AI Megathread

[Faraday]

More news possibly of interest:

New York Times considers joining the slew of lawsuits against OpenAI over illicit use of their content

Also an interesting debate on fair use by a judge and copyright lawyer/expert. Notably, they point out:

The Supreme Court [in its 1985 decision in Harper & Row v The Nation] explained that harm to the rightsholder’s legitimate expectation of copyright revenues was the most significant factor in the fair use evaluation.

In a different Supreme Court case, the court decided based on copyright’s two fundamental objectives:

the enrichment of public knowledge and financial incentivisation to authors to create. Campbell essentially explains that the fair use zone lies in the circumstance where those two objectives are not at cross-purposes; the enrichment of public knowledge should not justify the fair use defense if it is accomplished by significant impairment of the rightsholder’s legitimate entitlement to profit from the distribution of the work.

[Sage]

@Faraday, firstly, this is in no way an attempt to say you are in any way incorrect. I’m responding to you simply to keep this as a linked thread.

The last sentence of the first paragraphed you liked is interesting to me;

An application for a work created with the help of AI can support a copyright claim if a human “selected or arranged” it in a “sufficiently creative way that the resulting work constitutes an original work of authorship,” [the copyright office] said.

Now ignoring for the moment what ‘selected or arranged’ and ‘sufficiently creative way’ means, it sounds like a very valid concern for people like screen writers isn’t the complete replacement of their job by AI but the use of AI to reduce the number of writers required to make a show. I think most of us agree that the technology is still miles away from being able to spit out a script by itself, but what about AI carrying enough of the initial load that the production companies are able to reduce their writers room from 15 people to 10? Likewise, it seems like reporters are at risk of having their job numbers reduced and their jobs transformed as they spend more of their time editing copy initially produced by AI.

Of course the counterpoint to that argument is that this always happens with technological advancement. Farriers were far more in demand 150 years ago than mechanics were.

As for the second article, this is more or less part of the issue I’ve been trying to consider. Assuming that they can get LLMs to stop copying large blocks of text, what is the harm to the rightholder’s expectation of copyright revenue?

I think at the end of the day what is really going to be required will be new laws that codify more precisely all expectations and limitations on how generative AIs are allowed to harvest and use information because they earlier existing laws will require too much work to make them fit well into the new framework.

[NotSanni]

@Sage said in AI Megathread:

Now ignoring for the moment what ‘selected or arranged’ and ‘sufficiently creative way’ means, it sounds like a very valid concern for people like screen writers isn’t the complete replacement of their job by AI but the use of AI to reduce the number of writers required to make a show. I think most of us agree that the technology is still miles away from being able to spit out a script by itself, but what about AI carrying enough of the initial load that the production companies are able to reduce their writers room from 15 people to 10?

The reduction of writing staff in the writing room is still a bad thing. AI isn’t easing any burdens there - it’s just taking away jobs in an industry that’s already gutting and trimming down writing rooms to the point that it’s causing real problems for the industry with regards to getting new talent in and trained up. Production companies shouldn’t be seeking to reduce their writing rooms.

[Sage]

@NotSanni Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I was in favor of it. I was simply noting it as what I believe is a valid concern.

I brought up the counterpoint of how technological growth affects the job market simply because I try my best to view all sides of an issue.

[NotSanni]

@Sage said in AI Megathread:

@NotSanni Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I was in favor of it. I was simply noting it as what I believe is a valid concern.

I brought up the counterpoint of how technological growth affects the job market simply because I try my best to view all sides of an issue.

Seen - apologies for misinterpreting! But I do agree that we just need actual, new legislation/regulation around generative AI/LLM usage. Corporations have been cutting labor hours across the board for a few industries going on a decade now, even [b]before[/b] the latest developments in LLM/generative AI stuff - there probably needs to be strict oversight in how it can be used with regards to labor.

[Faraday]

@Sage said in AI Megathread:

but what about AI carrying enough of the initial load that the production companies are able to reduce their writers room from 15 people to 10?

That exact scenario has been quoted by various WGA members in discussions about the current strike. Their concern is being given a pile of AI-generated garbage and being told: “Clean this up” and then getting an editing credit instead of a writing credit, even though they’re still doing all of the actual work.

@Sage said in AI Megathread:

Of course the counterpoint to that argument is that this always happens with technological advancement. Farriers were far more in demand 150 years ago than mechanics were.

The main difference is that the farriers weren’t replaced by a machine that was built using the output of their farrier work.

[heysparky]

Finally caught up with this. I have enjoyed giving ChatGPT enough information about a setting to roleplay a quick scene with an NPC that I wanted to get out of my head or have as background. I currently have a thread of ‘therapy’ for one of my characters where my PC visits and discusses things happening in his life. It’s grounding for me and I can dash that off when I don’t have time to RP to keep my head ‘in the game’ so to speak. It’s been a lifesaver as I have been eaten by work.

But really I’m here to share this gem from Elle Cordova.

[SpaceKhomeini]

We will have reached the top of Mount ChatGPT when it’s used to write TS scenes.

Maybe it already has. I bet it has.

Robots in your area are getting it on right now.

[Tez]

@SpaceKhomeini ChatGPT is actually really bad at smut.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@Tez

So are a lot of people in this hobby, but not for lack of practice, ohohoho.

[dvoraen]

@SpaceKhomeini said in AI Megathread:

We will have reached the top of Mount ChatGPT when it’s used to write TS scenes.

Maybe it already has. I bet it has.

Robots in your area are getting it on right now.

Obligatory Sex Robot video here