open source it on IPFS and walk away, maybe call it something else and just drop the hashes on 4chan anonymously
this reaction deserves the inevitable, as his only problem was it being attributed to him
Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
71–80 of 309 posts
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#72I’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?
There is a difference between a statistical analysis of a text to categorize by certain words or word groups and training an AI model to generate texts on the data used for training.
The later creates massive competition to human writers, the former is just an information for potential readers.
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#73For 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 destro…
> if AI companies were to say, establish an artist sponsorship program, push for UBI
Sam Altman, for all his faults, is actually a massive proponent of UBI. I mean, that was one of the claimed objectives of Worldcoin (though he advocates for UBI in general: https://thewalrus.ca/will-universal-basic-income-save-us-fro... )
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#74For 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 destro…
> if AI companies were to say, establish an artist sponsorship program, push for UBI Sam Altman, for all his faults, is actually a massive proponent of UBI. I mean, that was one of the claimed objectives of Worldcoin (though he advocates for UBI in general: https://thewalrus.ca/will-universal-basic-income-save-us-fro... )
I am defining "push for UBI" as "actually do something to pressure the government" and not just state that a for profit business you've established is trying to accomplish that goal.
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#75I’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.
> Not everything can be meaningfully quantified.
Sure, but written words _can_ be meaningfully quantified. We have been doing that for thousands of years. Starting with numerology and other mystical/religious beliefs, poem metrics, stylometry, crypto analysis, stroke counting, to name a few.
> Not everything needs to be.
Why not?
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
They… quantify the number of adverbs and voices? I'm sorry, but have you ever read either a book or a review of one?
Yes, and they have 1000 times the spoilers and quotations and judgemental attitude of ... a summary of adverbs and voices.
So yes, I understand what a review is, thanks for the put-down, that certainly added something to the conversation.
I think we are in agreement - doing statistical analysis on written works is entirely a lesser thing than simple review, and is harmless.
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> That's silly. Humans review books all the time, using very similar words. Where's the outrage over that? Easy: humans are not machines. "X does it all the time, so I should be able to do it" is never a valid conclusion. It depends on the situation . > In fact it's a terribly useful tool, and once the mob cools off it'll likely return. Maybe this tool in particular does not "abuse" the books. Maybe this tool in part…
That was the accusation, and it was misplaced here. So we agree, this is a smear campaign in this case, not a sensible reaction to a reasonable application of machine algorithms.
The idea that counting adverbs is steal their work to the point they won't want to publish anymore is clearly FUD. As my remark made clear.
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#78I’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?
If you’re an author of books intended for children, your texts are likely already being quantified to produce a reading level difficulty score:
https://metametricsinc.com/parents-and-students/lexile-for-p...
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#79This is an incredibly biased article, hinging entirely on the assumption that AI training is fair use.
"Fair use" only applies to instances of copying / redistributing . The hint is in the name: copy -right. There's a notion, which seems to have taken off among creators who are paranoid about AI eating their livelihoods (which it might eat a chunk of) that copyright prevents people from doing anything with works they [legally] acquired other than personally read, listen, or watch it. That's not how copyright, as it ha…
Say I make a tool where you can enter the title of a book, and get the full text of the book without paying for it. I assume we all agree that would be illegal, right?
Now say that instead of distributing that tool as an executable, I distributed it as a library. It would contain all the same books as the illegal executable above, but some developers would need to write an actual executable that would use the library. Obviously that executable would be illegal (same as the first one above), but would the library be illegal? I would think that we all reasonably agree that my library would be illegal, because I would essentially be selling the content of books for which I don't own the copyright.
Now what happens when I distribute a trained model that has the potential to generate illegal work? Is it suddenly legal for me to sell it, because some developers write legal executables with it? How is that different from my library example above?
Re: Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
#80I found this article frustratingly vague on how prosecraft.io actually worked. As far as I can tell, the author scraped the web for books, including in-copyright books. Then he analyzed it with techniques based on "classical" natural language processing techniques, rather than transformers or deep learning. He appears to have retained the books he scraped for future analysis. The site itself seems to use only snippet…
If he says he didn't do something, the pitchfork mob will simply tell each other that he is lying. They will do this in the most confused and twisted way possible, driven by lack of understanding of what was happening combined with a need to drive outrage and thereby advertise their work.
If he says he didn't intend to do that thing, this is still compatible with a later update that he didn't do that thing, but immediately dampens the outrage machine. The reader who knows nothing about either side relaxes -- "No need for me to get worked up, because we won". Conveniently, saying he didn't intend to do the thing is also compatible with a later reveal that he was doing the thing (perhaps for later release, since he wasn't clearly doing the thing here).
Therefore, regardless of whether he was doing what he was accused of doing, this is the lowest energy response, and probably the default unless this was the hill he wanted to defend.