Things are about to get worse for generative AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#601

Post by djhn » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:03 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #529

Havoc wrote: post #55

To me that’s the wrong question. Everyone knew it was trained on copyrighted material and capable of eerily similar outputs. But it’s already done. At scale. Large corps committing fully. There is no chance of that toothpaste going back in the tube. It’s a bit like when big tech built on aggressive user data harvesting. Whether it’s right, ethical or even legal is academic at this stage. They just did it - effectivel…

This comment is ignorant of history It happened with Napster, then Apple Music, now streaming services There is no widespread file sharing in the general public, instead we have devices that we don’t own, and streaming subscriptions Apple didn’t just copy all the music onto iPods and sell it — it took them a decade of deal making and lots of money to acquire the rights to the content I’m not saying what’s right or wr…

Considering that buying 'licensed' copies of Hollywood movies and Billboard chart music is possible in maybe 10-20% of the world, I can guarantee that pirated consumption (bootleg CD-Rs and DVDs, but also 'alternative' streaming sites) outnumbers 'licensed' sales for most successful films. And it's 'licensed', as opposed to 'legal', because a large proportion of the world doesn't really care about American copyright.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#602

Post by kranke155 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

marckrn wrote: post #431

kranke155 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow and incredible amount of things need to go right for artists to do well in your world ?

I too would love to earn a living by pursuing my hobbies. Too bad, I'm not in the 0,001-0,1%

You don’t seem to have any idea what artists do to make a living

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#603

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

gaganyaan wrote: post #491

sensanaty wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They aren't encouraging people to misuse them and it is solely on the user's shoulders for their choice to use them in a way that would cause infringement if the result is used commercially. I agree in principle, but that they can in the first place, especially when it accidentally happens, and at such massive scales more importantly, is the issue methinks. And no one's talking about abolishing the AIs here, we're…

You won't get what you want with those sorts of deals. OK, say every artist gets $100, one time (exact amount varies but would not be much). Everything's properly licensed according to you and the artists are essentially no better off, and the models are now good enough to create new training data for the future and artists never see any more money. You've won, I guess?

Yeah people don't understand that the current situation of infringement is only temporary.

People are already working on completely copyright safe models and those models can still destroy the entire art market.

Ex: adobe has a gen AI model, trained on content that they own.

What now artists? Can't hide behind fake outrage over infringement for that model. But that model can still end the art industry.

I wonder what the new argument will be then when fully non infringing models destroy the market regardless.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#604

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:07 PM UTC

symlinkk wrote: post #515

stale2002 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, a machine isn't an autonomous mind that does anything on its own. Instead, it is a person who uses the machine, just like fan artists can use a computer to make fan art.

Is that what you’d tell the police if you were caught selling pirated copies of Blu Rays?

That supports my point, not yours.

A machine being involved in the process doesn't change any of the copyright implications.

Either it's infringement or it isn't, regardless if the human did it on their own, or if the human did it with a computer.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#605

Post by chubot » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:08 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #574

chubot wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is ignorant of history It happened with Napster, then Apple Music, now streaming services There is no widespread file sharing in the general public, instead we have devices that we don’t own, and streaming subscriptions Apple didn’t just copy all the music onto iPods and sell it — it took them a decade of deal making and lots of money to acquire the rights to the content I’m not saying what’s right or wr…

> Apple didn’t just copy all the music onto iPods and sell it — it took them a decade of deal making and lots of money to acquire the rights to the content I recaly iPod being a hard drive that I could connect to a computer and just copy music directly to.

Pretty sure it was never like that, it was always gated by iTunes.

It was an integrated system, not an open one.

Definitely is today. It's difficult to copy mp3 files directly to an iPhone and play them. Even from a Mac, but even more so from a PC or Linux.

I bet less than 1% of iPhone and iPad users do that. They mostly pay for streaming. (Again, not saying that's better, but just that the general public doesn't do Napster-like file sharing.)

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#606

Post by shkkmo » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:09 PM UTC

pardoned_turkey wrote: post #584

ctoth wrote: post #470

Everybody just buying into the corporate narrative that anyone can actually own these sorts of things. Who truly owns the tales of Snow White and Cinderella? These stories didn't originate with Disney; they are part of a rich tapestry of folklore passed down through generations. Disney's success was partly built on adapting these existing narratives, which were once shared and reshaped by communities over centuries.…

Oh come on. Copyright is a fairly ancient concept that benefits normal people as much as it benefits big corporations. Most book authors, songwriters, and so on aren't fat cats, and they would be harmed if we had zero protections for the duplication of their work. They'd need to depend on state sponsorship or charitable private patronage, both of which are problematic for obvious reasons and limit the range of artist…

This is full of so many inaccuracies.

> Copyright is a fairly ancient concept

The idea is fairly old, but it's current implementation in law is not nearly that old.

> that benefits normal people as much as it benefits big corporations

Clearly false if you measure that benefit in monetary terms.

> Copyright is usually interpreted fairly narrowly, and doesn't prevent you from creating inspired works, or retelling the same story in your own words.

Absolutely false. You can absolutely be stopped from retelling copyrighted fictional stories. You can even be stopped from telling new stories with derivative characters or settings.

> Generative AI is a problem largely because it destroys these revenue streams for millions of people.

How? The restrictions on selling images of Mickey Mouse exist regarless of if they were created with or without AI assistance.

> But if we end up with a framework that maintains financial incentives to artistic expression, it's probably a good thing.

We already have that framework and arguably it is already far more restrictive than it needs to be to maintain incentives for artistic creation. Indeed, these rules now often limit new artistic expression or prevent artists from monetizing their creations.

The types of art that are helped the most today by the copyright laws of tosay are the kinds that require large budgets to produce. The types of art that are most hurt are those produced by fans who want to build new things upon the narratives in our shared culture.

We need to shorten copyright durations and expand fair use protections and monetization options for derivative works. We don't need to make copyright even more powerful than it already is.

Edit: If you disagree, I'd be curious to hear your answer to this question. A character like Harry Potter is so widely known that it is now a ubiquitous part of our culture. To incentive new novels, what is the minimum duration we need to give J K Rowling control of who is allowed to write stories about this cultural touchstone?

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#607

Post by rvz » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:13 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #480

Spivak wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already happening and most people like having AI more than the DMCA. Selling people on the idea that ML training is piracy to people who on average pirate content with no moral quandary will go nowhere.

People liked having Napster, but it didn't stop file sharing going from a big mainstream app to underground sites run out of Russia (or other places that ignore copyright law). Sure, you can download music/movies still, but it's not like the Napster days. "Generative AI" is obviously copyright infringement, so owners of the copyright will win in court. Either Microsoft will have to fight a mass of legal cases, some w…

Everything you said right here is entirely accurate.

> It looks like Adobe has the right idea with their image generation that is trained on images which they know they have the rights to use.

The C2PA includes Microsoft as one of the alliance members [0]. Microsoft knows that there is a way of tracing the outputs of the generated source images which is with the C2PA standard.

The fact that many AI proponents and their companies don't do this tells us that they are uncooperative and not very transparent in how they train their own AI systems despite having the experts to do so.

It's not that hard to disclose the training data. What else are they hiding?

[0] https://c2pa.org/

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#608

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

marckrn wrote: post #277

mypastself wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that art’s core purpose is societal impact seems to be a common refrain in today’s media, and I completely disagree. Its principal purpose is provoking emotion in the individual. This idea of art teaching you a lesson is likely why there’s so much ham-fisted “activist” fiction anowadays.

I agree, but by extension of provoking emotion it CAN change society, but it doesn't have to - wether on purpose or not. The point I was trying to make was that occupying mindspace, providing inspiration, being culturally influencal etc. are idealistic, non-monitary rewards that should be part of the equation when discussing alleged IP-theft, remixing, attribution and so on. I'm not saying their shouldn't be any rule…

These things kind of rub up against the core question: What is the purpose of granting exclusivity to a creator (thru copyright)?

That's an answer we have. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.

If we have to squint hard to make our justification align with copyright's purpose or have to follow a long logic-chain to get back to it's purpose - that's a strong indicator we have lost our way.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#609

Post by ben_w » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

syndacks wrote: post #593

ctoth wrote: post #470

Everybody just buying into the corporate narrative that anyone can actually own these sorts of things. Who truly owns the tales of Snow White and Cinderella? These stories didn't originate with Disney; they are part of a rich tapestry of folklore passed down through generations. Disney's success was partly built on adapting these existing narratives, which were once shared and reshaped by communities over centuries.…

Did you read the article? Who owns Mario? Nintendo owns Mario, full stop. Your argument completely eschews the legal system of which modern society depends on to function as effectively as it does. There’s a reason you can’t steal other people’s work.

Nintendo owns both the trademark (even if not specifically registered) and the copyright, but these are distinct things.

As I'm not a lawyer I don't want to embarrass myself by opining whether or not Nintendo has any claim over photographs of cosplays or other fan art, especially given quite how close two of the "video game plumber" images seemed to be to what they do own. The other two images, being a lot more fan-art-like, are examples where I think it would be an interesting question rather than incredibly obviously too close to Nintendo, although even there "interesting" means I wouldn't be surprised by an actual lawyer saying either of "this is obviously fine" or "this is obviously trademark infringement regardless of what it was trained on".

Now I'm wondering if there even are any videogame plumbers besides Marion and Luigi…

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#610

Post by pixl97 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 8:19 PM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #600

pixl97 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for 1, pass an image to a multimodal LLM and simply ask 'what is going on in this image'. Robot LLM models are already turning this in to actionable data they of which they can interact with the world. As in you can send a Robot into a room it has not been before and tell it "bring back a sock, a blue one not a red one" and get an actionable response with a higher degree of success. This takes some degree of gener…

Well the real test of all this stuff is "what can I use it for?". And I can sort my own socks, so that's not super compelling ;). More seriously, the real world is complex. Let's say I want to replace the forklift operator at my local lumberyard with a robot forklift that can ostensibly outperform a human employee. Even if there is some magical AI program which could theoretically drive the forklift around, identify…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

This is an issue of 'mechanical intelligence' being hundreds of millions of years old and 'higher intelligence' being pretty new on the evolutionary spectrum.

And the AGI will keep you around as a dexterous 'robot' while supervising your thoughts to make sure you're keeping in line I guess, while day after day cranking out more capable robots in which to replace you with eventually.