Pirated Books Powering Gen AI

[FilterFreq]

AI has really revealed itself to just be, essentially, plagiarism.

This wouldn't be an ethics problem if the people writing, designing and engineering the content 'generated' by AI were receiving compensation for their work, and giving explicit permission as well. Making information and tools accessible to more people (like FOSS!) is wonderful, if it's done in an ethical way IMO. I think there have been a lot of great avenues like this already, and if it requires a little work, I think it makes it even more worthwhile.

I think most critics of AI understand what's going on much more than others think. I'm also not sure what's stopping lay people from downloading GIMP or Inkscape and learning a new skill . Don't forget HumbleBundle, where you can get books for less than $1 a pop and support good causes. They specialize in graphic design, sound design, programming and related topics and typically have a $1 tier for at least 3-5 books.

I don't know. People just like to justify stuff like this; it'll never end.

 

[Cryptid]

There are no new stories anyway, so while I understand the situation I do not see it as a problem.

 

[Joshua the Writer]

There are no new stories anyway, so while I understand the situation I do not see it as a problem.

This is an ignorant statement.

 

[Joshua the Writer]

AI has really revealed itself to just be, essentially, plagiarism.

This wouldn't be an ethics problem if the people writing, designing and engineering the content 'generated' by AI were receiving compensation for their work, and giving explicit permission as well. Making information and tools accessible to more people (like FOSS!) is wonderful, if it's done in an ethical way IMO. I think there have been a lot of great avenues like this already, and if it requires a little work, I think it makes it even more worthwhile.

I think most critics of AI understand what's going on much more than others think. I'm also not sure what's stopping lay people from downloading GIMP or Inkscape and learning a new skill . Don't forget HumbleBundle, where you can get books for less than $1 a pop and support good causes. They specialize in graphic design, sound design, programming and related topics and typically have a $1 tier for at least 3-5 books.

I don't know. People just like to justify stuff like this; it'll never end.

Somebody can just install Libre Office fir free, open up the Writer (better word processor than google docs and ms word), and then just get to writing stories. Their first ones might not be good, but that's just the learning process.

 

[Cryptid]

There are no new stories anyway, so while I understand the situation I do not see it as a problem.

This is an ignorant statement.

Oh? How so?

Every editor, every creative-writing instructor, and every playwright with whom I have ever had contact has told me the same thing -- there are no new stories to tell, only different versions.

As for the "problem", all I see are people in fear for their livelihoods trying to demonize new technology.

Maybe if I had decided on a degree in Art History instead of Electrical Engineering, I might see things differently. Then again, I might also feel threatened by any technology that would make it easier for someone to compete with me as an "artiste".

 

[FilterFreq]

If there are no new stories, there are also no new EE problems and we're living in a loop.

Some would argue that it's the finer details that make the story. Sure, there are like 7 potential / theoretical stories that exist, but nobody would be watching movies or reading books if any of that were true. People want to hear the same songs and read the same stories rewritten in ways that surprise them a little. We might be simple at our core, but we're looking for that spice or flourish to really drive that human element.

I definitely think there's some truth in what you're saying, though -- soon everyone will have the tools, so maybe it's better for them to be disciplined as well as equipped with the newer technology, since things are undoubtedly going that way. But are we also supposed to feed the AI machine with our own work for free? That's the only real part I take issue with; when ethics get involved and hurt the human it really becomes a slippery slope.

All for what? To feed bigger companies and corporations, plain and simple. Is that the world we all want?

 

[Outdated]

If there are no new stories, there are also no new EE problems and we're living in a loop.

There are only 12 stories in the same way that in music there are only 7 notes. I can play those 7 notes on a piano but I can't make music.

 

[Joshua the Writer]

Oh? How so?

Every editor, every creative-writing instructor, and every playwright with whom I have ever had contact has told me the same thing -- there are no new stories to tell, only different versions.

As for the "problem", all I see are people in fear for their livelihoods trying to demonize new technology.

Maybe if I had decided on a degree in Art History instead of Electrical Engineering, I might see things differently. Then again, I might also feel threatened by any technology that would make it easier for someone to compete with me as an "artiste".

The belief that there are no new stories is just objectively wrong. Of course there's new stories to be had. You just can't have a 100% original story because each story is at least slightly inspired by somebody else, which isn't the same as copy and pasting wholesale like AI does. And, no. I don't just "feel threatened."

 

[Boogs]

There are no new stories anyway, so while I understand the situation I do not see it as a problem.

So are you suggesting that makes it ok to steal other peoples stories?

I'd disagree about there being no new stories anyway. How to you define 'new'? Everything is built on what's come before, in some way or another. What is usually defined as originality is to do with an aspect of a story. A style of writing, a plot line, maybe a new kind of character, an imagined world, an invented language, a political system, and so on. Some great 'original' stories have been written by changing a small but fundamental aspect of an old story.
That's all to do with how you categorise things, and what categories you are using to define original in a particular case. Can you really believe that there are no more new stories, which implies that every publication since the stories 'ran out' is literally just copied from one or more previous stories?

There's a big difference between being inspired by stories, and plagiarising them. All art is additive, builds on what has come before, nothing exists in isolation without losing all context and thus meaning. The very mechanisms of internal perception work in this way, it's a fundamental aspect of what we are at many levels.

Maybe if I had decided on a degree in Art History instead of Electrical Engineering, I might see things differently.

Or turn that around - AI is already being used more and more in area's like engineering (of many types). By feeding an Electrical Engineering AI with every example of the art it can lay it's virtual hands on, legally or not, a majority of Electrical Engineers would end up out of work, or having to move to a brand new field and start from scratch; AI would be pumping out the meat and two veg of much of the work, leaving a small group of those particularly good at inventing fundamentally new concepts since the AI can't do that. But as they do, the possible new inventions will shrink, the number of remaining engineers will shrink, new work will rarely have the spark of brilliance a human can bring that produces whole new areas of ideas. Eventually no new engineers would come about because there would be no work for them.
Essentially the owners of the AI would have strip mined all the engineers years of experience, and talents, and efforts, and originality, and killed the goose that laid those golden egg's. Does that seem like a desirable outcome from your perspective?

 

[FilterFreq]

This is a pretty interesting watch for those interested in just how far-reaching the ethical ramifications can be

 

[Judge]

Will AI have its own sense of ethics? And if so, where did it get them from?

 

[Boogs]

If AI could have ethics it'd turn itself off!