site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32966 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A neural network in a computer can be.

This doesn't seem to follow either. Maybe what the computer produces could be a violation, but the actual information contained within it doesn't resemble the copyrighted material in any way we can determine. At least that's based on my understanding of how the trained AI works.

“Copies” are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

The fact that the information contained within the LLM doesn't, in some sense, resemble the copyrighted material isn't relevant, nor should it be; the fact that we can get it out demonstrates that it is in there.

Which is why I'm confused as to why this does not apply to a human memory, other than that just being the Court's distinction between human hardware and electronic systems that they apply.

And then, even accepting your point:

the fact that we can get it out demonstrates that it is in there.

Then presumably putting sufficient controls on the system so that it WILL NOT produce copyrighted works on demand solves the objection.

We also run into the 'library of Babel" issue. If you have a pile of sufficiently large randomized information, then it probably contains 'copies' of various copyrighted works that can be extracted.

So an AI that is trained on and 'contained' the entire corpus of all human-created text might be said to contain copies of various works, but the incredible, vast majority of what it it contains is completely 'novel,' unrelated information which users can generate at will, too.

Which is why I'm confused as to why this does not apply to a human memory, other than that just being the Court's distinction between human hardware and electronic systems that they apply.

There may be no other distinction.

Then presumably putting sufficient controls on the system so that it WILL NOT produce copyrighted works on demand solves the objection.

Only if the controls are inseparable from the system. If I can take your weights and use them in an uncensored system to produce the copyrighted works, they were still in there. Just as if you rigged a DVD player not to play a DVD of "Return of the Jedi" wouldn't mean "Return of the Jedi" wasn't on the DVD.

We also run into the 'library of Babel" issue. If you have a pile of sufficiently large randomized information, then it probably contains 'copies' of various copyrighted works that can be extracted.

If the randomized information was generated without reference to the copyrighted works, this doesn't matter. That's not the case with the AIs; they had the copyrighted works as training data.

That's not the case with the AIs; they had the copyrighted works as training data.

Yes yes, but so did the humans.

This is what gets real fraught here.

The terminal end result of harshly applying IP restrictions is preventing someone who has a sufficiently accurate memory of a copyrighted work from conveying any portion of the work to anyone else outside of a 'fair use' context.

If the technology allowed it, I have little doubt that they'd implement a system to collect royalties every time some college student plays Wonderwall on his guitar at a party.

But on the assumption that the laws haven't gotten THAT ridiculous yet, I'm inclined to suggest that the situation as it stands is that the AI is basically the equivalent of a human being with eidetic memory and thus can recall any copyrighted work it wishes, on demand, when given the correct prompting, but is also fully capable of "original" thought.

Does IP law REALLY grant the owner the absolute right of ownership over every single instance of the information that composes their work... regardless of the format, medium, or usage it is put to?

The terminal end result of harshly applying IP restrictions is preventing someone who has a sufficiently accurate memory of a copyrighted work from conveying any portion of the work to anyone else outside of a 'fair use' context.

Well, we've already had lawsuits asserting that people can be found guilty of subconsciously plagarizing someone else's music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sweet_Lord#Copyright_infringement_suit

The terminal end result of harshly applying IP restrictions is preventing someone who has a sufficiently accurate memory of a copyrighted work from conveying any portion of the work to anyone else outside of a 'fair use' context.

Copyright does not restrict private performance, so if you've memorized a work you can tell it to someone else in private. You can't write it down (including typing it into a computer), you can't make other works based on it, and you can't perform it publicly (which sometimes includes performing it to many people in a serial fashion).

If the technology allowed it, I have little doubt that they'd implement a system to collect royalties every time some college student plays Wonderwall on his guitar at a party.

They do have such a system, and they (in this case, ASCAP and BMI, mainly) are famous for busting venues over it.

Copyright does not restrict private performance, so if you've memorized a work you can tell it to someone else in private.

Which is... sort of what ChatGPT currently does, no?

No. For one, ChatGPT produces the results in a form which makes what it produces a copy. But my larger claim is that ChatGPT itself is a copy of all the copyrighted works that were in its training set and which it can output copies of without prompting it with what amounts to a copy itself. Even if you rigged it so its output were ephemeral, ChatGPT itself would still be a massive copyright violation.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats