anyone willing to pay good money to get inside our minds.

pyman 1y ago

Imagine if we stole all the documents stored on Google's private servers and all their proprietary code, research, and everything they've built, and used it to create a new company called Poogle that competes directly with them. And just like that, after 24hs of stealing all their IP, we launch: - Poogle Maps - Poogle Search - Poogle Docs - Poogle AI - Poogle Phone - Poogle Browser And here's the funny part: we claim the theft of their data is "fair use" because we changed the name of the company, and rewrote their code in another language. Doesn't sound right, does it? So why are Microsoft (OpenAI, Anthropic) and Google financing the biggest act of IP theft in the history of the internet and telling people and businesses that stealing their private data and content to build competing products is somehow "fair use"? Just like accountants log every single transaction, companies should log every book, article, photo, or video used to train their models, and compensate the copyright holders every time that content is used to generate something new. The whole "our machines are black boxes, they’re so intelligent we don't even know what they're doing" excuse doesn't cut it anymore. Stop with the nonsense. It's software, not voodoo.

gewbie 1y ago
[dead]
pyman 1y ago
Also, did OpenAI made its API publicly available to generate revenue, or share responsibility and distribute the ethical risk with developers, startups, and enterprise customers, hoping that widespread use would eventually influence legal systems over time? Let's be honest, the US government and defence sector has massive budgets for AI, and OpenAI could have taken that route, just like SpaceX did. Especially after claiming they're in a tech war with China. But they didn't, which feels contradictory and raises some red flags.
- pyman 1y ago
  I bet the OpenAI employees are struggling to answer this one. Double standards?
edgineer 1y ago

CaptainFever 1y ago

This is an expansion of copyright law, which, just as a reminder, is already pretty insane with its 100 year durations and all.

ronsor 1y ago
People will readily sink the boat the AI companies are on without realizing they're on the same boat too. If copyright were significantly shorter, then I could see the case for adding more restrictions.

nunez 1y ago

Finally glad to see big name politicians rally around this. That this is a bipartisan effort was extremely surprising to see.

nullc 1y ago
This would basically grant facebook and google a monopoly on AI -- as they'll put training on your material as part of their TOS and then be the only players with enough market power to get adequate amounts of training material.
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  It would grant China an even bigger victory since China's models do not have to abide by any US copyrights.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - pyman 1y ago
    Google and Microsoft are using proxy companies to steal all the copyrighted content ever produced, and you're blaming China, or suggesting it'd be worse if they did it? Right.
    - OutOfHere 1y ago
      I never blamed China. Without copyrighted material to train over, China will be the AI winner, leaving American AI in the dust due to an insufficiency of training data.
  - nullc 1y ago
    Indeed, and perhaps not just China. The US started off not acknowledging foreign copyrights for a long time-- until it had a large enough base of material it wanted reciprocally protected. If not adopting these rules grants you the ability to produce SOTA AI's while most of the US can't we can expect it to be widespread. This actually gives me a little hope-- the US cutting it's own throat this way vs other countries would be better than granting google and facebook a monopoly.