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Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

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Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#161

Post by xerox13ster »

maplethorpe wrote: post #149
xtracto wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view duration is not the problem, but copyright itself is. Nobody should expect to be "passively" paid for a job/effort made at a past point in time. You work 40 hours this week, you get paid 40 hours at whatever your rate. Authors should use other ways to charge for their 40/80 hours work, and when released it should be in the public domain. Scientists have learned to do it (by getting tenured or postdocs), im…

What about something you've made for fun but haven't made any money from? Should someone else be allowed to sell and profit from your work? I'm not expecting to be "passively paid" for my hobbies. But I'm expecting that someone won't steal and profit from the things I make. Why would that be fair?

Say my hobby is statue making. I design and create a concrete statue that I failed to sell. Whether that be because I did not try or because I could not find a buyer, I could not sell it.

So I took it, and I put it in my pile of completed works: a pile of crumbling statute rubble by the roadside. In the digital case, maybe it was posted online and the pile is a timeline or portfolio.

Someone in a pick up truck drives by sees it, takes it, and sells it for half $1 million to a trust fund baby.

Was the output of my work and therefore the half $1 million stolen from me?

If there was nothing physical to take, and I had never tried to or successfully sold it to anyone and somebody else does it, was I stolen from or did I just fail to sell?

And then if I get my knickers in a twist over that sale I have to ask myself: is my hobby to be a sales person and to sell art or is my hobby to be an artist and make art?

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#162

Post by xerox13ster »

fibonacci_man wrote: post #157
xtracto wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view duration is not the problem, but copyright itself is. Nobody should expect to be "passively" paid for a job/effort made at a past point in time. You work 40 hours this week, you get paid 40 hours at whatever your rate. Authors should use other ways to charge for their 40/80 hours work, and when released it should be in the public domain. Scientists have learned to do it (by getting tenured or postdocs), im…

So no authors, directors, or any other creative work that can be stolen & duplicated? Why don’t we get rid of patent laws too while we’re at it?

Unironically, let’s get rid of patent laws while we’re at it.

The advancement of technology would take off if we did not have patent trolls telling us what you could, and could not use understand and improve.

Just imagine what Palworld could be if it didn’t have to spend the last year two years, however long spending all of their budget fighting a patent case against the biggest fucking gaming company in the world instead of paying their developers to add new features and pals.

Imagine what crazy awesome intense games could be made with the nemesis system.

The patent is the coward‘s bargain.

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#163

Post by light_hue_1 »

lelanthran wrote: post #127
TFNA wrote: post #11

I’m a researcher who for years has been scanning my library’s holdings on my particular discipline for my own use, but also uploading the books to the shadow libraries for everyone else’s benefit. The revelation that LLMs are training on the shadow libraries has made me put a lot more effort into ensuring my scans are well-OCRed. The idea that I could eventually ask ChatGPT or whatever about obscure things in my fiel…

> The idea that I could eventually ask ChatGPT or whatever about obscure things in my field, and get useful output (of the "trust but verify" sort), is exciting. That's your idea, not the one they are going with. Their idea is that you pay a fee to access any information that was freely available. Your idea is tearing down of fences, their idea is gatekeeping. The two ideas are incompatible.

Who is "their"?

There are plenty of open models you can download today and run. No gatekeeping. No fencing.

This whole "AI is evil" trope is getting a bit tired.

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#164

Post by GeoAtreides »

xerox13ster wrote: post #161
maplethorpe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about something you've made for fun but haven't made any money from? Should someone else be allowed to sell and profit from your work? I'm not expecting to be "passively paid" for my hobbies. But I'm expecting that someone won't steal and profit from the things I make. Why would that be fair?

Say my hobby is statue making. I design and create a concrete statue that I failed to sell. Whether that be because I did not try or because I could not find a buyer, I could not sell it. So I took it, and I put it in my pile of completed works: a pile of crumbling statute rubble by the roadside. In the digital case, maybe it was posted online and the pile is a timeline or portfolio. Someone in a pick up truck drives…

For a concrete statue there sure are suspicious large amounts of straw peeking through

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#165

Post by glerk »

breezybottom wrote: post #140
glerk wrote: post #86

> Oh no!! Those strings of words belong to me!! Yeah, maybe it’s time to move on and find ways to benefit yourself and the rest of humanity outside of artificial monopolies and rent seeking. Copyright is dead.

I doubt that you work for free. Just because you don't value writing or journalism doesn't make it rent seeking.

Where did I say that writing or journalism are rent seeking? And why are you being dishonest?

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#167

Post by BrenBarn »

locknitpicker wrote: post #47
BrenBarn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the idea that you might have to eventually pay an AI company a large amount of money to ask ChatGPT such a question, while the library itself has lost funding?

> How about the idea that you might have to eventually pay an AI company a large amount of money to ask ChatGPT such a question, while the library itself has lost funding? There are plenty of free models with RAG support. Why do you believe everything starts and ends with a major corporation charging a subscription?

Not everything starts that way but these days it sure seems like everything ends that way.

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#168

Post by BobaFloutist »

egorfine wrote: post #101

Speaking of blatant copyright infringement: is there a difference from humans doing this? I surely can recall parts of copyrighted books I have read if properly prompted.

I'm pretty sure if you memorized a book and then performed it on demand for cash you would be infringing on its copyright, yes.

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#169

Post by kajman »

lelanthran wrote: post #127
TFNA wrote: post #11

I’m a researcher who for years has been scanning my library’s holdings on my particular discipline for my own use, but also uploading the books to the shadow libraries for everyone else’s benefit. The revelation that LLMs are training on the shadow libraries has made me put a lot more effort into ensuring my scans are well-OCRed. The idea that I could eventually ask ChatGPT or whatever about obscure things in my fiel…

> The idea that I could eventually ask ChatGPT or whatever about obscure things in my field, and get useful output (of the "trust but verify" sort), is exciting. That's your idea, not the one they are going with. Their idea is that you pay a fee to access any information that was freely available. Your idea is tearing down of fences, their idea is gatekeeping. The two ideas are incompatible.

There's a lot of money that wants this future. I think it has no hope of outrunning commoditization.

Re: Alignment whack-a-mole: Finetuning activates recall of copyrighted books in LLMs

#170

Post by maplethorpe »

xerox13ster wrote: post #161
maplethorpe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about something you've made for fun but haven't made any money from? Should someone else be allowed to sell and profit from your work? I'm not expecting to be "passively paid" for my hobbies. But I'm expecting that someone won't steal and profit from the things I make. Why would that be fair?

Say my hobby is statue making. I design and create a concrete statue that I failed to sell. Whether that be because I did not try or because I could not find a buyer, I could not sell it. So I took it, and I put it in my pile of completed works: a pile of crumbling statute rubble by the roadside. In the digital case, maybe it was posted online and the pile is a timeline or portfolio. Someone in a pick up truck drives…

I don't think I'm really following your analogy. Did I put it out on the side of the road because I didn't want it anymore, or did that person steal it off my property?

From what I can tell, the million dollars does not belong to me, but the person who stole my statue should be held accountable for stealing it, and they should be held accountable for selling an object that did not belong to them. Both of those things should be illegal.

Your analogy seems besides the point, though. In my original question, I specifically mentioned that the art piece was made for fun. Sometimes, as an artist, I make things just for fun, with no intention to ever sell them. Other people should not be able to take the things I make and sell them without my permission, or without some sort of deal beind struck between me and the seller. A society where it's legal to take another artist's work and sell it without their permission would be supremely unfair. A society for vultures.

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