[naet]

I think this is a fallacy that I see a lot in recent AI discussions. An LLM is not the same as a human brain. You might see some superficial similarities in both being able to produce a block of text, but the method by which the text is produced is entirely different. For example, we can't download entire libraries of books instantly to our brains and then reproduce those books word for word in memory. Things that operate at different scales and by different methods should have different regulations, in the same way a bike or a car is regulated differently from a truck or another piece of heavy machinery.

Also, humans can be, and often are, found liable for copyright infringement or for piracy depending on how they conduct themselves. If a human was to reproduce a copyrighted book word for word, that would consist of copyright infringement regardless of whether it was done by rote memory, by copy and paste, or assisted by a black box LLM. Even if a human paraphrases another work they can still be found guilty of plagiarism if the paraphrase is still overly similar to the original source material. A human can also be guilty of copyright infringement if they use a copyright work as source material in certain ways. If I steal a stock image without paying for a license and add it in my Photoshop collage, I might be found to have pirated or infringed on the original image creator's property.

LLMs are trained on copyright data and can often reproduce that copyright data. It's an open question how we regulate this.

I personally think it would be fair for an artist or author to say their work was not licensed to be used in training a neural net or otherwise request to opt out.

[nate_meurer]

> For example, we can't download entire libraries of books instantly to our brains and then reproduce those books word for word in memory.

Yeah. Nobody's talking about word-for-word duplication here.

> If a human was to reproduce a copyrighted book word for word...

Again?

> Even if a human paraphrases another work they can still be found guilty of plagiarism if the paraphrase is still overly similar to the original source material.

Go look up the dictionary definition of plagiarism. Notice the most crucial element, which you seem to have omitted here, and also notice that it's irrelevant to AI systems, which overtly acknowledge that they exist to generate derivative works.

> If I steal a stock image without paying for a license

Here's another version of your "word-for-word" analogy, which nobody else is talking about.

> I personally think it would be fair for an artist or author to say their work was not licensed to be used in training a neural net or otherwise request to opt out.

I am genuinely curious: how do you propose to enforce this?

[fennecfoxy]

Another humans are special and different argument.

Consider an inevitable AGI with autonomy and no ties to a corporate. Can it not learn and write text whether in conversation, creatively or academically? If it's held to the same copyright laws that humans are then of course it's fine, in my mind. Hell, AI will be _better_ at avoiding infringing on others as they can store so much knowledge and process new knowledge (searching the internet for similar works) than humans are at infringing.

If this is still a problem then doesn't this just boil down to racism against the machine?

[chii]

> LLMs ... can often reproduce that copyright data. It's an open question how we regulate this.

why isn't existing copyright protection sufficient to regulate this? Photoshop can be used today to reproduce copyrighted data just as well.

This has nothing to do with "license to train". I do not believe existing copyright holders have this right granted to them by law - it is a right that is given to society for all works.

An artist learning a style, and producing another piece in the same style, is allowed today. This should be allowed, regardless of whether it is done via using an AI, or via years of training.