Copyright is a deal society has made to advance the arts and sciences. We get more innovative media of all kinds, and in exchange, we pay for the government's policing of the right to copy.
I'm not AI optimist or booster, but AI is an advancement in the arts and sciences, despite all the risks and downsides. AI is a derivative work from all digitized media.
There's an argument to be made that the AI companies should borrow a copy of every book, rent every movie, etc. But the money accruing to the owners of those copyrights would be marginal, and even summing over all those individual copyright claims, I'd say that the societal benefit to AI is greater.
Maybe it's time that we have compulsory licensing the way that radio can license music to play. As training data for AI, a compulsory license, in principle, should be quite cheap, on par with renting that media.
The bigger question is to what extent AI will tend to make other media obsolete. We are already seeing this with AI summaries in web search undermining the search results themselves. I don't have an answer to that, except to say that severely restricting the training data available to AI is not very helpful.
Maybe it's time that we have compulsory licensing the way that radio can license music to play.
I fear this will be forced on us all.
I fear it because right now, it's already true that if you object to your works being used to train AI, then you can't publish your works (especially not on the web). A growing number of people are going that route, reducing the works available to us. But there is still a sliver of hope that a solution could be found at some point and it would be safe to publish again. If compulsory licensing happens, then even that small hope is lost.
Compulsory licensing with reasonable standard rates would be a better solution for creators than what's happening now, which is essentially just compulsory giving.
But that's unlikely to happen, because any kind of compulsory licensing scheme that could allow creators to actually survive would still be cripplingly expensive for AI companies, given the number of works they have devoured under the assumption that all the world is theirs to take...and they clearly have the ear of the current administration.
Copyright is a deal society has made to advance the arts
Corn subsidies are a deal society made to advance the consumption of sugar water.
Who really makes these deals and who benefits from them?
Maybe having so much new content all the time is making us too content while the backroom deal makers laugh their way to the bank and fund more wars.
and sciences
People en masse want cheaper energy, better machines and better medicine regardless of profitability of the producers. I don't buy into the idea that the only way to incentivize new inventions is with fame and wealth. People like to do good work they are proud of - not enough people, arguably, but they exist.
Some inventions may be too powerful to go without strict regulations like nuclear energy. I'd argue AI is in the same basket. I believe the internet, and by extension internet connected AI, should be considered a public utility and governed by the public.
Comments
Copyright is a deal society has made to advance the arts and sciences. We get more innovative media of all kinds, and in exchange, we pay for the government's policing of the right to copy.
I'm not AI optimist or booster, but AI is an advancement in the arts and sciences, despite all the risks and downsides. AI is a derivative work from all digitized media.
There's an argument to be made that the AI companies should borrow a copy of every book, rent every movie, etc. But the money accruing to the owners of those copyrights would be marginal, and even summing over all those individual copyright claims, I'd say that the societal benefit to AI is greater.
Maybe it's time that we have compulsory licensing the way that radio can license music to play. As training data for AI, a compulsory license, in principle, should be quite cheap, on par with renting that media.
The bigger question is to what extent AI will tend to make other media obsolete. We are already seeing this with AI summaries in web search undermining the search results themselves. I don't have an answer to that, except to say that severely restricting the training data available to AI is not very helpful.
I fear this will be forced on us all.
I fear it because right now, it's already true that if you object to your works being used to train AI, then you can't publish your works (especially not on the web). A growing number of people are going that route, reducing the works available to us. But there is still a sliver of hope that a solution could be found at some point and it would be safe to publish again. If compulsory licensing happens, then even that small hope is lost.
Compulsory licensing with reasonable standard rates would be a better solution for creators than what's happening now, which is essentially just compulsory giving.
But that's unlikely to happen, because any kind of compulsory licensing scheme that could allow creators to actually survive would still be cripplingly expensive for AI companies, given the number of works they have devoured under the assumption that all the world is theirs to take...and they clearly have the ear of the current administration.
Corn subsidies are a deal society made to advance the consumption of sugar water.
Who really makes these deals and who benefits from them?
Maybe having so much new content all the time is making us too content while the backroom deal makers laugh their way to the bank and fund more wars.
People en masse want cheaper energy, better machines and better medicine regardless of profitability of the producers. I don't buy into the idea that the only way to incentivize new inventions is with fame and wealth. People like to do good work they are proud of - not enough people, arguably, but they exist.
Some inventions may be too powerful to go without strict regulations like nuclear energy. I'd argue AI is in the same basket. I believe the internet, and by extension internet connected AI, should be considered a public utility and governed by the public.
This is a gross over implication. I honestly don't know where to start.