this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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But the AI is looking at thousands, if not millions of books, articles, comments, etc. That's what humans do as well - they draw inspiration from a variety of sources. So is sentience the distinguishing criteria for copyright? Only a being capable of original thought can create original work, and therefore anything not capable of original thought cannot create copyrighted work?
Also, irrelevant here but calling LLMs a glorified autocomplete is like calling jet engines a "glorified horse". Technically true but you're trivialising it.
Yes. Creative work is made by creative people. Writing is creative work. A computer cannot be creative, and thus generative AI is a disgusting perversion of what you wanna call “literature”. Fuck, writing and art have always been primarily about self-expression. Computers can’t express themselves with original thoughts. That’s the whole entire point. And this is why humanistic studies are important, by the way.
I absolutely agree with the second half, guided by Ian Kerr's paper "Death of the AI Author"; quoting from the abstract:
I think the part courts will struggle with is if this 'thing' is not an author of the works then it can't infringe either?
Courts already expressed themselves, and what they said is basically copyright can’t be claimed for the throw up AIs come up with, which means corporations can’t use it to make money or sue anyone for using those products. Which means generated AI products are a whole bowl of nothing legally, and have no identity nor any value. The whole reason commissions are expensive is that someone has spent money, time and effort to make the thing you asked of them, and that’s why corresponding them with money is right.
Also, why can’t AI be used to automatize the shit jobs and allow us to do the creative work? Why are artists and creatives being pushed out of doing the jobs only humans can do? Like this is the thing that makes me furious: that STEM bros are blowing each other in the fields over humans being pushed out of humanity. Without once thinking AI is much more apt at replacing THEIR jobs, but I’m not calling for their jobs to be removed. This is just a dystopic reality we’re barreling towards, and there are people who are HAPPY about humans losing what makes us human and speeding toward pure, total, complete misery. That’s why I’m emotional about this: because art is only, solely made by humans, and people create art to communicate something they have inside. And only humans can do that - and some animals, maybe. Machines have nothing inside. They are nothing, they are only tools. It’s like asking a hammer to write its own poetry, it’s just insane.
The trivialization doesn't negate the point though, and LLMs aren't intelligence.
The AI consumed all of that content and I would bet that not a single of the people who created the content were compensated, but the AI strictly on those people to produce anything coherent.
I would argue that yes, generative artificial stupidity doesn't meet the minimum bar of original thought necessary to create a standard copyrightable work unless every input has consent to be used, and laundering content through multiple generations of an LLM or through multiple distinct LLMs should not impact the need for consent.
Without full consent, it's just a massive loophole for those with money to exploit the hard work of the masses who generated all of the actual content.