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AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

axelk.ee

581–590 of 783 posts

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s like if I go to Golden Gate Park and pick one flower, I shouldn’t do that, but no one cares. But if I build a machine to automatically cut every flower in the park because I want to sell them, that’s different. The problem here is, in your example the small scale example, and the large scale example are both unacceptable behavior. Learning from others at a small scale is not only socially acceptable, but is th…

Wasn’t his point about plagiarism? That is also not ok on a small scale.

I was trying to stick to the example, but I agree, that getting away with something doesn't determine if it is right or wrong. And the whole concept of that makes for shaky ground for any form of legal or ethical argument.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t his point about plagiarism? That is also not ok on a small scale.

I think the difference here is that you guys are talking ethics. And in fact what were talking about is enforcement. While its unethical to pick one flower (in it's purest form, robbing the commons of the beauty of a flower), it won't be enforced.

Fair. AI might also not be the problem, but how it is utilized.

Suddenly everyone and their grandma are specialist at everything and the actual value of understanding is not appreciated anymore.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of human knowledge (an exaggeration, I know) at our finger tips. It's the most punk rock, anarchist thing tech has done since the internet and it's funny it's shaped as a product.

I think the most punk rock, anarchist thing that could happen is someone leverages the shitty, pre-digested consumer-facing models to orchestrate a cybersecurity incident where the frontier base models are stolen and freely distributed to the public.

The way the Chinese have been running inference against the US models is somewhat what you are saying.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#584
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the most powerful technology we ever invented I recon agriculture and the steam engine would beat out ChatGPT by just a smidge. I would put eyeglasses/the book/vaccines/sanitation far above LLMs in technological power. Right now AI is just kinda nothing, it has potential sure, but today its just a giant pit for people to burn money in.

What are you referring to when you refer to the technology of agriculture? Like John Deere's latest tractor? GMOs? The shift from hunter gathering to agrarian society?

>What are you referring to when you refer to the technology of agriculture?

Planting crops and harvesting them.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#585

There’s a fallacy that gets used a whole lot to justify things like this (not just with LLMs), and I see it in many of the comments here: If it’s OK (or at least negligible on a small scale), then it must be OK on a large scale. It usually goes something like: If I can make money by learning something from a web page, why does a computer making money by learning everything from everyone upset people so? It’s the same…

We ran into a lot of stuff like this in the early days of the web. For example, there was a lot of information that was "public" in that anyone could go to the city courthouse and ask to see the documents. But it changed in nature when you could suddenly look up anyone in the country by typing their name in your browser.

I am not quite sure why my address history, known aliases, and sometimes phone number, are publicly available to anyone who Googles my name, and I'm not sure how to opt out of this.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#586
post #34

I dunno. People do this exact thing by hand (digest everything they've read and produce something indirectly derivative--what author has not been so-influenced?) and it's not a copyright violation. It's just as impossible to dig around in a model to find Hamlet as it is to do digging around a human brain. And if the result is an obvious copy, then you have a violation no matter how it was created. As someone who thin…

The author acknowledges this by saying “at a bigger scale”, implying there are smaller scale methods such as what you have said.

But now we're going to have to draw a line at some scale, and that's going to get quite tricky.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin The argument, as I understand it is that the "theft" is in quotes because it's not literally copyright infringement, but fair use of an old public-domain folk tale that ends up consuming the latter. Today, when kids know "Aladdin" they know the copyrighted/trademarked Disney character, not the traditional folk tale- that's the "theft" that happened.

Would most kids around the world even know Aladdin if it wasn't for the Disney copyrighted movie?

I know very well before the movie. It's a classic folk tale.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#588

There’s a fallacy that gets used a whole lot to justify things like this (not just with LLMs), and I see it in many of the comments here: If it’s OK (or at least negligible on a small scale), then it must be OK on a large scale. It usually goes something like: If I can make money by learning something from a web page, why does a computer making money by learning everything from everyone upset people so? It’s the same…

Can you map this more directly to claims made about AI? It's impossible to agree or disagree with you. You've just given us an analogy - but to what?

Not sure what you're missing here. The other comment replies don't seem to be missing it. See the article, etc.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#589

There’s a fallacy that gets used a whole lot to justify things like this (not just with LLMs), and I see it in many of the comments here: If it’s OK (or at least negligible on a small scale), then it must be OK on a large scale. It usually goes something like: If I can make money by learning something from a web page, why does a computer making money by learning everything from everyone upset people so? It’s the same…

Of course it's robbery. I don't think anyone is truly arguing it's not. The issue is that, if we don't do it, China will. Game over.

I'm surprised I hvan't seen more economist scholars exploring this topic; it's a fastincating phenomenon. I've seen folks try and re-visit history and compare what's happening with AI to some historic event--but, we've never seen anything quite like it. As much as history repeats itself; at the forefront of innvotaion it doesn't.

I suspect that there will one day be an AI tax as society tries to reclaim the value of the theft; maybe even UBI of some form. Until then, buy the stocks and ride the theft wave. The economsits are certainly exploring the K shaped economy, and this is why.

Re: AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale

#590
post #499
post #456

I dislike this argument because it’s about limiting the most powerful technology we ever invented because it doesn’t fit well with how we established some social structures.

>the most powerful technology we ever invented I recon agriculture and the steam engine would beat out ChatGPT by just a smidge. I would put eyeglasses/the book/vaccines/sanitation far above LLMs in technological power. Right now AI is just kinda nothing, it has potential sure, but today its just a giant pit for people to burn money in.

Solving one of the most famous Erdos problems that has remained unsolved for 80 years without using tools like lean but instead a giant reasoning block is quite a lot more than "kinda nothing"
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