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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

#91

Post by red75prime »

Papazsazsa wrote: post #43
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…

[flagged]

The ridiculously long "70 years after the author's death" makes it highly problematic in many cases.

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

#92

Post by x-complexity »

Modern copyright duration is the actual problem: It should've never been longer than what was outlined in the Statute of Anne. (28~14 years)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne

The Lord of the Rings should be in the public domain.

The original Harry Potter book should've been in the public domain.

Star Wars should've been in the public domain.

Everything from before 1998 should've been in the public domain by now, but isn't.

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

#93

Post by JKolios »

neoncontrails wrote: post #32
tommek4077 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happened after Napster? Filesharing totally stopped, right? With the chinese in the mix it wont stop ai. It probably will change Copyright.

Can you name an active filesharing app that's in use today? The action against Napster might not have killed filesharing, but it was p2p's Antietam.

[dead]

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

#95

Post by chongli »

vidarh wrote: post #77
SomaticPirate wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The vast majority of writers do not recoup their investment, not due to piracy but due to a massive glut of works available. I've published a couple of novels. They've sold far better than average, and yet not sold enough to be remotely worth it if I did it for the money. Piracy might have made a tiny dent, but the many millions of competing novels matters far more. Anyone who has self published will have experienced…

[dead]

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

#96

Post by bakugo »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #41
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?

Library funding is a political stance that has only imaginary connection to whether people pay to ask things of ChatGPT. People can pay to talk to an AI and also government can fund libraries.

Do you believe it makes sense for the government to fund libraries that almost nobody uses because they'd rather ask ChatGPT?

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

#97

Post by fragmede »

GaryBluto wrote: post #65
altmanaltman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is any of that legal? Can you just take books from the library and then scan and upload digital copies? How do you deal with the ethics of this personally, stealing to make it easier for AI to steal so AI gets better? Does calling yourself a "researcher" make you feel like its actually something worthwhile you're doing?

> How do you deal with the ethics of this personally, stealing to make it easier for AI to steal so AI gets better? By quoting your comment in my reply, have I "stolen" your comment?

By reading this comment you have entered into a legal contract, by which you owe me $5. Failure to pay will be reported to the Internet police.

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

#98

Post by granabluto »

altmanaltman wrote: post #55
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…

How is any of that legal? Can you just take books from the library and then scan and upload digital copies? How do you deal with the ethics of this personally, stealing to make it easier for AI to steal so AI gets better? Does calling yourself a "researcher" make you feel like its actually something worthwhile you're doing?

First, it's called infringement, not stealing. It's a custom defined term in a custom defined law.

Second, it is totally legal to read the book in a public library, for free, right now.

Third, laws can change. Current copyright law was pushed by one company (Disney) to +90years, to their benefit, and can be redesigned/pushed back by AI companies, for their benefit.

A 2 year copyright duration sounds like a good compromise.

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

#99

Post by indigo945 »

bakugo wrote: post #96
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library funding is a political stance that has only imaginary connection to whether people pay to ask things of ChatGPT. People can pay to talk to an AI and also government can fund libraries.

Do you believe it makes sense for the government to fund libraries that almost nobody uses because they'd rather ask ChatGPT?

People are already not using libraries because they'd rather rot their brains on TikTok than read a book. (Also, for information lookup, the internet and search engines exist, and have for a while now.) This has no actual causal relation.

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

#100

Post by ehnto »

SomaticPirate wrote: post #62
ralph84 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI's valuation is more than basically all traditional media companies combined. Nvidia could buy the NYTimes with a month's worth of profits. The top 8 companies in the S&P 500 all benefit more from LLMs being successful than strict copyright enforcement. Congress has very broad power over copyright law. If a suit is successful there is a lot of money and power to be deployed to change copyright law.

Exactly. So just buy it. They have the money or does Sam need a moonbase to complete his villain arc. Any of these AI companies could come out and start paying creators a licensing fee. Instead of being forced to pay damages which is their current approach

If we have to devolve into a tech dystopia, the least they could do is make it interesting. The billionares should get into a lunar robot war, corporate space wars would make a great drama. Maybe if they're busy playing Star Wars they'll forget about the rest of us for a while and we can repurpose all that wealth.
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