4 ms·

There's a lot of problems with AI that need some carefully thought out regulation, but infringing on rights granted by IP law still isn't theft.

jasonsb 11mo ago
Agreed. Regulate AI? Sure, though I have zero faith politicians will do it competently. But more IP protection? Hard pass. I'd rather abolish patents.
- TheAceOfHearts 11mo ago
  I think one of the key issues is that most of these discussions are happening at too high of an abstraction level. Could you give some specific examples of AI regulations that you think would be good? If we actually start elevating and refining key talking points that define the direction in which we want things to go, they will actually have a chance to spread. Speaking of IP, I'd like to see some major copyright reform. Maybe bring down the duration to the original 14 years, and expand fair use. When copyright lasts so long, one of the key components for cultural evolution and iteration is severely hampered and slowed down. The rate at which culture evolves is going to continue accelerating, and we need our laws to catch up and adapt.
  - jasonsb 11mo ago
    > Could you give some specific examples of AI regulations that you think would be good? Sure, I can give you some examples: - deceiving someone into thinking they're talking to a human should be a felony (prison time, no exceptions for corporations) - ban government/law-enforcement use of AI for surveillance, predictive policing or automated sentencing - no closed-source AI allowed in any public institution (schools, hospitals, courts...) - no selling or renting paid AI products to anyone under 16 (free tools only)
    - j16sdiz 11mo ago
      > - deceiving someone into thinking they're talking to a human This is gonna be as enforceable as the CANSPAM act. (i.e. you will get a few big cases, but it's nothing compared to the overall situation) How do you proof it in court? Do we need to record all private conversations?
      - bcrosby95 11mo ago
        If you think spam is bad now imagine if trillion dollar corporations could do it. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it doesn't help.
    - __MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
      I like where you're going. How about we just ban closed source software of any kind from public institutions?
  - patrick451 11mo ago
    > Could you give some specific examples of AI regulations that you think would be good? AI companies need to be held liable for the outputs of their models. Giving bad medical advice, buggy code etc should be something they can be sued for.
    - __MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
      90% of the time I'm pro anything that causes a problem for the big corporations, but buggy code? C'mon. It's a pile of numbers. People need to take some responsibility for the extent to which they act on its outputs. Suing OpenAI for bugs in the code is like suing a palm reader for a wrong prediction. You knew what you were getting into when you initiated the relationship.
faidit 11mo ago
It's theft. But not all IP theft, or theft in general, is morally equivalent. A poor person stealing a loaf of bread or pirating a movie they couldn't afford is just. A corrupt elite stealing poor farmers' food or stealing content from small struggling creators is not.
- jasonsb 11mo ago
  Ask yourself: who owns the IP you're defending? It's not struggling artists, it's corporations and billionaires. Stricter IP laws won't slow down closed-source models with armies of lawyers. They'll just kill open-source alternatives.
  - faidit 11mo ago
    I never advocated "stricter IP laws". I would however point out the contradiction between current IP laws being enforced against kids using BitTorrent while unenforced against billionaires and their AI ventures, despite them committing IP theft on a far grander scale.
  - Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
    Under copyright laws, if HN's T's & C's didn't override it, anything I write and have written on HN is my IP. And the AI data hoarders used it to train their stuff.
    - jasonsb 11mo ago
      Let's meet in the middle: only allow AI data hoarders to train their stuff on your content if the model is open source. I can stand behind that.
      - philipwhiuk 11mo ago
        Uh no. a) The model and the data b) Why are we meeting in the middle?
    - SpicyLemonZest 11mo ago
terminalshort 11mo ago
And it doesn't even infringe on IP rights.

jasonsb 11mo ago

Agreed. Regulate AI? Sure, though I have zero faith politicians will do it competently. But more IP protection? Hard pass. I'd rather abolish patents.

TheAceOfHearts 11mo ago
I think one of the key issues is that most of these discussions are happening at too high of an abstraction level. Could you give some specific examples of AI regulations that you think would be good? If we actually start elevating and refining key talking points that define the direction in which we want things to go, they will actually have a chance to spread. Speaking of IP, I'd like to see some major copyright reform. Maybe bring down the duration to the original 14 years, and expand fair use. When copyright lasts so long, one of the key components for cultural evolution and iteration is severely hampered and slowed down. The rate at which culture evolves is going to continue accelerating, and we need our laws to catch up and adapt.
- jasonsb 11mo ago
  > Could you give some specific examples of AI regulations that you think would be good? Sure, I can give you some examples: - deceiving someone into thinking they're talking to a human should be a felony (prison time, no exceptions for corporations) - ban government/law-enforcement use of AI for surveillance, predictive policing or automated sentencing - no closed-source AI allowed in any public institution (schools, hospitals, courts...) - no selling or renting paid AI products to anyone under 16 (free tools only)
  - j16sdiz 11mo ago
    > - deceiving someone into thinking they're talking to a human This is gonna be as enforceable as the CANSPAM act. (i.e. you will get a few big cases, but it's nothing compared to the overall situation) How do you proof it in court? Do we need to record all private conversations?
    - bcrosby95 11mo ago
      If you think spam is bad now imagine if trillion dollar corporations could do it. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it doesn't help.
  - __MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
    I like where you're going. How about we just ban closed source software of any kind from public institutions?
- patrick451 11mo ago
  > Could you give some specific examples of AI regulations that you think would be good? AI companies need to be held liable for the outputs of their models. Giving bad medical advice, buggy code etc should be something they can be sued for.
  - __MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
    90% of the time I'm pro anything that causes a problem for the big corporations, but buggy code? C'mon. It's a pile of numbers. People need to take some responsibility for the extent to which they act on its outputs. Suing OpenAI for bugs in the code is like suing a palm reader for a wrong prediction. You knew what you were getting into when you initiated the relationship.

faidit 11mo ago

It's theft. But not all IP theft, or theft in general, is morally equivalent. A poor person stealing a loaf of bread or pirating a movie they couldn't afford is just. A corrupt elite stealing poor farmers' food or stealing content from small struggling creators is not.

jasonsb 11mo ago
Ask yourself: who owns the IP you're defending? It's not struggling artists, it's corporations and billionaires. Stricter IP laws won't slow down closed-source models with armies of lawyers. They'll just kill open-source alternatives.
- faidit 11mo ago
  I never advocated "stricter IP laws". I would however point out the contradiction between current IP laws being enforced against kids using BitTorrent while unenforced against billionaires and their AI ventures, despite them committing IP theft on a far grander scale.
- Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
  Under copyright laws, if HN's T's & C's didn't override it, anything I write and have written on HN is my IP. And the AI data hoarders used it to train their stuff.
  - jasonsb 11mo ago
    Let's meet in the middle: only allow AI data hoarders to train their stuff on your content if the model is open source. I can stand behind that.
    - philipwhiuk 11mo ago
      Uh no. a) The model and the data b) Why are we meeting in the middle?
  - SpicyLemonZest 11mo ago

terminalshort 11mo ago

And it doesn't even infringe on IP rights.