5 ms·

And it's a question of do we accept breaking law for the possibility to have the greatest technological advancement of the 21st century. In my opinion, legal sy

by admaiora 11mo ago

And it's a question of do we accept breaking law for the possibility to have the greatest technological advancement of the 21st century. In my opinion, legal system has become a blocker for a lot of innovation, not only in AI but elsewhere as well.

saghm 11mo ago
Without agreeing or disagreeing with your view, I feel like the the issue the issue with that paradigm is inconsistency. If an individual "pirates", they get fines and possible jail time, but if a large enough company does it, they get rewarded by stockholders and at most a slap on the wrist by regulators. If as a society we've decided that the restrictions aren't beneficial, they should be lifted for everyone, not just ignored when convenient for large corporations. As it stands right now, the punishments are scaled inversely to the amount of damage that the one breaking the law actually is capable of doing.
rpdillon 11mo ago
This is a point that I don't see discussed enough. I think anthropic decided to purchase books in bulk, tear them apart to scan them, and then destroy those copies. And that's the only source of copyrighted material I've ever heard of that is actually legal to use for training LLMs. Most LLMs were trained on vast troves of pirated copyrighted material. Folks point this out, but they don't ever talk about what the alternative was. The content industries, like music, movies, and books, have done nothing to research or make their works available for analysis and innovation, and have in fact fought industries that seek to do so tooth and nail. Further, they use the narrative that people that pirate works are stealing from the artists, where the vast majority of money that a customer pays for a piece of copyrighted content goes to the publishing industry. This is essentially the definition of rent seeking. Those industries essentially tried to stop innovation entirely, and they tried to use the law to do that (and still do). So, other companies innovated over the copyright holder's objections, and now we have to sort it out in the courts.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 11mo ago
  I don’t follow. You’re punishing the publishing industry by punishing authors?
  - rpdillon 11mo ago
    I'm saying that LLMs are worthwhile useful tools, and that I'm glad that we built them, and that the publishing industry, which holds the copyright on the material that we would use to train the LLMs, have had no hand in developing them, have done no research, and have actively tried to fight the process at every turn. I have no sympathy for them. The authors have been abused by the publishing industry for many decades. I think they're just caught in the middle, because they were never going to get a payday, whether from AI or selling books. I think the percentage of authors that are commercially successful is sub 1%.
    - cycomanic 11mo ago
      So the argument is because LLMs are useful and the publishing industry was not involved in their creation we should disregard the property rights of the publishing industry and allow using their work without a license? By that same argument (if something useful is being build, we ignore existing rights) shouldn't not also just take the code/models from OpenAI etc. and just publish them somewhere? Why not also their datacenters?
      - rpdillon 11mo ago
        It's not really an argument. It's an observation that they sat on their hands while other industries out-innovated them. They were complacent and now they're paying the price. We have laws and rules, but those are intended to work for society. When they fail to do so, society routes around them. Copyright in particular has been getting steadily weaker in practice since the advent of the Internet, because the mechanisms it uses to extract value are increasingly impractical since they are rooted in the idea of printed media. Copyright is fundamentally broken for the modern world, and this is just a symptom of that.
Q6T46nT668w6i3m 11mo ago
You’re willing to eliminate the entire concept of intellectual property for a possibility something might be a technological advancement? If creators are the reason you believe this advancement can be achieved, are you willing to provide them the majority of the profits?
- thedevilslawyer 11mo ago
  That's an absolutely good tradeoff. There's no longer any need for copyright. Patents should go next. Only trademarks can stay.
  - delaminator 11mo ago
    > There's no longer any need for copyright So you assign zero value to the process of creation? Zero value to the process of production? So people who write and produce books, shows and films should all do what? Give up their craft?
    - thedevilslawyer 11mo ago
      Creation isn't special, or constrained in number. Process of creation itself is gratifying and valuable to those who will pursue it. No reason to additionally reward it. Lamp lighters had to give up their craft I suppose and made way to a better world.
      - delaminator 11mo ago
        > Creation isn't special, or constrained in number. > Process of creation itself is gratifying and valuable to those who will pursue it. spoken like someone who has never made anything in the real world Holding a boom mic in the air is not gratifying and valuable to anyone who has to do it. The fruits of your labour are not your labour.
  - _DeadFred_ 11mo ago
    Bullshit. Read up and understand the history of these things and their benefits to society. There is a reason they were created in the first place. Over a very long time. With lots of thoughts into the tradeoff/benefits to society. That Disney fucked with it does not make the original tradeoff not a benefit to society.
hulitu 11mo ago
> And it's a question of do we accept breaking law for the possibility to have the greatest technological advancement of the 21st century You mean like, murder ?

saghm 11mo ago

Without agreeing or disagreeing with your view, I feel like the the issue the issue with that paradigm is inconsistency. If an individual "pirates", they get fines and possible jail time, but if a large enough company does it, they get rewarded by stockholders and at most a slap on the wrist by regulators. If as a society we've decided that the restrictions aren't beneficial, they should be lifted for everyone, not just ignored when convenient for large corporations. As it stands right now, the punishments are scaled inversely to the amount of damage that the one breaking the law actually is capable of doing.

rpdillon 11mo ago

This is a point that I don't see discussed enough. I think anthropic decided to purchase books in bulk, tear them apart to scan them, and then destroy those copies. And that's the only source of copyrighted material I've ever heard of that is actually legal to use for training LLMs. Most LLMs were trained on vast troves of pirated copyrighted material. Folks point this out, but they don't ever talk about what the alternative was. The content industries, like music, movies, and books, have done nothing to research or make their works available for analysis and innovation, and have in fact fought industries that seek to do so tooth and nail. Further, they use the narrative that people that pirate works are stealing from the artists, where the vast majority of money that a customer pays for a piece of copyrighted content goes to the publishing industry. This is essentially the definition of rent seeking. Those industries essentially tried to stop innovation entirely, and they tried to use the law to do that (and still do). So, other companies innovated over the copyright holder's objections, and now we have to sort it out in the courts.

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 11mo ago
I don’t follow. You’re punishing the publishing industry by punishing authors?
- rpdillon 11mo ago
  I'm saying that LLMs are worthwhile useful tools, and that I'm glad that we built them, and that the publishing industry, which holds the copyright on the material that we would use to train the LLMs, have had no hand in developing them, have done no research, and have actively tried to fight the process at every turn. I have no sympathy for them. The authors have been abused by the publishing industry for many decades. I think they're just caught in the middle, because they were never going to get a payday, whether from AI or selling books. I think the percentage of authors that are commercially successful is sub 1%.
  - cycomanic 11mo ago
    So the argument is because LLMs are useful and the publishing industry was not involved in their creation we should disregard the property rights of the publishing industry and allow using their work without a license? By that same argument (if something useful is being build, we ignore existing rights) shouldn't not also just take the code/models from OpenAI etc. and just publish them somewhere? Why not also their datacenters?
    - rpdillon 11mo ago
      It's not really an argument. It's an observation that they sat on their hands while other industries out-innovated them. They were complacent and now they're paying the price. We have laws and rules, but those are intended to work for society. When they fail to do so, society routes around them. Copyright in particular has been getting steadily weaker in practice since the advent of the Internet, because the mechanisms it uses to extract value are increasingly impractical since they are rooted in the idea of printed media. Copyright is fundamentally broken for the modern world, and this is just a symptom of that.

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 11mo ago

You’re willing to eliminate the entire concept of intellectual property for a possibility something might be a technological advancement? If creators are the reason you believe this advancement can be achieved, are you willing to provide them the majority of the profits?

thedevilslawyer 11mo ago
That's an absolutely good tradeoff. There's no longer any need for copyright. Patents should go next. Only trademarks can stay.
- delaminator 11mo ago
  > There's no longer any need for copyright So you assign zero value to the process of creation? Zero value to the process of production? So people who write and produce books, shows and films should all do what? Give up their craft?
  - thedevilslawyer 11mo ago
    Creation isn't special, or constrained in number. Process of creation itself is gratifying and valuable to those who will pursue it. No reason to additionally reward it. Lamp lighters had to give up their craft I suppose and made way to a better world.
    - delaminator 11mo ago
      > Creation isn't special, or constrained in number. > Process of creation itself is gratifying and valuable to those who will pursue it. spoken like someone who has never made anything in the real world Holding a boom mic in the air is not gratifying and valuable to anyone who has to do it. The fruits of your labour are not your labour.
- _DeadFred_ 11mo ago
  Bullshit. Read up and understand the history of these things and their benefits to society. There is a reason they were created in the first place. Over a very long time. With lots of thoughts into the tradeoff/benefits to society. That Disney fucked with it does not make the original tradeoff not a benefit to society.

hulitu 11mo ago

> And it's a question of do we accept breaking law for the possibility to have the greatest technological advancement of the 21st century You mean like, murder ?