If LLMs are the ultimate remix machine, then is anyone with a RAG a digital DJ?
One can't help but wonder what theft even means any more, when it comes to digital information. With the (lack of) legal precedent, it feels like the wild wild west of intellectual property and copyright law.
Like, if even a superstar like Scarlett Johansson can only write a pained letter about OpenAI's hustle to mimic her "Her" persona, what can the comparatively garden-variety niche nerd do?
Like Geerling, feel equally sad / angry / frustrated, but merely say "Please for the love of all that is good, be nice and follow an honour code.".
what can the comparatively garden-variety niche nerd do? [...] Like Geerling, feel equally sad / angry / frustrated
For this kind of misuse, the person needs to have some fame, or it's not interesting to steal their voice. In such cases, their fame can be used for retribution. E.g. I can't imagine that this will be good for the reputation of Elecrow in the end. Next time I read the name of this company, I'll think oh it's that company that is scamming people, not good for them.
I am more worried about the cases where someone uses this to e.g. get rid of a they don't like. E.g. imagine some university lecturer that has done nothing wrong, a student is not happy with their grade, use voice cloning to imply that the lecturer said something that could get them fired. With voice cloning getting really good, how can someone like that defend themselves? (Until this becomes so commonplace recordings are not trusted anymore.)
> For this kind of misuse, the person needs to have some fame, or it's not interesting to steal their voice
This can still be very useful when used against non-famous people e.g. in a bitter custody dispute by one party to besmirch the other.
Yeah, which is what my second part is about :). The first part was about using a voice for e.g. promotion.
There is no theft, there are only letters of marque to pillage people for using memes and memeplexes you claimed first, who didn't pay you for your claim, to buy immunity from you so they can use claimed meme.
Theft requires the loss of benefit of the stolen object to the victim. Copy & paste just blows over the house of cards that is the system which threatens people with cages and poverty if they use the claimed meme and not pay. I will jury nullify all copyright infringement cases I end up on, where the defendant is human and not a corporation.
[0] https://x.com/alexeheath/status/1823873344133062680
[1] I mean he said you should legally steal things... whatever that means...
> feels like the wild wild west of intellectual property and copyright law
Copyright seems to always have one or another wild wild west going on. Maybe you are in the wrong place if the world constantly jumps and kicks from under you trying to throw you off?
Anyone that thinks this is completely untrodden ground for copyright should ask an expert to definitely determine if someone's use of something is covered under fair use if it doesn't exactly and clearly satisfy all of the test prongs.
GP here. I agree. By "lack of precedent" I meant lack of precedent specific to the implications of gen AI's use of data scraped indiscriminately, without attribution or consideration. As far as I can tell, the various cases in progress will (eventually) set some precedent about fair use in this specific context. LLM-owning companies are already hedging future liability by paying for content and/or doing the usual terms of use bait-and-switch (oh yeah, and when you click "okay", you agree to let us use all your data to train our AI models).
what theft even means any more
They dragged the term through different phases, but that’s just projection of will. Theft is undefined for objects with .copy() interface. It’s still there when you look at it.
People have to adjust expectations, not laws. Computers replaced computers, now voice acting replaces voice actors. Your popularity doesn’t mean anything really and wouldn’t it be unfair if only popular could spare their jobs.
> Theft is undefined for objects with .copy() interface.
> Computers replaced computers, now voice acting replaces voice actors.
It's incredible what web development does to someone's ability to communicate ideas.
The original meaning of the word computer was a person who calculates.
Looks perfectly clear to me.
I have a very funny example of how using outdated words might lead to miscommunication, but unfortunately that particular one could get me banned, so let's just say that I'm a huge fan of picking a version of langauge from one specific time period and sticking to it, instead of having the reader do all the guesswork.
Nothing feels quite like running gay and free with creative language! :^)
> The original meaning of the word computer was a person who calculates.
Was that ever so?
According to Google Ngrams, "computer" was not really a term until, predictably, around 1950, even though the verb "compute" has been in use throughout history (it comes from the Latin "computare", apparently).
That tells me "computer" was never a person, always a machine.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=compute%2Ccomp...
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)
The first reference in the Wikipedia article is to the original definition in the Oxford English Dictionary. Dating from 1613, it refers to a person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)?useskin=...
The first “computers” were people, who computed. And the term was used to mean as much until very recently.
> From 1953 to 1958, Johnson worked as a computer,[23] analyzing topics such as gust alleviation for aircraft.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson
Or understand ideas. We all web develop sometimes and as the follow up shows, it’s actually your share of web developness in action ;)
On a serious note, please refrain from using “webdev makes dumb” theme here. It’s a beaten cliche that does nothing good to any forum. Have a nice day!
No, I don't think I'll be telling nice sounding lies about web development.
Try singing a song on youtube. See what youtube copyright checker does.
> They dragged the term through different phases, but that’s just projection of will.
In other words, that's just the normal lifecycle of words in a language with an active speaker community. In any stage of history, the meaning of words is just the speaker community's projection of will.
Best I can do now is acknowledge that what counts as "theft" is a complicated topic and can't be decided by a binary "is said object still there after alleged theft has occurred?". I've benefited from some digital theft, naturally, so I might be biased to uphold my own morality but the kind of theft contemporary AI tech has enabled is something else entirely. Somewhere there is where I draw the line.
Recently, I introduced a few friends to the works of digital artist wlop. The immediate reaction was "Is that AI?". I can't help but feel offended in behalf of wlop. It doesn't help that they have made LoRAs out of his work. It's not so much the "theft" of techniques/concepts/etc. that enrages me but rather, the theft of credibility that a human is capable of this output. I imagine Jeff Geerling (and, to a lesser extent, maybe ScarJo) is enraged along similar lines. In this AI summer, other people are fighting for their livelihoods, other people are fighting for their credibility. And, of course, there's an intersection of people whose credibility is their livelihood.
Note that in reframing it as theft of credibility, the owning party has been definitely injured to an extent. As in, said object (credibility) is no longer what it once was after alleged theft has occurred.
And I'm not trying to state some Universal Truths that I will debate to death. Again the whole point is that what counts as "theft" is a complicated topic. I'm sure if you spend a bit more brainpower, you can find analogies that will make me look like a hypocrite. I'm just seeing this community lately strongly signal towards preserving some "original" meaning of words in the belief that it will solve some problem or another and I'm tired of it; I have similar linguistic thoughts about the whole uproar on the term "hallucination" but that's for another comment thread essay.
> People have to adjust expectations, not laws.
I know this thread is about theft but this attitude is downright dangerous in general. People should expect laws to adjust, lest they become irrelevant. Quick example: it's not fair to tell workers to adjust their expectation in light of the emergence of the gig economy. Should they just expect their labor to be exploited then, moving forward? I say, absolutely not. Legislation should catch-up to uphold/strengthen labor laws. Replace "gig economy" with "AI" and we are sort-of back on topic.
Following this logic I think I can conclude that computers should have been protected from computers. Because they were people who were good at managing computation and now soulless machines replaced the hell out of their profession.
I understand most of your points, but my main question still stands: how do we choose who’s worth sparing and why it should be Ms. Johanson or wlop or my grandma whose ability basically became stolen(“”?) in the 80s.
I believe this has to do with emotion more than anything else. AI theft is closer to the skin than any worker/engineer who was replaced long ago. But at the same time it is another step in human development. We can decide now if having a nice face and/or talking in a specific way is worth being a job or is a worthless skill. Still quite a skill! Just worth not much, akin to adding lots of numbers in your head now.
Whatever we choose, the non-forward looking choice will be crushed by reality, as usual.
In an attempt to add a pithy but trite summary to your good words:
Laws are codified expectations.
I assume Jeff wants cease and desist too as this seems more blatant on the surface. Starts a cat and mouse game until they find a variation they feel is different enough to ignore his pleads. Some will use this new clone tech for free publicity hack and others will claim it's still their voice and try to censor it as punishment for targeting them or not doing a bigger deal for the real voice and finding a better one.