We got asked this question two weeks ago when we conducted a workshop on effective and responsible use of AI tools at a local conference. But how can you argue about about IP and copyright if the breakthrough of LLMs is potentially based on circumventing or breaking IP and copyright in the first place?
Seeing Mark Zuckerberg use THE EXACT SAME papers that Aaron was murdered for to train Llama and him being rewarded with a stock tick that got him out of the metaverse hole will never not make my blood boil.
It's no different than humans taking inspiration from IP and copyrighted works in their own creative endeavors. Imagine if programmers were unable to learn from open source. Or artists were unable to mimic styles and storylines. Musicians can't riff on things that others created.
It is different. The scale makes it different. It's different when it is all copyrighted works and IP. It's different when you solve Navier-Stokes by taking "inspiration" from a researcher's private work.
If it's "learning" is to be seen in the same context as a human, then the punishment/ repercussion for hacking and causing real harm should also be similar to what a human might recieve.
It cannot opportunistically morph between a human for benefits and a machine for liability.
> It cannot opportunistically morph between a human for benefits and a machine for liability.
Indeed. Though here it would be morphing between human and machine even just for pure liability, which is even worse.
We have no way to tell if a machine has an experience (in general and not only) when being positively or negatively rewarded for what it produces; even if we assume it does, we have no way to tell if punishments are experienced like mild scolding (and rewards like mild praise), or if the punishments feel like being burned to death at the stake (while rewards feel like a religious experience combined with an orgasm).
We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what these kinds of question even look like in mechanistic terms; all philosophical discussions before it about p-zombies and the Chinese room and so on, they are all no more useful than any other non-expert armchair experts discussing things.
Even the current research, such as it is, is probably only at the level analogous to humoral theory when we want something at the level of germ theory.
Given my opening was agreeing with you, I ought to draw your attention: the part you seem to be replying to here is focused on the case where we really do want to know if we should treat the AI as we treat humans, and if so what punishing it looks like, rather than as property where we punish the owner.
> If a dog bites, we don't wait to take action until we figure out a way of teaching the dog the experience of guilt or punishment.
When we invented the concept of legal liability, our species was broadly still animistic and panpsychic. The concept of a "scapegoat" is named after the idea of literally putting the sins of a village into a goat and driving it away.
After doing that for perhaps 4500 years, we are now in the position to do as you say for e.g. dogs (and also machines).
What's the difference between getting a speeding ticket from a cop using a radar gun, and hundreds/thousands of automatically issued tickets from a combined radar/ALPR?
For training the models, and assuming that the content was itself acquired without other acts of infringement? That was ruled legal by the judge in the case I actually (skim) read the judgement of.
At least two companies engaged in acts of infringement to get training data. This is not lawful, and what Anthropic settled out of court for.
As per court ruling, training is fine when they have lawful access.
i.e. open and accessible on the general web is fair game, torrents from the pirate bay is not.
Feel free to argue that copyright law should be changed; this wouldn't be the first time it needed a significant update because new technology made it cheap to do at industrial scale something that was previously so hard that even being able to pull it off made you look legit.
> how can you argue about about IP and copyright if the breakthrough of LLMs is potentially based on circumventing or breaking IP and copyright in the first place?
Easy answer: it’s not. Learning isn’t copyright infringement. Never has been and hopefully never will be.
Well, of course learning isn't the problem and shouldn't be. But what about reselling/commercialising that knowledge? That is the big (commercial) opportunity. But if AI models learn by fitting their parameters to the given data, then overfitting on said data could result in the IP or copyrighted being "slopped" out verbatim?
The knowledge isn’t copyrighted and, thank god, cannot be.
I thought we were supposed to be hackers. Information wants to be free and all that. What a bunch of hypocrites, willing to betray their ideals as soon as it’s convenient.
1. You're lumping distinct groups of people. This is Hacker News but "hack" often in the sense of "growth hacking", not in the "hacker manifesto" sense.
2. Even in that case, people might just be demanding equal justice. If I make information free I might get jailed. Regardless of my moral framework.
2. What’s your point? People are demanding justice for behavior they don’t like but isn’t illegal? The way to fix that is to gather a majority and change the law.
1. I'd agree with parent. HN is at least 50% growth instead of hacker ethos. Sure there are a ton of users who don't even know what the manifesto is.
As support: How many top articles are there about "Someone used AI to ___" vs "Here's a technical dive into this AI architecture"?
>The knowledge isn’t copyrighted and, thank god, cannot be.
We copyright knowledge all the time, what do you mean? Those are called patents.
>I thought we were supposed to be hackers. Information wants to be free and all that.
Yes, hence why I'm baffled people are fine with billion dollar companies DDOSing the internet so they can contain knowledge in a black box. And literally destroying some knowledge in the process.
I guess "hackers" also gladly give up freedom for a bit of convenience when it suits them.
prathje · · focus · HN ↗
We got asked this question two weeks ago when we conducted a workshop on effective and responsible use of AI tools at a local conference. But how can you argue about about IP and copyright if the breakthrough of LLMs is potentially based on circumventing or breaking IP and copyright in the first place?
How do you feel about all of this?
sambeau · · focus · HN ↗
duskdozer · · focus · HN ↗
ethbr1 · · focus · HN ↗
Arkhaine_kupo · · focus · HN ↗
mapotofu · · focus · HN ↗
bko · · focus · HN ↗
snarfy · · focus · HN ↗
devsda · · focus · HN ↗
It cannot opportunistically morph between a human for benefits and a machine for liability.
ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
Indeed. Though here it would be morphing between human and machine even just for pure liability, which is even worse.
We have no way to tell if a machine has an experience (in general and not only) when being positively or negatively rewarded for what it produces; even if we assume it does, we have no way to tell if punishments are experienced like mild scolding (and rewards like mild praise), or if the punishments feel like being burned to death at the stake (while rewards feel like a religious experience combined with an orgasm).
We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what these kinds of question even look like in mechanistic terms; all philosophical discussions before it about p-zombies and the Chinese room and so on, they are all no more useful than any other non-expert armchair experts discussing things.
Even the current research, such as it is, is probably only at the level analogous to humoral theory when we want something at the level of germ theory.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism
devsda · · focus · HN ↗
The liability lies with the owner and the punishment(monetary or other) should strongly incentivize the owner to reduce the incidence of bites.
ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
> If a dog bites, we don't wait to take action until we figure out a way of teaching the dog the experience of guilt or punishment.
When we invented the concept of legal liability, our species was broadly still animistic and panpsychic. The concept of a "scapegoat" is named after the idea of literally putting the sins of a village into a goat and driving it away.
After doing that for perhaps 4500 years, we are now in the position to do as you say for e.g. dogs (and also machines).
hydrogen7800 · · focus · HN ↗
ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
For training the models, and assuming that the content was itself acquired without other acts of infringement? That was ruled legal by the judge in the case I actually (skim) read the judgement of.
At least two companies engaged in acts of infringement to get training data. This is not lawful, and what Anthropic settled out of court for.
prathje · · focus · HN ↗
GJim · · focus · HN ↗
ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
i.e. open and accessible on the general web is fair game, torrents from the pirate bay is not.
Feel free to argue that copyright law should be changed; this wouldn't be the first time it needed a significant update because new technology made it cheap to do at industrial scale something that was previously so hard that even being able to pull it off made you look legit.
desolate_muffin · · focus · HN ↗
ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
I wrote:
> i.e. open and accessible on the general web is fair game, torrents from the pirate bay is not.
Which of these do you think is closer to bypassing a paywall?
JimDabell · · focus · HN ↗
Easy answer: it’s not. Learning isn’t copyright infringement. Never has been and hopefully never will be.
LunaSea · · focus · HN ↗
prathje · · focus · HN ↗
semiquaver · · focus · HN ↗
I thought we were supposed to be hackers. Information wants to be free and all that. What a bunch of hypocrites, willing to betray their ideals as soon as it’s convenient.
kaoD · · focus · HN ↗
2. Even in that case, people might just be demanding equal justice. If I make information free I might get jailed. Regardless of my moral framework.
semiquaver · · focus · HN ↗
2. What’s your point? People are demanding justice for behavior they don’t like but isn’t illegal? The way to fix that is to gather a majority and change the law.
ethbr1 · · focus · HN ↗
As support: How many top articles are there about "Someone used AI to ___" vs "Here's a technical dive into this AI architecture"?
johnnyanmac · · focus · HN ↗
We copyright knowledge all the time, what do you mean? Those are called patents.
>I thought we were supposed to be hackers. Information wants to be free and all that.
Yes, hence why I'm baffled people are fine with billion dollar companies DDOSing the internet so they can contain knowledge in a black box. And literally destroying some knowledge in the process.
I guess "hackers" also gladly give up freedom for a bit of convenience when it suits them.
dimbletimbers · · focus · HN ↗
If I learn from a textbook I stole, some people maybe be thrilled I learned something, but stealing is still a crime and hopefully always will be.
bluefirebrand · · focus · HN ↗
For humans.
Why should computer systems owned by corporations have anything remotely similar to the same freedoms as humans?
ragall · · focus · HN ↗
Of course, but only humans are able to learn. Clanker enhancement is stealing.