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California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

gov.ca.gov

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Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#121

Post by thesmtsolver »

tadfisher wrote: post #65
davidmckayv wrote: post #11

This is censorship with extra steps. Look at what the bill actually requires. Companies have to publish frameworks showing how they "mitigate catastrophic risk" and implement "safety protocols" for "dangerous capabilities." That sounds reasonable until you realize the government is now defining what counts as dangerous and requiring private companies to build systems that restrict those outputs. The Supreme Court alr…

It is already illegal under 18 USC § 842 to provide bomb-making instructions or similar with the knowledge or intent that said instructions will be used to commit a crime. The intent is to balance free speech with the probability of actual harm. AIs do not have freedom of speech, and even if they did, it is entirely within the bounds of the Constitution to mitigate this freedom as we already do for humans. Government…

Do libraries have freedom of speech? The same argument can then be used to censor libraries.

Do books have freedom of speech? The same argument can then be used to censor parts of a book.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#122

Post by agar »

Reading the comments, this is both a "nothing burger" and a reason to geoblock California.

It does too much, and too little. The costs are too high, and too low. It's an example of corruption, but also a good first start at regulations. It will drive AI companies out of California, but also attract more companies with a lower bar for edge innovation.

Can anyone link to an actual informed and nuanced discussion of this bill? Because if it exists here, I haven't found it.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#123

Post by Forgeties79 »

HPMOR wrote: post #113
johnnyanmac wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to hope so. They'll agree, until the bubble is prone to bursting and then suddenly that fine might be better to eat.

There is no bubble. Your priors are not serving you well here.

If I had to shoot from the hip and guess: 30% of the current crop of AI startups are going to make it at best. Frankly that feels insanely generous but I’ll give them more credit than I think they deserve re: ideas and actual staying power.

Many will crash in rapid succession. There isn’t enough room for all these same-y companies.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#124

Post by tadfisher »

thesmtsolver wrote: post #121
tadfisher wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is already illegal under 18 USC § 842 to provide bomb-making instructions or similar with the knowledge or intent that said instructions will be used to commit a crime. The intent is to balance free speech with the probability of actual harm. AIs do not have freedom of speech, and even if they did, it is entirely within the bounds of the Constitution to mitigate this freedom as we already do for humans. Government…

Do libraries have freedom of speech? The same argument can then be used to censor libraries. Do books have freedom of speech? The same argument can then be used to censor parts of a book.

Do we treat books as the protected speech of libraries? No. In fact we already ban books from library shelves regularly. Freedom of speech does not compel libraries to host The Anarchist's Cookbook, and does not prevent governments from limiting what libraries can host, under existing law.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#125

Post by parineum »

agar wrote: post #122

Reading the comments, this is both a "nothing burger" and a reason to geoblock California. It does too much, and too little. The costs are too high, and too low. It's an example of corruption, but also a good first start at regulations. It will drive AI companies out of California, but also attract more companies with a lower bar for edge innovation. Can anyone link to an actual informed and nuanced discussion of thi…

I think all of those outcomes are possibilities and I don't think we'll know until we see both how the government decides to attempt to enforce this and how the courts allow it to be enforced.

The language of the law is so vague to me that I could see it being either a sledgehammer or absolutely inconsequential.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#126

Post by DrewADesign »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #117
HPMOR wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no bubble. Your priors are not serving you well here.

Historically speaking, people saying "history won't repeat this time, it's different" have a pretty bad track record. Do we remember what the definition of "insanity" is?

“The .com economy is a new business paradigm: the rules have changed.”

- pioneers in wrongness 25 years ago. Oft copied, but never vindicated.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#127

Post by nomel »

hodgesrm wrote: post #4

What real-world problem does any of this solve? For instance, how does it protect my IP from being vacuumed up and used by LLMs without permission from or payment to me?

> Government Operations Agency to develop a framework for creating a public computing cluster.

The meat of the bill is that some government contractors are about to get very rich. And, if history reflects the future, some portion will be no-bid, to make sure the money goes to exactly who he wants it to go to: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article250348451.h...

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#128

Post by nomel »

throwworhtthrow wrote: post #39
davidmckayv wrote: post #11

This is censorship with extra steps. Look at what the bill actually requires. Companies have to publish frameworks showing how they "mitigate catastrophic risk" and implement "safety protocols" for "dangerous capabilities." That sounds reasonable until you realize the government is now defining what counts as dangerous and requiring private companies to build systems that restrict those outputs. The Supreme Court alr…

LLMs don't have rights. LLMs are tools, and the state can regulate tools. Humans acting on behalf of these companies can still, if they felt the bizarre desire to, publish assembly instructions for bioweapons on the company blog.

> if they felt the bizarre desire to, publish assembly instructions for bioweapons on the company blog.

Can they publish them by intentionally putting them into the latent space of an LLM?

What if they make an LLM that can only produce that text? What if they continue training so it contains a second text they intended to publish? And continue to add more? Does the fact that there's a collection change things?

These are genuine questions, and I have no clue what the answers are. It seems strange to treat a implementation of text storage so differently that you lose all rights to that text.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#129

Post by simondotau »

hodgesrm wrote: post #4

What real-world problem does any of this solve? For instance, how does it protect my IP from being vacuumed up and used by LLMs without permission from or payment to me?

This isn’t necessarily about fixing today’s real-world problems. Transparency is an enabler for identifying (or avoiding) a class of future real-world problems.

Re: California governor signs AI transparency bill into law

#130

Post by Retric »

ndriscoll wrote: post #115
Retric wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating new models doesn’t require taking content without any compensation. That’s the basic flaw in any argument around necessity.

No, but society has no reason to grant monopolies on 50 year old publications (e.g. textbooks or news articles written or songs recorded prior to 1975), and the changes that were made to copyright law to extend it into multiple generations were actual rent-seeking. i.e. manipulating public policy to transfer wealth from others to you rather than creating wealth. Going with the original 28 year compromise from a time…

It’s far more recent works that AI companies care about. They can’t copy 50 year old python, JavaScript, etc code because it simply doesn’t exist. There’s some 50 year old C code, but it’s no longer idiomatic and so it goes.

Utility of older works drop off as science marches on and culture changes. The real secret of long copyright terms is they just don’t matter much. Steamboat Willy entered the public domain and for all practical purposes nothing changed. Chip 20 years off of current copyright terms and it starts to matter more, but still isn’t particularly important. Sure drop it down to say 5 years and that’s meaningful but now it’s much harder to be an author which means fewer books worth reading.

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