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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

#141

Post by williamcotton »

Retric wrote: post #140
williamcotton wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it shows is that rights-holders with a large legal war chest can win specific cases. There is not a single musician or songwriter that I have met who wasn’t appalled by the Robin Thicke ruling. Luckily history didn’t repeat itself with Ed Sheeran. Here's a concise explanation of why this was a terrible ruling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1COYitP8hI If the entire music industry operated in such a manner it wo…

I understand your perspective, but I think you’re still missing my point. Winning a court case isn’t safe, getting the court case thrown out before it needs to be litigated is. You really don’t want to be in a position where someone with deep pockets can make a reasonable argument for infringement. The question of LLM’s is really secondary. It’s likely they could win, but that in itself is very dangerous territory.

So to be safe a songwriter should just quit music, just as Ed Sheeran said he would do if he lost his case… gotcha.

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

#142

Post by Retric »

williamcotton wrote: post #141
Retric wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your perspective, but I think you’re still missing my point. Winning a court case isn’t safe, getting the court case thrown out before it needs to be litigated is. You really don’t want to be in a position where someone with deep pockets can make a reasonable argument for infringement. The question of LLM’s is really secondary. It’s likely they could win, but that in itself is very dangerous territory.

So to be safe a songwriter should just quit music, just as Ed Sheeran said he would do if he lost his case… gotcha.

That’s clearly not what I said. To be a safe songwriter, don’t imitate other works. The lines are actually pretty gentle in practice as long as you avoid actively copying from other works.

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

#143

Post by williamcotton »

Retric wrote: post #142
williamcotton wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to be safe a songwriter should just quit music, just as Ed Sheeran said he would do if he lost his case… gotcha.

That’s clearly not what I said. To be a safe songwriter, don’t imitate other works. The lines are actually pretty gentle in practice as long as you avoid actively copying from other works.

Go find a Black Keys song that isn’t playing the same blues rock riffs that guitarists have been imitating for the last 70 years!

What about a drum pattern like a four-on-the-floor disco beat? What about entire genres of electronic dance music?

What about chord progressions? Should songwriters avoid the I-IV-V? Do you know how many songs are ii-vi-V-I?

What about literally any classic country song?

Do The Strokes owe the band Television royalties for imitating their driving 8th note, interwoven guitar riffs?

Here's a good conversation around the roots of an aphorism typically attributed to Picasso, "good artists copy, great artists steal.":

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/

Are you a songwriter or a musician? If so, how can you make music without imitating any number of factors? Do you make your own instruments? Do you have your own harmonic system with your own scales?

I can't think of any creed that is more destined to result in terrible art than "playing it safe"!

EDIT: Oh, "don't imitate anyone" is a close second! The one-two punch of playing it safe and not imitating anyone is just, I mean, I can't even...

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

#144

Post by Retric »

williamcotton wrote: post #143
Retric wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s clearly not what I said. To be a safe songwriter, don’t imitate other works. The lines are actually pretty gentle in practice as long as you avoid actively copying from other works.

Go find a Black Keys song that isn’t playing the same blues rock riffs that guitarists have been imitating for the last 70 years! What about a drum pattern like a four-on-the-floor disco beat? What about entire genres of electronic dance music? What about chord progressions? Should songwriters avoid the I-IV-V? Do you know how many songs are ii-vi-V-I? What about literally any classic country song? Do The Strokes owe…

Look, if you can find several independent examples of something then no you’re not imitating someone specific. But, if out of millions of songs there only one person who did X don’t assuming copying X is fine.

The line isn’t anywhere close to the hyperbole you and many other people are bringing up. Don’t copy other peoples work isn’t some unrealistic burden, it’s the basic foundation of copyright.

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

#145

Post by rglover »

gnabgib wrote: post #96
rglover wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this. Depending on how they "crawl" content, figure out a way to fingerprint their crawlers and when they hit your site, just return disgustingly explicit romance novel copy. > "How do I make a peach cobbler?" "To make a peach cobbler, run your fingers aggressively over the bosom of the graham cracker crust...thrust the pie pan deep into the oven; don't worry about spilling the mix."

Where can I find this peach cobbler recipe?

[dead]

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

#146

Post by williamcotton »

Retric wrote: post #144
williamcotton wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go find a Black Keys song that isn’t playing the same blues rock riffs that guitarists have been imitating for the last 70 years! What about a drum pattern like a four-on-the-floor disco beat? What about entire genres of electronic dance music? What about chord progressions? Should songwriters avoid the I-IV-V? Do you know how many songs are ii-vi-V-I? What about literally any classic country song? Do The Strokes owe…

Look, if you can find several independent examples of something then no you’re not imitating someone specific. But, if out of millions of songs there only one person who did X don’t assuming copying X is fine. The line isn’t anywhere close to the hyperbole you and many other people are bringing up. Don’t copy other peoples work isn’t some unrealistic burden, it’s the basic foundation of copyright.

To anyone else who might come across this discussion and you make or want to make art, please don’t take this person’s advice.

I am a songwriter and a recording artist. I and every other musician I’ve ever worked with have conversed in the language of our predecessors. We constantly listen to other records while making our own and borrow drum patterns, guitar sounds, chord progressions… just as all of our favorite musicians did before us.

If you don’t do this and you go off on some quest for pure originality, you are engaged in pure narcissism and you will make terrible art.

Show me your favorite record and I can break down where every single element of every single song came from.

I'm going to guess that you have basically no experience making music. Here's just a couple of the records I've made:

https://williamcotton.bandcamp.com/album/melencolia-i

https://willieandallie.bandcamp.com/album/between-a-rock-and...

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

#147

Post by Retric »

williamcotton wrote: post #146
Retric wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if you can find several independent examples of something then no you’re not imitating someone specific. But, if out of millions of songs there only one person who did X don’t assuming copying X is fine. The line isn’t anywhere close to the hyperbole you and many other people are bringing up. Don’t copy other peoples work isn’t some unrealistic burden, it’s the basic foundation of copyright.

To anyone else who might come across this discussion and you make or want to make art, please don’t take this person’s advice. I am a songwriter and a recording artist. I and every other musician I’ve ever worked with have conversed in the language of our predecessors. We constantly listen to other records while making our own and borrow drum patterns, guitar sounds, chord progressions… just as all of our favorite mu…

Again absolute originality isn’t the metric any more than we expect people to write using the English alphabet but not reusing any existing words.

However, your actual defense is a lack of serious earnings. If you habitually copy significant portions of your work don’t assume it’s actually legal rather than simply not worth suing over.

If you’re concerned about actual credentials my connection to this stuff is through major motion pictures which means serious paranoia around IP. They are actually concerned about being sued and take actual precautions.

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

#148

Post by smitty1e »

pmarreck wrote: post #66
smitty1e wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean... Just imagine living 2000 years ago and not ever imagining just the massive slice of inventions from 1900 to 2023 lol

Technology is the variable. The human genome is (relatively) constant.

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

#149

Post by quitit »

quitit wrote: post #88
jelled wrote: post #30

I have no idea how the courts will end up resolving this legally. In the meantime I've been thinking a lot about the morality of this alleged theft. Most of us would agree that duplicating and selling someone's book is immoral. Similarly I think we'd all agree that reading multiple books to learn about a topic and then writing your own is perfectly fine. So where does an LLM trained on millions of books fall? Persona…

Setting up the precedent that training from materials = theft seems pretty scary to me. First because it redefines learning as stealing, and secondly because it is without proving that the source material authors are in someway deprived of something - and in a way that is no different than if a human learnt from their materials and produced content with that knowledge. Let's say the AI was used to generate illegal co…

I was thinking about this further as there's a lot of grey area to the idea of who owns the words, after all everyone is using the same words just in different combinations. What about words which aren't in the lexicon, specifically unique trademarks: these are words that are entirely unique e.g. "kleenex" and so on. These words are traceable to the trademark owner.

By the standard that training from materials = theft: Any reference to one of these unique trademarks would be interesting and highly problematic. AI wouldn't be allowed to write any kind of non-editorial text that uses unique trademarked product names without it being criminal.

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

#150

Post by williamcotton »

Retric wrote: post #147
williamcotton wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To anyone else who might come across this discussion and you make or want to make art, please don’t take this person’s advice. I am a songwriter and a recording artist. I and every other musician I’ve ever worked with have conversed in the language of our predecessors. We constantly listen to other records while making our own and borrow drum patterns, guitar sounds, chord progressions… just as all of our favorite mu…

Again absolute originality isn’t the metric any more than we expect people to write using the English alphabet but not reusing any existing words. However, your actual defense is a lack of serious earnings. If you habitually copy significant portions of your work don’t assume it’s actually legal rather than simply not worth suing over. If you’re concerned about actual credentials my connection to this stuff is throug…

I don’t think you understand anything about writing or recording music. Everyone copies and imitates. This Robin Thicke lawsuit spooked so many working musicians because they all work like that. Pharrell Williams isn’t some hack. He’s a genius hit machine. His “reverse engineering” of the drum track Gaye’s drum track is part and parcel of the creative process. It is absolutely absurd that they were found liable. It certainly gave the Gaye family the gall to sue Ed Sheeran for using the same chord progression…

Have a listen to my albums and you can judge for yourself how much copyright infringement I’m guilt of…

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