[Earw0rm]

Actually, "launder" is the word I'd use for LLMs.

Clean things up just enough that it's difficult to prove where their semantic content came from.

How useful this is or isn't, and how much of a threat to rightful IP owners, depends very much on the type of IP.

[visarga]

If "laundering" IP is made illegal, then we're all in for a huge surprise. Almost everything we say and do has been said and done before. And we're rarely the originators of our main ideas, we "launder" 99.99% of what we know, even subconsciously. Any one human could be suspected of secretly using AI today.

[Earw0rm]

Totally agree, the difference is speed and scale.

Copyright laws didn't need to be invented until the printing press came along, because the act of copying was slow and difficult.

Not a fan of the patent model for software, for example, but perhaps this is an argument for it. Or, we just get used to the fact that idea-reuse is cost-free, accept a couple of decades of uncomfortable economic dislocation, and get on with it.