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Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

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Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#31

Post by dmurray »

Nullabillity wrote: post #14
LikelyABurner wrote: post #3

I’m with the artists on this one. Our obsession with converting everything into input for an algorithm that spits out an ill-defined number (what the hell is “vividness”?) needs to stop. We already tried this with human communication and gave birth to the dystopian nightmare that is social media, why keep repeating our mistakes?

Honestly, this is the really offensive part of the article. Who cares about whether or not it's legal, the idea that it's, in any way, shape, or form, useful is bafflingly laughable. Not everything can be meaningfully quantified. Not everything needs to be.

The analysis is cool. The problematic thing is what would have happened next, if this tool turned out to be any good.

Publishers rejecting manuscripts because "this years trend shows customers are looking for vividness in the 70+ percentile, your book is only at 55". Everything becoming the same style. If you thought Hemingway, Joyce or Nabokov had it bad with rejections, there'd be zero chance for actual innovative writing to break through the walls of The Algorithm.

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#32

Post by soco »

LikelyABurner wrote: post #3

I’m with the artists on this one. Our obsession with converting everything into input for an algorithm that spits out an ill-defined number (what the hell is “vividness”?) needs to stop. We already tried this with human communication and gave birth to the dystopian nightmare that is social media, why keep repeating our mistakes?

For this very particular project I agree the reaction seems exaggerated, even though it does walk the thin line of copyright infringement. But as it happens, it rides the wave of all other AI project which started small then headed we know where. Because once your book is in the database of company X you can bet safe money they will take it and continue their "analysis" as much further as they like because hey you did not complain - and I believe you must defend yourself in order to keep the copyright.

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#33

Post by Nullabillity »

capableweb wrote: post #19
Nullabillity wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, this is the really offensive part of the article. Who cares about whether or not it's legal, the idea that it's, in any way, shape, or form, useful is bafflingly laughable. Not everything can be meaningfully quantified. Not everything needs to be.

> Not everything can be meaningfully quantified. Not everything needs to be. Ok, so who decides what's OK to analyze or not? Is there some obvious moral line I fail to see, that everyone would immediately agree on? It seems the project was about analyzing books, not about producing new books. How is that hurting the authors?

Again, I don't particularly care about whether this is allowed to exist, I'm just here to laugh at the mindset that lead to it being created. But sure, I can see this being used in harmful ways.

> It seems the project was about analyzing books, not about producing new books. How is that hurting the authors?

"Vivid books are really in this year, we're gonna have to ask that you aim for a Vividness(tm) of 85 or above."

"US books have 15% more adjectives, clearly this is proof of our superior detail-oriented work ethic!"

"What does the rise in Emotion(tm) have to say about the decline of society?"

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#34

Post by runj__ »

LikelyABurner wrote: post #29
capableweb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everything can be meaningfully quantified. Not everything needs to be. Ok, so who decides what's OK to analyze or not? Is there some obvious moral line I fail to see, that everyone would immediately agree on? It seems the project was about analyzing books, not about producing new books. How is that hurting the authors?

What will hurt artists is, when in 10 years, all publishers are demanding that the vividness score (TM) be at least a 95% “because that’s what drives sales”. Which is what will happen if the authors don’t proactively stop it from happening. Look at how the music industry has evolved over time.

Or it could help me find terser books I like, people will still have preferences and if the author tries to pander to only the largest market segment I'd argue that's on them.

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#35

Post by rgoulter »

jprete wrote: post #4

This is an incredibly biased article, hinging entirely on the assumption that AI training is fair use.

IANAL. But, what's your consideration such that you think this usage of the books wouldn't be "fair use"?

e.g. in the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use factors of fair use are "purpose/character of the work", "nature of the copyrighted work", "amount/substantiality of the copyrighted work", "effect on the market for the copyrighted work".

The website shows a few statistics computed from a book, and a few excerpts from the book.

I'd think a consideration of those fair use factors favours the website: e.g. you're not going to look at those statistics/excerpts instead of reading the book. The website only shows a small portion of the book. The website's intention is to be educational.

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#37

Post by robertlagrant »

LikelyABurner wrote: post #29
capableweb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everything can be meaningfully quantified. Not everything needs to be. Ok, so who decides what's OK to analyze or not? Is there some obvious moral line I fail to see, that everyone would immediately agree on? It seems the project was about analyzing books, not about producing new books. How is that hurting the authors?

What will hurt artists is, when in 10 years, all publishers are demanding that the vividness score (TM) be at least a 95% “because that’s what drives sales”. Which is what will happen if the authors don’t proactively stop it from happening. Look at how the music industry has evolved over time.

How is this different to the current process, other than feedback is slower (if forthcoming at all) and less specific?

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#38

Post by keiferski »

For this particular example, the tool doesn't seem like it's a big deal. It just analyzes works for data. I'm not sure how this would be any different from a literary critic doing the same thing manually.

In general, though, I think artists would be less hostile to technological innovations if the people imploring them to "figure out how to embrace the technology rather than fear it" weren't actively trying to destroy their livelihoods, almost always without the slightest interest in helping them figure out the new economic situation. The attitude is, "It's the reality now, deal with it," all while enjoying the job security and high salaries of tech jobs. You can see the same attitude displayed when it comes to piracy: "too bad, deal with it, I have a good job, I don't care if you don't anymore."

This stuff would be received far better by the creative community if AI companies were to say, establish an artist sponsorship program, push for UBI, or otherwise show that they care even a tiny bit about the people they're making redundant.

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#39

Post by 542458 »

zinekeller wrote: post #8
jprete wrote: post #4

This is an incredibly biased article, hinging entirely on the assumption that AI training is fair use.

Unfortunately it seems majority of HN clings on "AI is fair use!" the same way GIFs (of movie and TV snippets) are "perceived to be fair use" (but is simply not fair use in most cases).

Why do you feel that the Google vs Authors Guild ruling cited in the article isn’t relevant?

Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool

#40

Post by LikelyABurner »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30
LikelyABurner wrote: post #3

I’m with the artists on this one. Our obsession with converting everything into input for an algorithm that spits out an ill-defined number (what the hell is “vividness”?) needs to stop. We already tried this with human communication and gave birth to the dystopian nightmare that is social media, why keep repeating our mistakes?

That's silly. Humans review books all the time, using very similar words. Where's the outrage over that? This is manufactured, stretched, overhyped objections. I believe it's all as the OP suggests, because the word AI is in there. Not because anything illegal or immoral is going on. In fact it's a terribly useful tool, and once the mob cools off it'll likely return.

You are exactly modeling the chauvinistic Silicon Valley attitude that is causing the outrage in the general population to begin with.

“Our algorithms are pretty much the same as human art criticism, so put down the pitchforks you unenlightened scum” is up there with telling them to eat (a Stable Diffusion generated picture of) cake.

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