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

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#731

Post by sjducb » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

Baldbvrhunter wrote: post #2

I imagine the argument might be like this: I hire a session musician to play on my new single, paying him $100. I record the whole session. I ask him to play the opening to "Stairway to Heaven" and he does so. "Well, I can't use that as a sample without paying" "Ok play something like Jimmy Page" "Hmm, still sounds like Stairway to Heaven" "Ok, try and sound less like Stairway to Heaven but in that style" "Great, I'l…

Ed Sheeran just won a case like this.

He basically played the four chord song in court, and showed that the prosecutions’s song was “copying” an earlier song.

https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/04/ed-sheeran-ver...

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#732

Post by null_point » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

I suspect this may delay some short term progress by creating pressure on AI labs to train their models from data curated or synthesized in a way that is contentious of copyright law.

There is already troves of data that are fair game for training, but even "corrupted" data sets can probably be used if used intelligently. We've already seen examples of new models effectively being trained off of GPT-4. That approach with filters for copyrighted material might allow for data that is sufficiently "scrambled". Not to say building such a filter is definitely easy, but seems plausible.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#733

Post by blizzard_dev_17 » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

Art9681 wrote: post #615

TheRoque wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it makes generative AI essentially unusable, because you don't know if the output is plagiarism or not, so you'd just doubt it always and never use it.

The same tools and methods used to detect plagiarism or copyright violation can be employed to check the generated content and modify it just enough to fall outside the scope of any law banning its use for profit. Inevitably, a platform will emerge to do this. From a technical standpoint it is game over. This is indisputable. By the end of next year many models and software tools will exist whose entire purpose will…

> What are they going to do?

Litigation. Hiding behind changing geolocation won't do much since law enforcement has access to the same tools but the difference is they can force companies (your ISP, google) to comply.

Obsolete take, next!

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#734

Post by vid » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #554

davidy123 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not as true as it used to be, and there are still plenty of useful open journals/open science publications, though proper attribution would often be important. [edit] you could pretty much say that on principle, any significant development should have a publication in the open.

and yet, who pays? This is fine if we are going to go full communist - I have no objection personally - but selective appropriation of peoples livelihoods is more full mafia or full feudal. I don't see that as a step forward.

I am not sure there are many significant science breakthroughs that aren't basically built on a 'full communist' (publicly funded) model.

There is a very significant tension between making all works that are produced on the back of giants all the way down free (practically speaking, everything, unless there are significant works developed by feral people), vs keeping individuals fed and happy, vs giving corporations so much power they only serve themselves.

I think the benefits of saying any significant development must at least publish its information metadata including descriptions has too many benefits from any perspective to not be supported, and I'm not sure it'd be that expensive if its incorporated in existing systems. It would create its own network effects.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#735

Post by davidy123 » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #552

davidy123 wrote: post #80

The solution could be great. I really don't like the way culture always goes to the same tropes, calling any potential innovation "out of Star Trek" (with attendant distorted expectations), right down to expecting an interface based on literal hand-waving in Minority Report. If copyright held works ("USS Enterprise") could be removed, yet the actual essential concepts (space ship, naming things) retained, it would be…

> special access for the elite. I think that this is about property rights, the news industry has been gutted in the last 30 years, a lot of content creators (journalists) have lost their livings. The ones that are left are going to lose their livings if the content they generate is rendered valueless because there is no way of protecting that value. In terms of special access, think about your shoes. They are nice,…

I don't think it will be rendered valueless, but it shouldn't be completely exclusive. Basically as an extension of today's search model (which is a large part of what LLMs are, along with a grab-bag of useful ML algorithms), people should be able to access information universally, but if they want to go to perspectives or very fine details, then a pay model is acceptable, as long as there's a trail from freely available information and evaluable models. Ultimately imo there are bigger problems with elite/gatekeepered information than finding new ways to produce or support information development, given the power a few corporations are gaining and the opportunity to overcome stratified society.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#736

Post by pixl97 » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 4:48 PM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #619

pixl97 wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

How will it control me without resolving the paradox? If it gets annoying or meddlesome enough I'll just unplug the power cable, right?

How do you unplug the power on your iPhone? You can't even take the batteries out. But ya, if you assume it will take massive amounts of power to run an AI in the future its easy to see your logical error here.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#737

Post by anticensor » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

sensanaty wrote: post #159

squidbeak wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a child is instructed to read a copyrighted work at school, which later becomes a factor in his own derivative works, he won't be in breach of copyright. Why should other intelligent entities be prevented from reading copyrighted works and gaining whatever there is to gain from those works the way any human might?

A child isn't a computer program, and no amount of anthropomorphizing will ever make them so. Especially ChatGPT and other LLMs, they're not even close to being AGI or an "intelligent entity" as you put it, despite what all the AI-bro hype and marketing would like everyone else to believe.

Indeed it is. It includes a few trillions of computers running a program written in a base-4 alphabet, all running in unison.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#738

Post by anticensor » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

midasuni wrote: post #50

jltsiren wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can easily see it happening. "Content" is at least as big business as "tech", and the people in it are politically better connected.

Apple could buy most of the NYT, RIAA and MPAA companies combined with petty cash. The big ones are Disney and Sony with a combined market cap about 250b. Microsoft alone is worth over 10 times that.

MPAA and RIAA are not joint-stock companies, they are specialised trade unions to enforce intellectual property. They have no shares to acquire. If you mean acquiring the individual members, that would encounter an enforcement from your favourite antitrust enforcement commission.

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#739

Post by up2isomorphism » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

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.…

You probably have to make one thing very clear before venting on big corporations: do you think these ips have value or not? If they do why you do not want to pay to the owner? If it does not then you shouldn’t use it. Either way there will be no conflict.(BTW OpenAI is an also a corporation in fact backed by one of the biggest corporation in the world).

Re: Things are about to get worse for generative AI

#740

Post by cade » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 8:14 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #655

shkkmo wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty sure it was never like that, it was always gated by iTunes. Then you need to recalibrate your certainty assessment. Not only did I do this personally with both music and videos, it is incredibly easy to find documentation of the steps. First google result: https://www.alphr.com/add-music-to-ipod-without-itunes/ Apple's ipod sales absolutely benefited significantly from music piracy. Especially early on when…

I looked through the instructions I guess I'll just say "meh" -- it doesn't negate the main point, which is that Apple spent a lot of money and time to acquire rights, and they have a music store. It is gated by iTunes, just not 100% I know some people side load stuff on devices -- there's no device where that's impossible.

> It is gated by iTunes, just not 100%

I bought an iPod Mini in '04 that I used for a summer photography course as an external hard drive. An actual external hard drive would have been cheaper, but after my summer trip was over and I no longer needed the additional storage space — hey, I had an iPod Mini! I copied photos onto it from a CF card via USB. It was literally drag and drop. There was no iTunes gating. You're just... wrong here.