Google says AI systems should be able to mine publishers’ work unless companies opt out
www.theguardian.com
The tech company’s latest proposal about generative AI turns copyright law on its head, and could especially hurt smaller content creators, say experts

In its submission to the Australian government’s review of the regulatory framework around AI, Google said that copyright law should be altered to allow for generative AI systems to scrape the internet.

  •  MrWiggles   ( @mrwiggles@prime8s.xyz ) English
    5•1 year ago

    I think this largely boils down to the time scales required. A person copying your work has a minimum amount of time it takes them to do that, even when it’s just copy and paste. An LLM can copy thousands of different developer’s code, for instance, and completely launder the license. That’s not ok. Why would we allow machines to commit fraud when we don’t allow people to?

    •  Kwakigra   ( @Kwakigra@beehaw.org ) English
      2•1 year ago

      This is very interesting for me to think about, since I have so many issues with proprietary technology in general. An LLM copying the code from thousands of proprietary projects is kind of an interesting loophole considering that it would be difficult for any of the individual businesses to prove that their proprietary code was infringed unless the LLM does copy and paste the code exactly. That could cause major changes in the tech industry which I’m not able to predict. Optimally I would like technological development more in the hands of people than behind legal barriers such as with Open Source code and I am not a programmer, so take my musings with a grain of salt.

    •  AphoticDev   ( @AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
      2•1 year ago

      Except that isn’t exactly how neural networks learn. They aren’t exactly copying work, they’re learning patterns in how humans make those works in order to imitate them. The legal argument these companies are making is that the results from using AI are transformative enough that they qualify as totally new and unique works, and it looks as if that might end up becoming law, depending on how the lawsuits currently going through the courts turn out.

      To be clear, technically an LLM doesn’t copy any of the data, nor does it store any data from the works it learns from.