mfryd

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mfryd
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  • Courts say AI training on copyrighted material is legal

    If everyone who writes a comment on this page will send a fee to Dr Seuss for learning from his books to read and speak, then I will pay attention to their views if they oppose AI learning from published sources. But if you aren't willing to pay everyone that you learn from, for every word that comes out of your mouth, then I don't see why AI should have to pay either. Next, are we going to charge aliens for learning English by reading the radio waves that are being sent into deep space?
    Somehow you’ve convinced yourself that AI is sentient and learning from influences. It’s not. It has a database of pirated data that it uses to essentially copy/paste responses from.
    By no means do I think AI is sentient. Stop putting words in my mouth. Also, I do not believe that sentience absolves an entity from paying fees for using data that it has absorbed from other beings, as you seem to be implying there. And I totally disagree with your explanation of AI. It is not a "copy" of data. In fact, every single time I use AI to get some data, it ALWAYS goes to the internet to look things up, because it hasn't "memorized the internet" as simpletons think it has.

    Up until now, the courts have been the entity that decides whether a "work" that has been "used for profit" has "infringed" on someone else's work. That's a perfectly valid system for going forward. AI doesn't change anything here. If anyone uses AI to write a plagiarized work, then the persons who benefit from that plagiarization should be suable. But we shouldn't stop AI from creating fair use derivatives of other people's work, just as you shouldn't be sued for writing a song that sounds vaguely similar to an ABBA song. If you can take advantage of "fair use", then so can other people who use AI for the same thing. After all, half the videos on Youtube are taking advantage of fair use laws, by using someone else's video or audio.
    There are limits.

    It is certainly possible to write a book about a young wizard without violating J. K. Rowling's copyrights.  However, if your wizard has far too many elements in common with Harry Potter, you may very well be violating her copyright.

    However, If you ask AI to write a story about an orphan who finds out he is a wizard, and the AI's story has him going to Hogwarts, playing Quidditch, having a poor redheaded friend from a large family, etc., then it may very well be  a copyright infringement.

    This brings up the question as to what AI should do if the prompt is "write a new short story about Harry Potter that takes place during his first year at Hogwarts."   Such a story would likely violate J. K. Rowling's copyrights, as the characters in the Harry Potter stories are copyrighted intellectual property.
    ronnnumenoreanwilliamlondonsconosciutorezwits
  • Courts say AI training on copyrighted material is legal

    danox said:
    mfryd said:
    It's a complicated topic.

    There are good points on both sides of the training question.  On one hand, AI programs are being trained based on the hard work of previous human artists.  The AI companies are profiting, but the original artists get nothing. 

    On the other hand, the AI is not doing anything new.  It's common for individuals to study the work of others, and use that study to inform their work.  When interviewed, great directors often discuss how they have studied the works of great directors to learn their techniques and style.  The AI programs are simply really good at this.

    My understanding, is that an art student can study the works of a current artist, and produce new works in that style.   I don't believe an artist's style is protectable by copyright.  What an artist can't do, is to produce work that is essentially a copy of an existing copyrighted work, or that contains copyrighted elements (including copyrighted characters).  An artist also has to be careful that work done in someone else's style is not represented as being that artist's work.  If I were to write a book in the style of Dr. Seuss, I would need to make it very clear that the book was *not* a work by Dr. Seuss. 

    Copyright allows control over making copies of a creative work.  It does not allow control over works that were "inspired" by a copyrighted piece.

    An issue with current AI, is that it doesn't understand the limitations of copyright law, and can sometimes produce results that would typically be considered copyright infringement.  

    It's going to take a while to sort out what rights various parties should have.   There is more than one reasonable way to resolve the legal issues.  It will be interesting to see how Congress and the courts resolve these issues.

    Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, and this is not legal advice.  It is merely my imperfect understanding of some of the issues.

    AI can’t think and it can’t reason and because of that it knows no limitations today, however one day it will, but that day is decades away, but that does not mean you should get to scrape all of the copyrighted material since 1920 at your leisure but the protected class gets to do so.
    People are allowed to scrape as much copyrighted material as they like.  Machines are simply better at it.

    This is a common challenge with new technology.  In the past, certain activities were limited by the technology of the time.  Therefore, certain activities could not rise to the level where they were a common issue.  As technology improves, so do various abilities.

    For instance, 50 years ago we didn't really need laws governing the ability for private companies to track people.  If they wanted to track someone, they hired a private investigator, and he would follow the person of interest.  If you wanted to track 50 people, you would need 50 private investigators.  The available technology limited the collection of tracking data.   If a company wanted to track someone, and sell that information, they could.  It just wasn't a common thing.

    Today, the three major cellular companies maintain a real time database of where just about every adult is currently located.  They have to.  They need to know where you are so when someone calls you the signal only needs to go to the cell tower closest to you.  That data is extremely valuable.  Knowing where you are, and where you have been, makes it possible to make some very good guesses about your likes and dislikes.  That makes it possible to target you with ads, that are designed to appeal to your personal preferences, or feed off your personal fears.

    Once it becomes trivial to track people, we need to think about whether and how to regulate tracking.

    In the past, it wasn't possible to read a large percentage of what gets published.  It was even less possible to memorize every passage of every book you have ever read.   Now that computers are doing this, it's important that we consider whether we need new regulations and what should they be?
    randominternetpersonthtMisterKitdanoxwilliamlondonsconosciuto
  • Courts say AI training on copyrighted material is legal

    It's a complicated topic.

    There are good points on both sides of the training question.  On one hand, AI programs are being trained based on the hard work of previous human artists.  The AI companies are profiting, but the original artists get nothing. 

    On the other hand, the AI is not doing anything new.  It's common for individuals to study the work of others, and use that study to inform their work.  When interviewed, great directors often discuss how they have studied the works of great directors to learn their techniques and style.  The AI programs are simply really good at this.

    My understanding, is that an art student can study the works of a current artist, and produce new works in that style.   I don't believe an artist's style is protectable by copyright.  What an artist can't do, is to produce work that is essentially a copy of an existing copyrighted work, or that contains copyrighted elements (including copyrighted characters).  An artist also has to be careful that work done in someone else's style is not represented as being that artist's work.  If I were to write a book in the style of Dr. Seuss, I would need to make it very clear that the book was *not* a work by Dr. Seuss. 

    Copyright allows control over making copies of a creative work.  It does not allow control over works that were "inspired" by a copyrighted piece.

    An issue with current AI, is that it doesn't understand the limitations of copyright law, and can sometimes produce results that would typically be considered copyright infringement.  

    It's going to take a while to sort out what rights various parties should have.   There is more than one reasonable way to resolve the legal issues.  It will be interesting to see how Congress and the courts resolve these issues.

    Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, and this is not legal advice.  It is merely my imperfect understanding of some of the issues.
    muthuk_vanalingamspliff monkeyMisterKitrandominternetpersonwilliamlondon
  • Apple shareholders sue over Siri delays and massive losses

    thedba said:
    nubus said:
    M68000 said:
    The debacle of Apple advertising “Apple Intelligence” before it was ready may be the beginning of the end of the Tim Cook era. 
    DOJ and consumers will take Apple to court on running ads for vaporware. Agree, this is the beginning to the end. It can take a while before he is replaced. Microsoft drifted for 10 years and behaved like a bond. We have seen Apple slide to #2, #3, and... well... the distance to Amazon makes it likely that Apple could drop one more spot. 

    As for his legacy we need to split CEO from COO. He was outstanding as COO.
    And you are all ignoring the elephant in the room. TARRIFS.
    Which Tim Cook has nothing to do with and has no control of.
    Actually, Tim Cook does have some control over tariffs.   He donated a million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund, and that got Apple a temporary exemption from some of the worst tariffs.   Cook could identify other ways to transfer money to Trump in order to exempt Apple from tariffs.

    The challenge is that Trump is starting a side hustle selling cell phones and cellular service.  This means we may be seeing carefully constructed tariffs that apply to all phones except for his.   This means that a payoff from Apple would need to be large enough to compensate for the loss of Trump's cell phone revenue.
    williamlondonbaconstangwatto_cobra
  • Apple shareholders sue over Siri delays and massive losses


    Isn’t the point of buying stock that you take a risk on supporting the company? How can you sue them?
    When you buy stock, you are investing in the company.  Often, the intention of buying a piece of a business is to make money.  For many, buying stock is a business decision, not a show of support for the company.

    As with anything, people get upset if they have been lied to in order to make a purchase.  If you bought a car and an advertised feature was missing (or did not work) you might be quite unhappy at being deceived.

    It is not unusual to buy shares of a company because you think the company will make money, and therefore your share will increase in value and/or pay you dividends.  The public statements of a company are often important factors in that purchase decision.  If you believe you were lied to in an effort to get you to buy the shares, then it would not be surprising if you get upset, and perhaps feel cheated.

    williamlondonamarkap