4 ms·

I wonder why people still believe in intellectual property, it's a concept that has long since lived past its usefulness, especially technologically.

bitwize 8mo ago
Because IP democratizes returns on the creative process.
- satvikpendem 8mo ago
  Maybe it used to but with companies like Disney lengthening copyright times way beyond the original intention, or corporations patenting absurd things, it seems to be more of a way to entrench power than any sort of democratization. I'm glad generative AI seem to be bypassing all this and actually democratizing returns on the creative process, by flagrantly violating the concept of IP.
  - kazinator 8mo ago
    In the case of BSD-like licenses, IP is applied in a way that discourages plagiarism, while giving all the practical freedoms to the users, including making proprietary products. In the case of copyleft licenses like GPL, IP is applied in a way to ensure that users have the code. These things are taken away when the code is laundered through AI.
  - bitwize 8mo ago
    Again, start talking to people outside the field of programming and ask them how they like it when their labor of passion is "democratized" by AI turning it into unattributable slurry.
    - satvikpendem 8mo ago
      I don't really care how they like it because it's not up to them how I use the tools I want to use. It's literally the same argument photographers faced 100 years ago and in another 100 years I guarantee no one will be talking about AI in the terms you are today.
      - bitwize 8mo ago
        No one started photographing paintings and declaring them free to use. If they did the lawsuits would leave a huge impact crater. Photography started displacing painting as a form of portraiture, but displacing a technique is not the same thing as appropriating the work itself.
        satvikpendem 8mo ago
        I don't see any issues with "appropriating" a work especially if it's not a one to one copy which AI does not produce (without out some pretzel level prompting), especially with regards to visual media (what even is appropriation in this case? Your example of photographers taking images of paintings is not the same as how AI training occurs). In other words, training is and should be free and fair use.
        kazinator 8mo ago
        > training is and should be free and fair use. Of course the AI robber barons would that it be so, but it must not be and should not be. Training gobbles up works in their entirety, verbatim. Fair use of the verbatim words of a written work requires the excerpt to be small. Fair use also usually requires attribution, which is missing. Transformative works like parodies are also fair use, but the LLM isn't transformative int his sense; it's strawman transformative like a meat grinder. Parodies use the structure of something existing, as a vehicle for original thought which is why they are protected from copyright claims by the authors of whatever is pariodied.
        satvikpendem 8mo ago
        Again, IP is an outdated concept in this day and age. In all honestly there shouldn't even be the notion of fair use, any transformative work should be allowed. There is nothing about LLM training that isn't transformative, just as, well, grinding meat from a steak into stuffed sausages transforms it. I'm not even talking about big corporations with proprietary models, in fact I oppose their not being open source or weight, I want more open models not fewer as that at least democratizes the value of LLMs. The worst case is having copyright hawks allowing regulatory capture by big AI corps by pushing regulations about licensing content, which, of course, no open model company will be able to afford in the future. I find that infinitely worse than having more lax copyright laws, where only a few corporations can tell you want to think via usage of their LLMs. Lastly, no one can tell me from first principles why LLM training is bad, on the copyright side, other than, it just is, because copyright law dictates it so. Perhaps copyright law is what needs to be abolished, not LLMs.
kazinator 8mo ago
A free license, like the BSD, if followed, ensures that the unpaid creator of a free work is at least credited. Everyone using that work at the source code level sees the copyright notice with that author's name. The author has already given everyone the freedom to do anything with the code, except for plagiarism. AI is taking away the last thing from peoiple who have shared everything else.
- satvikpendem 8mo ago
  Why is plagiarism an issue? In school it's an issue due to the effect that students won't learn well if they just copy everything, but outside of school and especially for personal use, why should I care if I "plagiarize" or not (and arguably AI doesn't even plagiarize as it's not a 1 to 1 copy paste of the code when making a new project)? The concept of plagiarism is as much a fiction as "intellectual" property. The only sort of property that actually exists is real and tangible.
  - Lahst100 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - satvikpendem 8mo ago
      Ah yes, "morons." You don't need to make a new account just to reply to a comment you dislike and know you will soon get flagged anyway.
  - kazinator 8mo ago
    > Why is plagiarism an issue? For starters, because of the western values of giving credit. We have diseases named after people, never mind inventions and ideas. Plagiarism is kick-out-of-school grade academic misconduct, whereby you are pretending that someone's work (and the ability it implies) is your own. > The only sort of property that actually exists is real and tangible. Remember, I'm talking about works that are free to redistribute, use and even modify. Or in other cases, that the users to whom a compiled work is distributed have access to the buildable source code. The authors put their names on it, and terms which says that their notices are to be preserved when copies are made. This isn't good enough for the Altmans and Amodeis of the world. > it's an issue due to the effect that students won't learn well if they just copy everything ... and fraudulently obtain professional licensing, and use that to cause harm: medical malpractice, unsafe engineering. It is fraud.

bitwize 8mo ago

Because IP democratizes returns on the creative process.

satvikpendem 8mo ago
Maybe it used to but with companies like Disney lengthening copyright times way beyond the original intention, or corporations patenting absurd things, it seems to be more of a way to entrench power than any sort of democratization. I'm glad generative AI seem to be bypassing all this and actually democratizing returns on the creative process, by flagrantly violating the concept of IP.
- kazinator 8mo ago
  In the case of BSD-like licenses, IP is applied in a way that discourages plagiarism, while giving all the practical freedoms to the users, including making proprietary products. In the case of copyleft licenses like GPL, IP is applied in a way to ensure that users have the code. These things are taken away when the code is laundered through AI.
- bitwize 8mo ago
  Again, start talking to people outside the field of programming and ask them how they like it when their labor of passion is "democratized" by AI turning it into unattributable slurry.
  - satvikpendem 8mo ago
    I don't really care how they like it because it's not up to them how I use the tools I want to use. It's literally the same argument photographers faced 100 years ago and in another 100 years I guarantee no one will be talking about AI in the terms you are today.
    - bitwize 8mo ago
      No one started photographing paintings and declaring them free to use. If they did the lawsuits would leave a huge impact crater. Photography started displacing painting as a form of portraiture, but displacing a technique is not the same thing as appropriating the work itself.
      - satvikpendem 8mo ago
        I don't see any issues with "appropriating" a work especially if it's not a one to one copy which AI does not produce (without out some pretzel level prompting), especially with regards to visual media (what even is appropriation in this case? Your example of photographers taking images of paintings is not the same as how AI training occurs). In other words, training is and should be free and fair use.
        kazinator 8mo ago
        > training is and should be free and fair use. Of course the AI robber barons would that it be so, but it must not be and should not be. Training gobbles up works in their entirety, verbatim. Fair use of the verbatim words of a written work requires the excerpt to be small. Fair use also usually requires attribution, which is missing. Transformative works like parodies are also fair use, but the LLM isn't transformative int his sense; it's strawman transformative like a meat grinder. Parodies use the structure of something existing, as a vehicle for original thought which is why they are protected from copyright claims by the authors of whatever is pariodied.
        satvikpendem 8mo ago
        Again, IP is an outdated concept in this day and age. In all honestly there shouldn't even be the notion of fair use, any transformative work should be allowed. There is nothing about LLM training that isn't transformative, just as, well, grinding meat from a steak into stuffed sausages transforms it. I'm not even talking about big corporations with proprietary models, in fact I oppose their not being open source or weight, I want more open models not fewer as that at least democratizes the value of LLMs. The worst case is having copyright hawks allowing regulatory capture by big AI corps by pushing regulations about licensing content, which, of course, no open model company will be able to afford in the future. I find that infinitely worse than having more lax copyright laws, where only a few corporations can tell you want to think via usage of their LLMs. Lastly, no one can tell me from first principles why LLM training is bad, on the copyright side, other than, it just is, because copyright law dictates it so. Perhaps copyright law is what needs to be abolished, not LLMs.

kazinator 8mo ago

A free license, like the BSD, if followed, ensures that the unpaid creator of a free work is at least credited. Everyone using that work at the source code level sees the copyright notice with that author's name. The author has already given everyone the freedom to do anything with the code, except for plagiarism. AI is taking away the last thing from peoiple who have shared everything else.

satvikpendem 8mo ago
Why is plagiarism an issue? In school it's an issue due to the effect that students won't learn well if they just copy everything, but outside of school and especially for personal use, why should I care if I "plagiarize" or not (and arguably AI doesn't even plagiarize as it's not a 1 to 1 copy paste of the code when making a new project)? The concept of plagiarism is as much a fiction as "intellectual" property. The only sort of property that actually exists is real and tangible.
- Lahst100 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - satvikpendem 8mo ago
    Ah yes, "morons." You don't need to make a new account just to reply to a comment you dislike and know you will soon get flagged anyway.
- kazinator 8mo ago
  > Why is plagiarism an issue? For starters, because of the western values of giving credit. We have diseases named after people, never mind inventions and ideas. Plagiarism is kick-out-of-school grade academic misconduct, whereby you are pretending that someone's work (and the ability it implies) is your own. > The only sort of property that actually exists is real and tangible. Remember, I'm talking about works that are free to redistribute, use and even modify. Or in other cases, that the users to whom a compiled work is distributed have access to the buildable source code. The authors put their names on it, and terms which says that their notices are to be preserved when copies are made. This isn't good enough for the Altmans and Amodeis of the world. > it's an issue due to the effect that students won't learn well if they just copy everything ... and fraudulently obtain professional licensing, and use that to cause harm: medical malpractice, unsafe engineering. It is fraud.