Is an RPG enough? I feel like the crew of the oil tanker would want to defend themselves from armed pirates even if it might damage the ship some. And modern ships can be quite sturdy.
In 2020 a Venezuelan patrol boat (1500 tons) tried to stop an Arctic cruise ship (6000 tons). The patrol boat rammed the bow of the cruise ship and sank. The cruise ship received superficial damage to the bow.
He's making a point about responsibility/liability.
If you only get copyright for the prompt you make, but not the output, then it's like being responsible only for the prompt, but not the output.
Ie he's only responsible for pushing the boulder up the hill. The fact that it rolled down from the hill and crushed someone's house "isn't his fault" (he doesn't get copyright on it).
>The Office concludes that, given current generally available technology, prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output. Prompts essentially function as instructions that convey unprotectible ideas. While highly detailed prompts could contain the user’s desired expressive elements, at present they do not control how the AI system processes them in generating the output.
If you're not the author then why would you have to be liable for it?
> If you're not the author then why would you have to be liable for it?
If you do not understand this make sure that you always operate within a framework of people who do because this soft of misunderstanding can cause you a world of grief.
Because you are the person shipping it, and as such regular liability applies. If I'm not the author of a book, and make a lot of copies and distribute those I'm liable for the content of that book, regardless of whether or not I hold the copyright to it. Conversely, if the original author sues because they feel their work infringes then that too is a liability that stems from the distribution.
And 'distribution' is a pretty wide term, not unlike 'interstate commerce', lots of things that you might not consider to be distribution can be classified as such in court.
Different laws do not come in packages, they apply individually, and sometimes they apply collectively but it isn't a menu where you can pick the combination that you think makes the most sense.
Oh, I do understand it - laws are contradictory and can do whatever people shout out the most that they should do (but they don't always work that way). I just think that it is extremely bad when laws work this way.
Technically when you select "copy image" instead of "copy image url" and paste that to a friend you're often committing copyright infringement. Do I think this is reasonable? Absolutely not. The same goes for this - the author should hold liability, so make the person who ends up causing the work to exist the damn author.
But nooo, we can't have that. Instead we need to have these convoluted exceptions that don't at all work how the real world works, so that lawyers can have even more work.
Besides, if we go by "the law" then we already have a court case where training an AI model is protected by fair use. But obviously that isn't satisfying enough for people, so they keep talking about how it's stealing (refer to my first sentence).
Also, this situation is going to get funny when some country decides that AI generated content does get copyright protection.
> Oh, I do understand it - laws are contradictory and can do whatever people shout out the most that they should do (but they don't always work that way). I just think that it is extremely bad when laws work this way.
You are completely misunderstanding GP's distinction between ownership and liability.
In short, if you use someone else's car to kill someone, you are still liable for killing that person even though you don't own the car.
Aren't you agreeing with him?
He pushed the boulder up the hill, thus he is responsible and liable for what happens. He is the author of the work of pushing the boulder up the hill.
In your analogy: He was driving the car, he is liable for the death. He is the author of the work of driving the car.
You are kinda unnecessarily introducing the creation of an object used for the work. Whoever did create the car/boulder is not liable for what happened.
So whoever made the LLM is not the author but the one who used it to create the code.
>>>> If you're not the author then why would you have to be liable for it?
And all his arguments after that are to support that claim. His claim is wrong.
Ownership and liability are independent of each and all his supporting arguments are dismissing this fact.
> Whoever did create the car/boulder is not liable for what happened.
Incorrect; whoever owns the car/boulder is not liable. The creator doesn't even enter this argument.
> So whoever made the LLM is not the author but the one who used it to create the code.
No; whoever created the LLM is irrelevant. The author who creates the code is similarly irrelevant. What matters in his argument is who owns the code, and this is also irrelevant to his argument, because ownership does not mean liability.
You can't really argue that things are in a certain way when that contradicts the way the law works, that's a recipe for disaster. The rules have been set, you can disagree with them and then you will be forced to litigate, which is both expensive and time consuming. Purposefully going against the grain is only for those with extremely deep pockets (and for lawyers...).
> Besides, if we go by "the law" then we already have a court case where training an AI model is protected by fair use.
Yes, but training an AI is a completely different thing than distributing the work product generated by that AI.
Note that I don't agree with all aspects of copyright law either, but I'll be happy to play by the rules as set today simply because I can't afford to be wrong and held liable for infringement. For instance I strongly believe that the length of copyright is a problem (and don't get me started on patents, especially on software). I also believe that only the original author should have copyright, not the company they worked for, their heirs (see Ravel for a really nasty case) or anybody else. I believe they should not be transferable at all.
But because I'm a nobody and not wealthy enough to challenge the likes of Disney in court I play by the rules.
As for 'this situation is going to get funny when some country decides that AI generated content does get copyright protection':
Copyright is one of the most harmonized legislative constructs in the world. Almost every country has adopted it, often without meaningful change. In practice US courts are obviously a very important driver behind changes in copyright law. But in general these changes tend to lean towards more protection for copyright owners, not less. So far the Trump admin has not touched copyright law in their usual heavy handed manner. I'm not sure if this is by design or by accident but maybe there are lines that even they can not easily cross without massive consequences.
Some parties in the AI/Copyright debate are talking about two sides of their mouth, for instance, Microsoft is heavily relying on being able to infringe on copyright at will but at the same time they are jealously guarding their own code. Such hypocrisy is going to be the main wedge that those in favor of strong copyright are going to use to reduce the chances that AI work product deserves copyright, after all, if it is original and not transformative then Microsoft could (and should!) train their AI on their own confidential code. But they're not doing that, maybe they know something you and I do not...
In some places simply not keeping the public street in front of property ice-free can incur liability, even when you are not actually there when it snows. There are so many such examples I'm kind of surprised to see this kind of confused argument made here.
But that's not at all a comparable situation though, because it is your party. It doesn't matter where it is, we assign "ownership" of the party to you. Even the language we use explicitly states that. In the case of copyright, we explicitly states (by the copyright office), that you are not the author of an AI generated work.
Imagine you cut the sentence "I'm going to kill you, this is an imminent threat." out of a book and hand it to someone.
It would be silly to consider you the author of that sentence in a copyright sense.
It would be equally silly to say you have no liability from that sentence.
Looking back at the boulder example, that LLM output has no consequences to be liable for if you throw it immediately into the trash bin. It's when you take boulder.txt and use it to do things that you have liability despite not having copyright.
That is not how responsibility works anywhere. If you are stealing a gun and murder someone with that gun, you are still responsible, even if it is not your gun.
Copyright isn't some natural state of being though, it's something that's granted to people by the government to "promote the progress of science and useful arts". If copyright hinders things then I think it's reasonable that exceptions would be made.
This analysis yields very different results under utilitarianism vs rule utilitarianism.
Under the former, you could argue, "What I'm doing is a science or useful art, so if copyright exists to advance those things then taking a more permissive interpretation of copyright to allow my efforts to succeed is in the spirit of the law."
Under the latter, you could argue, "Works get published because as a rule, researchers and artists know they have lawful recourse through copyright if the work gets used without their consent. The absence of that rule incentivizes safeguarding works by treating them as secret and each disclosure as a matter of personal trust, so the existence of that rule promotes the sciences and useful arts."
>they suddenly remember who their campaign contributors are, and can then create reasons to avoid actually solving any of these problems.
There are very real concerns when you break up a company though. Rockefeller's wealth shot up a lot when Standard Oil was broken up. That could easily make a politician that's "politician out to get the big companies" into "politician making billionaires richer."
Tough to say for sure, but I think it's probably still better to have more billionaires if there's more competition.
I wasn't around during the breakup, but my parents told me that phone service got considerably better and cheaper after the AT&T breakup, which makes enough sense to me: if a consumer can drop you for someone else, you have a reason to try and compete on service and/or price.
I think headsets might work, but I think Meta trying to use their first mover advantage so hard so early backfired. Oculus, as a device, became less desirable after it required Facebook integration.
It's kind of like Microsoft with copilot - the idea about having an AI assistant that can help you use the computer is great. But it can't be from Microsoft because people don't trust them with that.
Interaction feels like the issue with headsets. You either need a fair bit of space for gesture controls, or you have to talk to yourself for voice control.
I think VR has more niche uses than the craze implied. It’s got some cool games, virtual screens for a desktop could be cool someday, but I don’t see a near future where they replace phones.
The risk/reward tradeoff of helmets is potentially dying, and we still had to make laws requiring people to wear them.
Glasses also have a pretty compelling reason to wear them.
I don't think VR has as compelling of a reason, at least so far. Even if it does, you need people to get far enough in to see that reason which is a hurdle when it involves a device they don't want to wear.
>The next admin needs to break Google up horizontally (not vertically) into competing browsers, clouds, and search products. They all need to fight. Healthy capitalism is fiercely competitive. Not whatever this invasive species that preys on everything else is.
That sounds great if you're rich and can afford to pay for all the million subscriptions that will pop up to replace what Google offers.
Google offers an insane amount of value to people for free: YouTube, Android, Google Search, Trends, Scholar, Maps, Chrome, Translate, Gmail. These would all be paid subscription products without adsense (or some equivalent). And as paid products they would get the typical subscription enshittification over time.
Also, on the topic of AI: didn't the transformers research paper come from Google? In an alternate world that would've been a trade secret locked away inside Google.
> Google offers an insane amount of value to people for free: YouTube, Android, Google Search, Trends, Scholar, Maps, Chrome, Translate, Gmail. These would all be paid subscription products without adsense (or some equivalent). And as paid products they would get the typical subscription enshittification over time.
That's false.
There are hundreds of free offerings in this and many other spaces offered by lots of other companies.
There does not have to be one monopoly controlling all of it for the freemium model and advertising to work.
What are the great phone OSes that aren't Android based? Can you run Android-specific apps on then?
There definitely isn't a YouTube replacement. You might say that there are video sites and that's true, but there aren't any that also offer 55% of the revenue to the creator, let alone that being enough to really have a creator economy.
Most browsers these days are Chromium based or are essentially funded by these big tech companies (eg Mozilla).
Google search and translate do have alternatives, especially these days with LLMs doing a lot of the latter.
What are some of the free email providers? I'm genuinely curious, because I know some exist, but I'm unfamiliar with most of them.
> What are the great phone OSes that aren't Android based? Can you run Android-specific apps on then?
Make Google give up Android (which is Linux based) and watch an entire industry pop up.
> There definitely isn't a YouTube replacement. You might say that there are video sites and that's true, but there aren't any that also offer 55% of the revenue to the creator, let alone that being enough to really have a creator economy.
TikTok creators earn 70-90%
Twitch creators make 50-70%.
Split YouTube into ten video websites and watch a robust, de-consolidated economy sprout.
> Most browsers these days are Chromium based or are essentially funded by these big tech companies (eg Mozilla).
This is the most heinous of all because it's the insidious linchpin behind Google's evil empire. It's the starting point of the funnel Google makes all of its "search" revenue from. (I say "search" because when I type in "openai", I know what I want, but Google gives me something different and forces that player into an expensive bidding war.)
Google didn't build the browser. That was originally KHTML and then taken over by Apple. They lifted it, used Embrace-Extend-Extinguish, and launched a tracking/search ad funnel/anti-adblock empire.
Every google search result compels you to download Chrome if you aren't using it. It's the default on Android. They warn you if you're using Firefox.
When you can spend billions to dump on the browser market you can do things like this. It's especially heinous since they reinvested their ill-gotten ad dragnet gains back into the engine that powered their empire.
Google needs to have Chrome stripped from them. Period. They cannot have a browser now or ever.
Firefox is their antitrust litigation sponge. They happily pay the stooges there to chug along and waste money.
Brave can and will easily fill this void when Google is forced out.
> What are some of the free email providers? I'm genuinely curious, because I know some exist, but I'm unfamiliar with most of them.
Microsoft, Yahoo. You used to be able to run your own before Google platformized email.
> Are the free Maps alternatives good?
Yes. Apple Maps is shockingly good. Turns out competition is good.
If Google is forced out, there will be lots of competition.
I don't expect consumers to understand this, but I do expect regulators to get it. And I want more regulators to take up the mantle against Google.
Google is highly anti-competitive and drastic measures need to be taken to restore a cutthroat capitalist environment that is maximally beneficial to the economy.
>Make Google give up Android (which is Linux based) and watch an entire industry pop up.
I guess that would be when Apple takes over smartphones entirely.
>TikTok creators earn 70-90%
>Twitch creators make 50-70%.
They don't get that revenue split from ads. They either match YouTube or give less depending on the size of the channel.
>Split YouTube into ten video websites and watch a robust, de-consolidated economy sprout.
We had 10+ video websites simultaneously before YouTube. The videos were all lower quality, limited in length, and obviously no revenue share. Only YouTube grew out of them to become YouTube and it was because of a superior product.
>This is the most heinous of all because it's the insidious linchpin behind Google's evil empire.
Google didn't make me switch to Chrome, Mozilla did. One day they decided to rework the UI, which broke my add-ons. And then they decided that I'm not allowed to use my own add-ons without permission from Mozilla.
Using my own add-ons with Chrome (or chromium-based browsers) was no problem.
Also, Mozilla mucked up the mobile browser thing themselves. Their scroll felt extremely wrong to use for years. Every other application on my phone scrolled in one way, but somehow Firefox did not. Eventually they fixed it, but that took a long time.
I'm not opposed to using Firefox, but they themselves pushed me away.
>Brave can and will easily fill this void when Google is forced out.
You think Google is going to continue building Chromium if they can't have Chrome?
???
>Microsoft, Yahoo. You used to be able to run your own before Google platformized email.
So one tech giant instead of the other? What's the difference?
>Yes. Apple Maps is shockingly good. Turns out competition is good.
Great if you're in the apple ecosystem, I guess, but that's, again, switching from one tech giant to another. In this case it would be switching into a company known for building walled-gardens. I don't see how this would improve the situation at all.
>I don't expect consumers to understand this, but I do expect regulators to get it. And I want more regulators to take up the mantle against Google.
Get what? That regulators should go after one tech giant so that their customers are forced to swap to the products of... other tech giants?
I'm not here to defend Google, but I feel like you might want to think about this some more. Your answers basically just suggested other tech giants or Brave (which relies on Google still contributing to chromium). Being stuck in Apple's walled garden doesn't sound great to me considering how expensive all their stuff is.
No. They don't have time preference like us, because (wall clock) time doesn't exist for them. An LLM only "exists" when it is actively processing a prompt or generating tokens. After it is done, it stops existing as an "entity".
A real world second doesn't mean anything to the LLM from its own perspective. A second is only relevant to them as it pertains to us.
Time for LLMs is measured in tokens. That's what ticks their clock forward.
I suppose you could make time relevant for an LLM by making the LLM run in a loop that constantly polls for information. Or maybe you can keep feeding it input so much that it's constantly running and has to start filtering some of it out to function.
That would still be time as it pertains to us. Even if I put time stamps into the chat all the LLM knows that it's some amount of time later - it can't actually do anything in the time between two prompts.
I don't really understand why model collapse would happen.
I understand that if I have an AI model and then feed it its own responses it will degrade in performance. But that's not what's happening in the wild though - there are extra filtering steps in-between. Users upvote and downvote posts, people post the "best" AI generated content (that they prefer), the more human sounding AI gets more engagement etc. All of these things filter AI output, so it's not the same thing as:
AI out -> AI in
It is:
AI out -> human filter -> AI in
And at that point the human filter starts acting like a fitness function for a genetic algorithm. Can anyone explain how this still leads to model collapse? Does the signal in the synthetic data just overpower the human filter?
> Users upvote and downvote posts, people post the "best" AI generated content (that they prefer), the more human sounding AI gets more engagement etc. All of these things filter AI output
At the same time though AI generated content can be generated much much faster than human generated content so eventually AI slop downs out anything else. You only have to check the popular social media platforms to see this in action and AI generated posts are widely promoted and pushed on users the same way most web searches return results with AI generated pages ranked highly.
Humans can't keep up and companies are actively working to bypass the human filter and intentionally promote AI generated content.
we mostly know how to make it understand what we want. we don't know how to make it care about what we want, except via reinforcement learning. there are good reasons to believe rl won't work for this once the ai reaches a certain levels of capability.
Wow, "magic e" just transported me back to primary school. And I had a little heart flutter fearing that I wouldn't be able to remember/explain it today.
I hate discussions like these because then I start reading words in weird ways and then I look at words as a random jumble of letters that don't even seem like words anymore. Is that just me? :)
In 2020 a Venezuelan patrol boat (1500 tons) tried to stop an Arctic cruise ship (6000 tons). The patrol boat rammed the bow of the cruise ship and sank. The cruise ship received superficial damage to the bow.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52151951
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