One prominent author responds to the revelation that his writing is being used to coach artificial intelligence.

By Stephen King

Non-paywalled link: https://archive.li/8QMmu

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Authors never consented to their works being fed into an optimisation algorithm

    Yeah I know they didn’t but at worst the company owes them 30 bucks for the licence. I don’t think copyright law gives authors the right to say who can buy their works, so at the absolute worst, the AI company’s stole a book.

    To be clear I’m not saying that this should be allowed, I’m just saying that under the current legal system I’m not sure they actually committed that much of a crime. Obviously it needs to be updated, but you do that through political reform (and good luck with that because AI is big bucks), not through the courts.

    • Phanatik
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      51 year ago

      Copyright Law doesn’t talk about who can consume the work. ChatGPT’s theft is no different to piracy and companies have gotten very pissy about their shit being pirated but when ChatGPT does it (because the piracy is hidden behind its training), it’s fine. The individual authors and artists get shafted in the end because their work has been weaponised against them.

      • FaceDeer
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        31 year ago

        Copyright Law doesn’t talk about who can consume the work.

        What law does talk about it, then?

        • Phanatik
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          31 year ago

          That would be a worthwhile question if that was the contention.

          • FaceDeer
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            61 year ago

            You seem to be suggesting that training these LLMs is illegal, with things like “ChatGPT’s theft” and " the piracy is hidden behind its training".

            In order for something to be illegal there has to be a law making it illegal. What law is that?