this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says::Pressure grows on artificial intelligence firms over the content used to train their products

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

A ton of people need to read some basic background on how copyright, trademark, and patents protect people. Having none of those things would be horrible for modern society. Wiping out millions of jobs, medical advancements, and putting control into the hands of companies who can steal and strongarm the best. If you want to live in a world run by Mafia style big business then sure.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I agree with you on part ..It's moot anyway. It's the current law of the land. The glue of society and all that. It's illegal now so they shouldn't do it.

If you have enough money (required) and make a solid legal argument to change the laws (optional: depends on how much money you start with) then they can do it... But for now they should STFU and shut the fuck down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Meh, patents are monopolies over ideas, do much more harm than good, and help big business much more than they help the little guy. Being able to own an idea seems crazy to me.

I marginally support copyright laws, just because they provide a legal framework to enforce copyleft licenses. Though, I think copyright is abused too much on places like YouTube. In regards to training generative AI, the goal is not to copy works, and that would make the model's less useful. It's very much fair use.

Trademarks are generally good, but sometimes abused as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Patents don’t let you own an idea. They give you an exclusive right to use the idea for a limited time in exchange for detailed documentation on how your idea works. Once the patent expires everyone can use it. But while it’s under patent anyone can look up the full documentation and learn from it. Without this, big business could reverse engineer the little guys invention and just steal it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Goes both ways. As someone who has tried bringing new products to market, it's extremely annoying that nearly everything you can think of already has similar patent. I've also reverse engineered a few things (circuits and disassembled code), as a little guy, working for a small business . I don't think people usually scan patents to learn things, and reverse engineering usually isn't too hard.

If I were a capitalist, I'd argue that if a big business "steals" an idea, and implements it more effectively and efficiently than the small business, then the small business should probably fail.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Amazon is practically a case study on your last point. They routinely copy competitors products that use their platform to sell, taking most of the profits for themselves and sometimes putting those others out of business. I don’t see that as a good thing, it’s anticompetitive and eventually the big business just squeezes for more profit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I see and understand your point regarding trademark, but I don't understand how removing copyright or patents would have this effect, could you elaborate ?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Small business comes up with something, big business takes idea and puts it in all their stores/factories. Small business loses out because they can't compete. Small business goes poof trying to compete.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Is it not what is already happening with our current system ? The little guy never have the ressources to fight legal battle against the big guy and enforce it's "intellectual property".

And the opposite would be true in a world without patent, small businesses could win because they would be free to reuse and adapt big businesses' ideas.

It feels very simplistic to reduce patents to "protection of the little business", in our current world they mostly protect the big ones.

Also this small example doesn't elaborate about how removing copyrights would so negatively affects our society

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I mean we’ve seen it work multiple times against Apple where a smaller company has been able to enforce their patent against them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

There's a reason why the sharks on shark tank ask if ideas are patented. Without a patent, your idea can be ripped off without any recompense.

Sure there are problems with some patents, such as software patents, but the system should be reformed rather than completely tossed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Well, I was just giving an example of something that is bad about not having a patent system. Personally, I think the patent system is good thing, but it needs a lot of reworking and we don't and probably won't ever have the proper government to fix it what with all the big businesses living in the politician's pockets.