This is a lobby organisation using only the pieces and bits they like to push their own agenda.
"sketchy russian website", how about using some more clear description like: A library for sharing books and articles that should be partly public domain because they were paid for by the public. Only some of the material is copyrighted by authors. However, some of their work is so old that it is not reprinted anyway.
But of course such an explanation would not click.
I also don't see a problem with statements about making people jobless. Imagine if every robotic or automation company advertised like this: Yeah, you'll buy tons of expensive robots and still rely on expensive labor from real people without any efficiency gains.
Robot companies don't appropriate the work of other people. That's the fundamental point of contention here: that LLMs cannot be trained without the human labor of the authors; yet, they directly compete with them in the marketplace. I haven't yet seen an LLM trained only on public domain material, but its capabilities are likely to be very limited.
That's also the key political compromise underlying the notion of copyright: that someone is entitled to the fruits of their labor, and should not be economically hindered by a product that could not have existed without said work. That's the basis on which the "derivative work" copyright doctrine emerged: a work sufficiently original that it does not displace the work on which it is based. LLMs fail to abide by that political compromise by a country mile.
> Robot companies don't appropriate the work of other people.
I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that every single robot is built on the labor, creative and technical knowledge and advancements of the workers that robot replaced. Robots after all, much more than LLMs, are incapable of creative output. Some human (probably a laborer) figured out how to stamp the steel in just the right ways, or how to cut the patterns in just the right ways so that the product could be manufactured. Then a robot company came in and stole that creative output, or more likely was sold that creative output by the company owners who stole/bought (depending on your point of view about labor and the ownership of labor's creative outputs in the current US legal system) to produce a robot that then displaced the laborer who created the process in the first place.
Skyy93 · · focus · HN ↗
"sketchy russian website", how about using some more clear description like: A library for sharing books and articles that should be partly public domain because they were paid for by the public. Only some of the material is copyrighted by authors. However, some of their work is so old that it is not reprinted anyway.
But of course such an explanation would not click.
I also don't see a problem with statements about making people jobless. Imagine if every robotic or automation company advertised like this: Yeah, you'll buy tons of expensive robots and still rely on expensive labor from real people without any efficiency gains.
cornholio · · focus · HN ↗
That's also the key political compromise underlying the notion of copyright: that someone is entitled to the fruits of their labor, and should not be economically hindered by a product that could not have existed without said work. That's the basis on which the "derivative work" copyright doctrine emerged: a work sufficiently original that it does not displace the work on which it is based. LLMs fail to abide by that political compromise by a country mile.
parineum · · focus · HN ↗
tpmoney · · focus · HN ↗
I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that every single robot is built on the labor, creative and technical knowledge and advancements of the workers that robot replaced. Robots after all, much more than LLMs, are incapable of creative output. Some human (probably a laborer) figured out how to stamp the steel in just the right ways, or how to cut the patterns in just the right ways so that the product could be manufactured. Then a robot company came in and stole that creative output, or more likely was sold that creative output by the company owners who stole/bought (depending on your point of view about labor and the ownership of labor's creative outputs in the current US legal system) to produce a robot that then displaced the laborer who created the process in the first place.