Skip to content

Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa urge UK Prime Minister to rethink his AI copyright plans. A new law could soon allow AI companies to use copyrighted material without permission.

Technology
72 45 0
  • That feels categorically different unless AI has legal standing as a person. We're talking about training LLMs, there's not anything more than people using computers going on here.

    So then anyone who uses a computer to make music would be in violation?

    Or is it some amount of computer generated content? How many notes? If its not a sample of a song, how does one know how much of those notes are attributed to which artist being stolen from?

    What if I have someone else listen to a song and they generate a few bars of a song for me? Is it different that a computer listened and then generated output?

    To me it sounds like artists were open to some types of violations but not others. If an AI model listened to the radio most of these issues go away unless we are saying that humans who listen to music and write similar songs are OK but people who write music using computers who calculate the statistically most common song are breaking the law.

  • It's not a Ponzi scheme. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's a scam and even if it was a scam that wouldn't be the type of scam that it was.

    Absolute worst you could call it is false advertising, because AI does actually work just not very well.

    A company that makes negative income every quarter forever, and whose latest edition costs a magnitude more power and is worse than the previous, is worth between $150 Bn and $300 Bn. Many other competing companies equally overvalued.

    These are businesses who are only valuable because people keep investing in them. A Ponzi Scheme.

  • If AI companies can pirate, so can individuals.

    Is the ai doing anything that isn’t already allowed for humans. The thing is, generative ai doesn’t copy someone’s art. It’s more akin to learning from someone’s art and creating you own art with that influence. Given that we want to continue allowing hunans access to art for learning, what’s the logical difference to an ai doing the same?

    Did this already play out at Reddit? Ai was one of the reasons I left but I believe it’s a different scenario. I freely contributed my content to Reddit for the purposes of building an interactive community, but they changed the terms without my consent. I did NOT contribute my content so they could make money selling it for ai training

    The only logical distinction I see with s ai aren’t human: an exception for humans does not apply to non-humans even if the activity is similar

  • This post did not contain any content.

    Most of us make fun of the stupid everyday masses for supporting laws that only benefit people who are vastly richer than they'll ever be. But I'm almost guaranteed to get douchevoted for pointing out that the vast majority of musicians never get famous, never get recording contracts, but make their living day to day playing little gigs wherever they can find them. They don't materially suffer if AI includes patterns from their creations in its output, because they don't get any revenue streams from it to begin with. Realistically they're the people most of us should identify with, but instead we rally behind the likes of Paul McCartney and Elton John as if they represent us. McCartney's a billionaire and Elton's more than halfway there - they both own recording companies ffs. If you're going to do simple meme-brained thinking and put black or white hats on people, at least get the hats right.

  • A company that makes negative income every quarter forever, and whose latest edition costs a magnitude more power and is worse than the previous, is worth between $150 Bn and $300 Bn. Many other competing companies equally overvalued.

    These are businesses who are only valuable because people keep investing in them. A Ponzi Scheme.

    AI has been around for many years, and a lot has happened in that time. It's had periods of high and low interest, and during its lows, it's been dubbed AI winter.

  • AI has been around for many years, and a lot has happened in that time. It's had periods of high and low interest, and during its lows, it's been dubbed AI winter.

    And the current AI spring is just old people buying into bullshit marketing and putting all their money in a Ponze Scheme.

  • And the current AI spring is just old people buying into bullshit marketing and putting all their money in a Ponze Scheme.

    Throughout history, many things have been spent on useless things, but saying that AI is a Ponze scheme is, I feel, the same as saying that the Apollo program is a Ponze scheme or that government-funded research is another Ponze scheme.

    PS: There were people who were against the Apollo program because they considered it an unnecessary expense, although today the Apollo program is more remembered.

  • Throughout history, many things have been spent on useless things, but saying that AI is a Ponze scheme is, I feel, the same as saying that the Apollo program is a Ponze scheme or that government-funded research is another Ponze scheme.

    PS: There were people who were against the Apollo program because they considered it an unnecessary expense, although today the Apollo program is more remembered.

    The Apollo Program had an achievable goal, lots of beneficial byproducts, and was administrated by public offices.

    Nothing about it is comparable. It's like saying people hate snakes and some people also hate dogs therefor snakes are dogs.

  • This post did not contain any content.

    What is the actual justification for this? Everyone has to pay for this except for AI companies, so AI can continue to develop into a universally regarded negative?

  • What is the actual justification for this? Everyone has to pay for this except for AI companies, so AI can continue to develop into a universally regarded negative?

    why do you say AI is a universally regarded negative?

    Edit: if you're going to downvote me, can you explain why? I am not saying AI is a good thing here. I'm just asking for evidence that it's universally disliked, i.e. there aren't a lot of fans. It seems there are lots of people coming to the defense of AI in this thread, so it clearly isn't universally disliked.

  • Is the ai doing anything that isn’t already allowed for humans. The thing is, generative ai doesn’t copy someone’s art. It’s more akin to learning from someone’s art and creating you own art with that influence. Given that we want to continue allowing hunans access to art for learning, what’s the logical difference to an ai doing the same?

    Did this already play out at Reddit? Ai was one of the reasons I left but I believe it’s a different scenario. I freely contributed my content to Reddit for the purposes of building an interactive community, but they changed the terms without my consent. I did NOT contribute my content so they could make money selling it for ai training

    The only logical distinction I see with s ai aren’t human: an exception for humans does not apply to non-humans even if the activity is similar

    You picked the wrong thread for a nuanced question on a controversial topic.

    But it seems the UK indeed has laws for this already if the article is to believed, as they don't currently allow AI companies to train on copyrighted material (As per the article). As far as I know, in some other jurisdictions, a normal person would absolutely be allowed to pull a bunch of publicly available information, learn from it, and decide to make something new based on objective information that can be found within. And generally, that's the rationale AI companies used as well, seeing as there have been landmark cases ruled in the past to not be copyright infringement with wide acceptance for computers analyzing copyrighted information, such as against Google, for indexing copyrighted material in their search results. But perhaps an adjacent ruling was never accepted in the UK (which does seem strange, as Google does operate there). But laws are messy, and perhaps there is an exception somewhere, and I'm certainly not an expert on UK law.

    But people sadly don't really come into this thread to discuss the actual details, they just see a headline that invokes a feeling of "AI Bad", and so you coming in here with a reasonable question makes you a target. I wholly expect to be downvoted as well.

  • Is the ai doing anything that isn’t already allowed for humans. The thing is, generative ai doesn’t copy someone’s art. It’s more akin to learning from someone’s art and creating you own art with that influence. Given that we want to continue allowing hunans access to art for learning, what’s the logical difference to an ai doing the same?

    Did this already play out at Reddit? Ai was one of the reasons I left but I believe it’s a different scenario. I freely contributed my content to Reddit for the purposes of building an interactive community, but they changed the terms without my consent. I did NOT contribute my content so they could make money selling it for ai training

    The only logical distinction I see with s ai aren’t human: an exception for humans does not apply to non-humans even if the activity is similar

    Is the ai doing anything that isn’t already allowed for humans. The thing is, generative ai doesn’t copy someone’s art. It’s more akin to learning from someone’s art and creating you own art with that influence. Given that we want to continue allowing hunans access to art for learning, what’s the logical difference to an ai doing the same?

    AI stans always say stuff like this, but it doesn't make sense to me at all.

    AI does not learn the same way that a human does: it has no senses of its own with which to observe the world or art, it has no lived experiences, it has no agency, preferences or subjectivity, and it has no real intelligence with which to interpret or understand the work that it is copying from. AI is simply a matrix of weights that has arbitrary data superimposed on it by people and companies.

    Are you an artist or a creative person?

    If you are then you must know that the things you create are certainly indirectly influenced by SOME of the things that you have experienced (be it walking around on a sunny day, your favorite scene from your favorite movie, the lyrics of a song, etc.), AS WELL AS your own unique and creative persona, your own ideas, your own philosophy, and your own personal development.

    Look at how an artist creates a painting and compare it to how generative AI creates a painting. Similarly, look at how artists train and learn their craft and compare it to how generative AI models are trained. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Outside of the marketing labels of "artificial intelligence" and "machine learning", it's nothing like real intelligence or learning at all.

    (And that's still ignoring the obvious corporate element and the four pillars of fair use consideration (US law, not UK, mind you). For example, the potential market effects of generating an automated system which uses people's artwork to directly compete against them.)

  • You picked the wrong thread for a nuanced question on a controversial topic.

    But it seems the UK indeed has laws for this already if the article is to believed, as they don't currently allow AI companies to train on copyrighted material (As per the article). As far as I know, in some other jurisdictions, a normal person would absolutely be allowed to pull a bunch of publicly available information, learn from it, and decide to make something new based on objective information that can be found within. And generally, that's the rationale AI companies used as well, seeing as there have been landmark cases ruled in the past to not be copyright infringement with wide acceptance for computers analyzing copyrighted information, such as against Google, for indexing copyrighted material in their search results. But perhaps an adjacent ruling was never accepted in the UK (which does seem strange, as Google does operate there). But laws are messy, and perhaps there is an exception somewhere, and I'm certainly not an expert on UK law.

    But people sadly don't really come into this thread to discuss the actual details, they just see a headline that invokes a feeling of "AI Bad", and so you coming in here with a reasonable question makes you a target. I wholly expect to be downvoted as well.

    Oh are we giving AI the same rights as humans now?
    On what grounds?

  • Oh are we giving AI the same rights as humans now?
    On what grounds?

    I never claimed that in this case. As I said in my response: There have been won lawsuits that machines are allowed to index and analyze copyrighted material without infringing on such rights, so long as they only extract objective information, such as what AI typically extracts. I'm not a lawyer, and your jurisdiction may differ, but this page has a good overview: https://blog.apify.com/is-web-scraping-legal/

    EDIT: For the US description on that page, it mentions the US case that I referred to: Author's Guild v Google

  • How many authors do you think would have written the books they did, if they weren't able to make a living from their work? Most of the people creating works before copyright either had a patron of some description, or outright worked for an organisation.

    You should read the opinion of Stephen King about that precise point. The short version: "I'd write books even if it was illegal".

  • why do you say AI is a universally regarded negative?

    Edit: if you're going to downvote me, can you explain why? I am not saying AI is a good thing here. I'm just asking for evidence that it's universally disliked, i.e. there aren't a lot of fans. It seems there are lots of people coming to the defense of AI in this thread, so it clearly isn't universally disliked.

    Because pretty much nobody wants it or likes it.

  • Because pretty much nobody wants it or likes it.

    That's just not true, chatgpt & co are hugely popular, which is a big part of the issue.

  • That's just not true, chatgpt & co are hugely popular, which is a big part of the issue.

    Nazism was hugely popular in Germany in the early 20th century, but was it a good thing?

  • This post did not contain any content.

    A new law could soon allow AI companies to use copyrighted material without permission.

    Good. Copyright and patent laws need to die.

    All the money wasted enforcing them and taken from customers could be better spent on other things.

    Creators will still create, as they always have. We just won't have millionaire scumbags such as 'paul mccartney' living like kings while children starve.

  • Nazism was hugely popular in Germany in the early 20th century, but was it a good thing?

    Analogies are fallacies. All they do is reveal that you can't argue the merits of the topic at hand, so you need to derail and distract by pivoting to something else.

    Now we need to debate the accuracy of your analogy, which is never 1:1, instead of talking about what we were talking about previously.

    You're also arguing with the wrong person. You should be talking to the person who argued "AI is a negative because pretty much nobody likes it" instead of the person who says it's not true that "nobody likes it."

    You're literally only looking for an angle to shit on AI so you can fit in with the average idiots.

    AI discussion at this point are litmus tests for who is average that lets other average people do their thinking for them. It really puts into perspective how much popular opinion should be scrutinized.

  • 44 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    V
    I use it for my self hosted apps, but yeah, it's rarely useful for websites in the wild.
  • Things at Tesla are worse than they appear

    Technology technology
    34
    1
    419 Stimmen
    34 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    halcyon@discuss.tchncs.deH
    [image: a4f3b70f-db20-4c1d-b737-611548cf3104.jpeg]
  • 108 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    M
    A private company is selling cheap tablets to inmates to let them communicate with their family. They have to use "digital stamps" to send messages, 35 cents a piece and come in packs of 5, 10 or 20. Each stamp covers up to 20,000 characters or one single image. They also sell songs, at $1.99 a piece, and some people have spent thousands over the years. That's also now just going away. Then you get to the part about the new company. Who already has a system in Tennessee where inmates have to pay 3-5 cents per minute of tablet usage. Be that watching a movie they've bought or just typing a message.
  • 326 Stimmen
    20 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    roofuskit@lemmy.worldR
    It's extremely traceable. There is a literal public ledger if every single transaction.
  • X blocks 8,000 accounts in India under government order

    Technology technology
    2
    1
    58 Stimmen
    2 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    gsus4@mander.xyzG
    'member Aug 6 2024: https://www.ft.com/content/31919b4e-4a5a-4eba-ada7-88d3fec455f8 ;D UK faces resistance from X over taking down disinformation during riots Social media site owner Elon Musk has also been posting jibes at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Waiting to see those jibes at Modi... And who could forget in April 11, 2024: https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-twitter-moraes-bef06c0dbbb8ed87495b1afbb0edf211 What to know about Elon Musk’s ‘free speech’ feud with a Brazilian judge gotta see that feud with Indian judges, nobody asked him to block 8000 accounts, including western media outlets, whatever is he gonna do?
  • CrowdStrike Announces Layoffs Affecting 500 Employees

    Technology technology
    8
    1
    243 Stimmen
    8 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    S
    This is where the magic of near meaningless corpo-babble comes in. The layoffs are part of a plan to aspirationally acheive the goal of $10b revenue by EoY 2025. What they are actually doing is a significant restructuring of the company, refocusing by outside hiring some amount of new people to lead or be a part of departments or positions that haven't existed before, or are being refocused to other priorities... ... But this process also involves laying off 500 of the 'least productive' or 'least mission critical' employees. So, technically, they can, and are, arguing that their new organizational paradigm will be so succesful that it actually will result in increased revenue, not just lower expenses. Generally corpos call this something like 'right-sizing' or 'refocusing' or something like that. ... But of course... anyone with any actual experience with working at a place that does this... will tell you roughly this is what happens: Turns out all those 'grunts' you let go of, well they actually do a lot more work in a bunch of weird, esoteric, bandaid solutions to keep everything going, than upper management was aware of... because middle management doesn't acknowledge or often even understand that that work was being done, because they are generally self-aggrandizing narcissist petty tyrants who spend more time in meetings fluffing themselves up than actually doing any useful management. Then, also, you are now bringing on new, outside people who look great on paper, to lead new or modified apartments... but they of course also do not have any institutional knowledge, as they are new. So now, you have a whole bunch of undocumented work that was being done, processes which were being followed... which is no longer being done, which is not documented.... and the new guys, even if they have the best intentions, now have to spend a quarter or two or three figuring out just exactly how much pre-existing middle management has been bullshitting about, figuring out just how much things do not actually function as they ssid it did... So now your efficiency improving restructuring is actually a chaotic mess. ... Now, this 'right sizing' is not always apocalyptically extremely bad, but it is also essentially never totally free from hiccups... and it increases stress, workload, and tensions between basically everyone at the company, to some extent. Here's Forbes explanation of this phenomenon, if you prefer an explanation of right sizing in corpospeak: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/rightsizing/
  • Reddit will tighten verification to keep out human-like AI bots

    Technology technology
    21
    1
    83 Stimmen
    21 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    R
    Started banning everyone who says mean things about Tesla and musk. Banned whole subreddits for him. Edit: oh it’s fucking you, of course it fucking is. How much they paying you?
  • 11 Stimmen
    7 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    C
    Sure, he wasn't an engineer, so no, Jobs never personally "invented" anything. But Jobs at least knew what was good and what was shit when he saw it. Under Tim Cook, Apple just keeps putting out shitty unimaginative products, Cook is allowing Apple to stagnate, a dangerous thing to do when they have under 10% market share.