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ChatGPT is not ‘artificial intelligence.’ It’s theft

americamagazine.org

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Re: ChatGPT is not ‘artificial intelligence.’ It’s theft

#31
post #29

It's interesting to compare two scenarios. The first is if you feed an LLM solely the works of a famous current author, say J.K Rowling, and ask it to create a new work in the style of her franchise. The second is if you include all of her works but also throw in every other book written in the last several years and ask it to create a work in the style of her franchise. Is the latter somehow "better" than the former…

I have a question along the similar lines. Let's extend your analogy. Someone read all J.K Rowling books and created a work in that style. Would that be a copyright violation? I'm assuming not.

In that case, is that difference here that it's not humanely possible to train on world's information compared to a single human getting inspired by specific works. And hence an algo doing that is violation?

Re: ChatGPT is not ‘artificial intelligence.’ It’s theft

#35
post #29

It's interesting to compare two scenarios. The first is if you feed an LLM solely the works of a famous current author, say J.K Rowling, and ask it to create a new work in the style of her franchise. The second is if you include all of her works but also throw in every other book written in the last several years and ask it to create a work in the style of her franchise. Is the latter somehow "better" than the former…

I have a question along the similar lines. Let's extend your analogy. Someone read all J.K Rowling books and created a work in that style. Would that be a copyright violation? I'm assuming not. In that case, is that difference here that it's not humanely possible to train on world's information compared to a single human getting inspired by specific works. And hence an algo doing that is violation?

> Would that be a copyright violation?

Quite possibly, it depends on what specifically is meant by style and the degree to which the new work is transformative.

Re: ChatGPT is not ‘artificial intelligence.’ It’s theft

#36
> Back in the day, programs like Napster had everyone believing that we shouldn’t have to pay for music.

Back in the day, broadcast radio stations had everyone believing that we shouldn't have to pay for music.

In 2023, we have youtube to thank for that.

> If I own something, why shouldn’t I be able to share it with whoever I want?

Good argument, especially since many intangible goods, such as MP3 files, are non-rivalrous and non-excludable.

Re: ChatGPT is not ‘artificial intelligence.’ It’s theft

#37
post #29

It's interesting to compare two scenarios. The first is if you feed an LLM solely the works of a famous current author, say J.K Rowling, and ask it to create a new work in the style of her franchise. The second is if you include all of her works but also throw in every other book written in the last several years and ask it to create a work in the style of her franchise. Is the latter somehow "better" than the former…

Replace LLM with 'young author'.

If you feed a 'young author' the works of a famous current author, E.G. Rowling, and ask them to write a new work in the style of that reference author...

Or if you include the current N 'Best Sellers' and ask them to write whatever's popular.

I'm not so convinced creativity is any more magical than a naturally evolved and refined version of what computers are starting to approach. Humans naturally add far more background, results filtering, and implicit selection parameters (personal biases / preferences).

Maybe the correct line is somewhere around; tracing (direct copying) is bad, but freehand (from memory) is OK. However computers inherently have more perfect memory than humans; how precise is the detail from the source work? Is there a meaningful threshold where the memory of a work has decayed from a representation of the source work?

Re: ChatGPT is not ‘artificial intelligence.’ It’s theft

#38

I feel obliged to say that piracy is not theft... but more relevantly, I like how AI is showing us more clearly that everything is essentially a derivative work.

Not a new observation:

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

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