[gspr]

> When I write code, what I write and how I write it is informed by having read countless source code files over my education and my career. Just as I ingest all that experience to fine-tune how my later code is written, so does the LLM from the code it's seen.

You are presumably human. We have granted humans specific exemptions in copyright law. We have not granted that to LLMs. Why are we so eager to?

[RealityVoid]

Ok, so I use the LLM. I use the tool. Can I now apply the exemption to me?

Are you telling me that I can use the thing, but I can't use it if I process it through an LLM? It get slippery, fast.

[gspr]

What's special about LLMs in your argument? When I was an edgy teenager in the 90s, I'd argue that it's not piracy because the DivX representation of the movie isn't bit-for-bit identical to the Hollywood master or whatever. If your reasoning works for LLMs as the tools, surely it also works for video compression.

[habinero]

No, that's how copyright normally works.

If I write a story, I can put it online. That doesn't mean it's ok to take that story and publish it in an anthology.

[CWuestefeld]

I'm not sure where in our lawbooks there are laws that specifically target humans to the exclusion of human-operated tools.

There's also a TON of irony here. What an about face it is, for the community at large* to switch from "information wants to be free, we support copyleft and FOSS" to leaning so heavily on an incredibly conservative reading of IP law.

[gspr]

> I'm not sure where in our lawbooks there are laws that specifically target humans to the exclusion of human-operated tools.

If we take the point of view that LLMs are tools (I agree), then people need to be absolutely certain that these tools don't contain (compressed) representations of copyrighted works.

People seem not to want to do that. And they argue that the LLMs have "learned" or "been inspired" by the copyrighted works, which is OK for humans.

This is the problem. People can't even agree on which of two mutually exclusive defenses to appeal to! Are LLMs tools which we have to ensure aren't used to reproduce copyrighted work without permission, or are they entities that can be granted exemptions like humans can? It can't be both!

> There's also a TON of irony here. What an about face it is, for the community at large* to switch from "information wants to be free, we support copyleft and FOSS" to leaning so heavily on an incredibly conservative reading of IP law.

True. While IP-owning companies like Microsoft now say "it's online, so we can use it".

It's bizarre.

I'll tell you what: I'll drop my conservative stance in defense if FOSS when Windows and the latest Hollywood movie are "fair use" for consumption by whatever LLM I cook up.

[CWuestefeld]

If we take the point of view that LLMs are tools (I agree), then people need to be absolutely certain that these tools don't contain (compressed) representations of copyrighted works.

I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread that this is the opposite of how the real world works.

In actual fact, people who need software built hire a tool (e.g., a software developer like me) to build it for them. That tool - me or you - has inside it a tremendous library of copyrighted works represented. I've worked on enough different projects over the decades that the next CRUD function, or rule-driven data-entry tool, or whatever, that I build is going to draw very significantly from the last ones I built. And those last ones were copyrighted, with those rights held by my employer at the time, and maybe even protected by NDA or defense-style classifications.

Is your position that this is OK so long as it's stuff that I can keep in my squishy brain, but the moment that mechanism moves to silicon, it somehow becomes fundamentally different?

The other major argument I see in this thread is that for LLMs it's different because there's a third party who is aggregating the data, and selling me (or my employer) use of that tool. But this doesn't change the overall picture at all. It just adds one more layer of dereferencing into it. The addition of that middleman hasn't altered the moral landscape: how is hiring me, along with what's in my memory, different from hiring the combination of me plus a helper to supplement my memory? There's an aspect of scale, I suppose. With that helper I can achieve greater quantities, but it's not changing the story in a qualitative way.

[gspr]

> In actual fact, people who need software built hire a tool (e.g., a software developer like me) to build it for them. That tool - me or you - has inside it a tremendous library of copyrighted works represented.

Humans are distinct from tools, both ethically (to most people) and legally. You may not see it this way, but it is the majority opinion and the stance of the law in most jurisdictions. The rest of your paragraph falls apart without considering humans as tools.

(Incidentally: you can own tools. I don't think you want to open that door…)

> Is your position that this is OK so long as it's stuff that I can keep in my squishy brain, but the moment that mechanism moves to silicon, it somehow becomes fundamentally different?

Yes. We, humans, structured our laws because we consider ourselves and our squishy brains special.

This is, for example, why you don't get charged with murder for terminating a computer program. We, the humans, have decided that the right not to be terminated only applies to humans (and other animals, but then because we grant them that protection).

[lelanthran]

> I'm not sure where in our lawbooks there are laws that specifically target humans to the exclusion of human-operated tools.

It doesn't need to. Laws are for humans.

Laws don't give rights to chainsaws. Or lawnmowers. Or kitchen knives, hammers, screwdrivers, and spades.

You can't use any of those to commit a crime and then claim that the law specifically did not exclude those tools.

Why are you seemingly in favour of carving out an exemption for LLMs?

Laws are for humans.

Arguing that the law did not specifically address "intentionally killing a person by tickling them till they died" means that you found a loophole which can be used to kill people is...

well, it's in the "not even wrong" category...

[ako]

Because that allows us to create useful tools that we didn't have before. For me it feels like a carpenter going from a hand-saw to an electrical saw. Still requires the skills of a good carpenter, but faster and easier.

[gspr]

… so a bunch of people just decided that rights we granted to humans also apply to their tools? Without any discussion? This isn't how anything is supposed to work when it comes to common rules!

[RealityVoid]

The common rules are so because we agree on them. On principle, in this case, we do not agree what the rule should be here and it's in a way unprecedented. We'll soon converge to a societal agreement. I hope society abstaining itself from tools will not be the answer.

[gspr]

And the process by which we agree is lawmaking.

[p_l]

We did not grant human exemptions in copyright law.

We gave certain temporary monopoly on certain uses to humans under rules little understood by laymen even if their livelihood depends on it.

[gspr]

... and from that temporary monopoly humans have exemptions (critique, inspiration, etc.)

[p_l]

It's generally less an exemption and more a constraint on the monopoly, at least in spirit of the law