this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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OpenAI, Microsoft hit with new author copyright lawsuit over AI training (www.reuters.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

OpenAI copied tens of thousands of nonfiction books without permission to teach its large language models to respond to human text prompts, said author and Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton, who is leading the proposed class action filed in Manhattan federal court.

Martin and Jonathan Franzen, against OpenAI and other tech companies over the alleged misuse of their work to train AI systems.

The company has invested billions of dollars in the artificial intelligence startup and integrated OpenAI's systems into its products.

"While OpenAI and Microsoft refuse to pay nonfiction authors, their AI platform is worth a fortune," Sancton's attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement.

Sancton's lawsuit said that OpenAI copied nonfiction books, including his "Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night" to train its GPT large language models.

The complaint also said that Microsoft has been "deeply involved" in training and developing the models and is also liable for copyright infringement.

The original article contains 299 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Remember that if language models or other AI are responsible for paying ongoing licensing for books they read to train themselves, it’s a small step away for people going to universities being responsible for the same when they start making money in their careers. In both scenarios the books were legally purchased for training. They don’t care about the scale argument, they care about the money argument. If they win and set a precedence here, be ready for high paying careers from those learnings be the next target. It’s not a false equivalence, it is how this stuff eventually goes. They want a subscription world. Remember that.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People != ML models

People generate novel ideas from what they ingest. ML model parrot out a word salad. Don't slippery slope Tech's encroachment on creative space.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

What's more, people have agency that allows them to seek new information on their own and they form subjective opinions.

As human beings we also spend every moment of our lives taking in all kinds of various sensory information that informs our eventual character and mind (and that's to say nothing of our individual mental/neurological nature). We also have an imperfect and complex ability to retain information.

When a human being expresses a thought they are expressing it based on a lifetime of broad experiences that are unique to their specific circumstances. Similarly, when a human being paints a painting of a tree they are doing it not based purely on some library of other people's art, but also based on their own lifetime of experience.

People who equate "artificial intelligence" with human intelligence and lived experience are completely off base.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is fearmongering bullshit that incorrectly equates machine learning with human intelligence and is totally ignorant of the law.

I get it, you want to use AI. Don't worry, it'll stick around.

But the free ride of big companies owned by millionaires and billionaires helping themselves to every piece of data and knowledge that happens to be on the internet somewhere is going to end. Every bubble bursts eventually, and hopefully AI comes out better in the end.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Never said the intelligences were the same, only that the use of the data is the same. Whether one AI company trawls the internet for public data or millions of users each trawl a little bit of the internet, they don’t care. They just recognize a nice deep pocket to go after for another income stream.

Non fiction and academic publishers have been gouging students and academics for years. They don’t deserve your sympathy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Fuck yeah you get it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They are asking Microsoft and Open AI to pay a subscription?

You mean that they can later equate "subscription for using this model trained with my book" to "subscription for using your brain trained with my book"?

[–] dustyData 6 points 1 year ago

Except, at least for the time being, humans have legal rights and protections. Software has none.

[–] Fredselfish 2 points 1 year ago

Yep it's capitalism. Imagine books been sold by the chapter (Im sorry I mean rented by the page) it sick and totally bullshit, but this is end stage capitalism.

Capitalism can't go on forever it got a bubble and we are close to it busting.

So these lawsuits are bullshit and should be overturned.