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ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

arstechnica.com

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Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#91

Post by palmotea »

Lerc wrote: post #83
chrisldgk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here I think is that the company (Anthropic, not OpenAI) was specifically selecting rare books for training (and subsequently destroying). I think the value proposition is a much different one in this case. In your example the books are still available in high enough amounts that replacing it is cheaper. If the book is rare enough to not have been digitized for training data yet (which is why Anthropic…

I have heard allegations that they might be destroying non replaceable books, but only as a hypothetical. Replacibility is the standard tbat matters in this which I mentioned in my post. I haven't heard of a specific instance of an occurance of destruction of an irreplaceable book, but I'm willing to look into cases if you have a link.

> I have heard allegations that they might be destroying non replaceable books, but only as a hypothetical.

> Replacibility is the standard tbat matters in this which I mentioned in my post. I haven't heard of a specific instance of an occurance of destruction of an irreplaceable book, but I'm willing to look into cases if you have a link.

I think you can assume they're destroying rare or even irreplaceable books, unless they can show they've implemented careful processes to avoid doing that.

But given they're all basically SV startups, it's very unlikely they're doing anything except the minimum effort to get what they want now.

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#92

Post by Lerc »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #88
Lerc wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is fair use to train on books you buy. The anthropic case established that. The destruction of books is just cutting the spine so they have individual pages to scan.

Destroying a book to argue fair use is not accepted as a fair use act is what I was saying, so they're needlessly destroying rare books.

They are not destroying any books to make any claim. They are doing it so the pages fit in the scanner.

Without an example of an actual rare book that is shown to have been destroyed, all there is is the is the claim they have the capability to do that.

The closest I have heard is the possibility of rare books purchased in bulk orders of cheap second hand books. This is a similar risk to melting down someone's wedding ring from a batch of scrap metal. It could theoretically happen, but the knowledge of the items presence is absent and it was not requested.

What other allegations have there been? I'm prepared to look at actual examples of you have them.

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#93

Post by nitwit005 »

pseingatl wrote: post #14

Wuddabout: Works unfinished at the time of the author's death? Abandoned works? Lost works? Prompt: Aristotle's work on comedy has been lost. Write a short treatise on comedy, using Aristotle's methods as shown in his Corpus and especially his treatises on Rhetoric and Poetics.

You can generate 10000 different versions of something that might resemble someone's lost work. It's unlikely anyone will want to read any of them.

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#94

Post by rumori »

palmotea wrote: post #91
Lerc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard allegations that they might be destroying non replaceable books, but only as a hypothetical. Replacibility is the standard tbat matters in this which I mentioned in my post. I haven't heard of a specific instance of an occurance of destruction of an irreplaceable book, but I'm willing to look into cases if you have a link.

> I have heard allegations that they might be destroying non replaceable books, but only as a hypothetical. > Replacibility is the standard tbat matters in this which I mentioned in my post. I haven't heard of a specific instance of an occurance of destruction of an irreplaceable book, but I'm willing to look into cases if you have a link. I think you can assume they're destroying rare or even irreplaceable books, un…

For me it’s just as unbelievable that the second hand book stores would sell rare or irreplaceable books at bulk prices. If they do they are really not good at what they are doing and I wouldn’t blame any startup big or small to destroy it, especially after preserving it digitally.

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#95

Post by palmotea »

rumori wrote: post #94
palmotea wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have heard allegations that they might be destroying non replaceable books, but only as a hypothetical. > Replacibility is the standard tbat matters in this which I mentioned in my post. I haven't heard of a specific instance of an occurance of destruction of an irreplaceable book, but I'm willing to look into cases if you have a link. I think you can assume they're destroying rare or even irreplaceable books, un…

For me it’s just as unbelievable that the second hand book stores would sell rare or irreplaceable books at bulk prices. If they do they are really not good at what they are doing and I wouldn’t blame any startup big or small to destroy it, especially after preserving it digitally.

> If they do they are really not good at what they are doing and I wouldn’t blame any startup big or small to destroy it, especially after preserving it digitally.

1. That's fucking bizarre logic. "It's ok to do bad thing if someone didn't stop you."

2. These startups aren't "preserving" it digitally. The destroyed physical copies would have likely outlived whatever datasets they're creating.

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#96

Post by R_D_Olivaw »

fwn wrote: post #58
R_D_Olivaw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to get these models back? I really like the older ones for NPC dialogue for TTRPG campaigns and the like. I just looked into it and I think I can still find GPT 3.5, but wonder if it too has been trained out of usefulness. The characters a styles were quirky and not always perfect, but added a lot more flavor and character nuance that could be corrected with editing.

I have no experience with style imitation, so perhaps I'm missing something here. I asked Kimi K3 to rewrite your comment in the style of Ernest Hemingway: > I would like to get the old models back. If anyone can show me the way, I would be grateful. I liked them for NPC dialogue, for TTRPG campaigns and the like. > I looked into it. GPT 3.5 is still around, I think. But perhaps they have trained it out of usefulness…

This is really neat, but if you'll notice, it just kept the same words and rewrote it a few different ways. I guess what I'm actually thinking of it's when the model temperatures weren't quite dialed in and you would get some wonky stuff that was genuinely useful for character exposition and giving a particular character a "voice".

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#97

Post by prinny_ »

malshe wrote: post #3

This is rich considering LLMs can't even write like an average person let alone famous authors

I agree for famous authors. But I also believe you are overestimating the average person when it comes to their ability to articulate their thoughts.

Re: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author's style

#98

Post by moritzwarhier »

rumori wrote: post #94
palmotea wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have heard allegations that they might be destroying non replaceable books, but only as a hypothetical. > Replacibility is the standard tbat matters in this which I mentioned in my post. I haven't heard of a specific instance of an occurance of destruction of an irreplaceable book, but I'm willing to look into cases if you have a link. I think you can assume they're destroying rare or even irreplaceable books, un…

For me it’s just as unbelievable that the second hand book stores would sell rare or irreplaceable books at bulk prices. If they do they are really not good at what they are doing and I wouldn’t blame any startup big or small to destroy it, especially after preserving it digitally.

Rare != valuable.

They are "betting" pennies in their books.

Rarity equating monetary value is a common logical fallacy often found with stamps and other collectable cultural artifacts (details would disgress too much here, see Pokemon cards or whatever).

And rarity vs quality ir utility is even harder.

But value is 1) not determined by scarcity and 2) neither by "unique information content" (because that's by definition not measurable without a panopticon) and 3) nor by "creative value" per se 4) it is indeterminate whether some detail in a work might prove useful later, in general. Even for scientific papers.

They just can bet on all fronts and for training material it's 100% rational to do it.

Apart from that, to briefly disgress into the discussion of "cultural value": many cultural works we hold as very important today were sold for cheap, if at all, when the author died.

Music scores are good examples.

But back to the broader "value"/rarity angle:

The historical value of some odd self-help or DIY instructions book from the 80s is hard to determine! It might happen to be able to provide a secondary source for something, or even act as primary source for some other fact of the time that is tangential to its subject.

None of the qualities that make trivial literature interesting to, for example, researchers, must correlate with market value (at the time of writing or at the time of research?).

Sure, there are truckloads of "unique" books from even 200 years ago that are neither culturally valuable nor sellable right now.

But these things can change quickly.

Imagine you want research details about old retail products.

Or the usual street price of something in some city at a specific time.

Or the inhabitant of a certain rentable space at a certain time.

Or some specific detail about replacing the parts of a certain type of car that's no longer around (is this valuable then?).

Humans create endless complexities, and monetary or evolutionary value is not coupled anymore to step-changes such as "how to light a fire using X,Y,Z".

We're deep down the rabbit-holes of our own ephemeral shaping of our world.

What word was commonly used to describe a sandwich in 1925 in Hungary.

Or what problems did people commonly encounter when repairing car doors in the 1940s in England?

Whatever. I can't make up a good example right now, but market value does not imply quality; and even quality (according to some cultural norm) is not universally measurable.

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