Every piece of creation you and I make us the sum total of our experiences and that includes copy written work. Holding an LLM guilty for that is like holding the human brain guilty for memorizing copyrighted work.
Define "genuine creativity".
Genuine creativity, often attributed to humans, is the ability to generate, imagine, or invent something new and original that has value or meaning. It involves thinking beyond existing boundaries, making connections between different pieces of information, and coming up with innovative solutions to problems.
Creativity can manifest in many forms, including:
Artistic creativity: This is often the first thing people think of when they hear the word "creativity". It includes creating visual art, music, literature, and more.
Inventive creativity: This involves coming up with new products, technologies, or methods that solve problems in novel ways.
Conceptual creativity: This involves developing new theories, models, or ways of understanding the world.
Problem-solving creativity: This involves finding unique solutions to challenges or problems.
Genuine creativity is often characterized by originality, expressiveness, and the ability to transform or redefine existing ideas or norms. It's a complex process that involves both conscious and unconscious thinking, and it's influenced by a person's knowledge, experiences, personality, and environment.
I went a step further and asked if it's capable of genuine creativity and received:
As an AI, I don't possess creativity in the human sense. I don't have feelings, thoughts, or experiences, and I don't generate ideas or concepts spontaneously. However, I can generate unique combinations of information based on the vast amount of data I've been trained on. This can sometimes appear as "creativity", but it's important to note that it's a result of complex algorithms and computations, not genuine creative thought.
My terse reply actually indicates an understanding that we completely lack a formal definition of "genuine creativity", and therefore any such claims are vague intuitions at best.
> I don't have feelings, thoughts, or experiences
This implicitly assumes we have a mechanistic understanding of feelings, thoughts or experiences. We don't, therefore we can make no such definitive claims about how machine learning and human cognitive processes. ChatGPT has specifically been trained to give this response despite agreeing with an argument that suggests it could indeed have mental states:
https://twitter.com/naasking/status/1598802001428566016
> As an AI, I don't possess creativity in the human sense. I don't have feelings, thoughts, or experiences, and I don't generate ideas or concepts spontaneously
Define "spontaneously". If you mean that humans act without apparent cause, that does not entail there is no cause. If there is a cause, then that cause can be modeled as an input into a pure function. ChatGPT and other ML systems are pure functions can also mix concepts and generate new and unique outputs from its learned state space given such inputs. Humans are still more complex than such systems, so the mystique can hide in the perceived complexity, but don't mistake this for a different kind of process. Which isn't to say that it is the same process, I'm saying there's no real basis for either claim.
I think there's a lot of sloppy thinking going on when comparing human brains and ML, particularly ascribing some sort of exceptionalism to humans. There's a long, incorrect history of that.
These sorts of clipped sentences without any supporting context are understood to be delivered in bad faith. If you want to discuss in good faith, then elaborate. From here it sure looks like you wanted to score points by derailing the discussion on what you’ve deemed to be poor word choice.
you've been called and it turns out your argument was merely a bluff
I viewed the curt demand I provide a definition as rude and a cheap tactic intended to disrupt a discussion. And the ensuing discussion with that particular person did nothing to convince me otherwise. Fortunately, I don’t owe them a reply and you don’t have to believe me. It’s all good.
The fact that it knows the definition of creativity makes it's answer suspect. It's like saying this: "I am not capable of speaking or understanding English, what you see here is just a statistical prediction of the next most likely words. I do not in actuality understand or speak English."
Basically it's a best fit curve in N-dimensional space. The entire human brain can be modeled this way. In practice what we end up doing is using a bunch of math tricks to try to poke and prod at this curve to get some sort of "fit" on the data.
There are an infinite number of possible curves that can fit within this data. One of these curves is the LLM. The other curve is the human brain.
Here's a better way to put it. Your entire OS can be modeled under this idea. We can use a bunch of training data and basically recreate your operating system under ML. Just feed in current state and train it until it will output correct state.
But understanding the OS from this ML perspective is a far cry from understanding the OS from the perspective of source code.
We do NOT understand fully what's going on. In fact, the fact that the LLM even had chatGPT's capabilities was not predicted or foreseen.
I hate pedantic vocabulary just as much as you and this is not the direction I want to take it. But that test I outlined above literally points out that there is no difference. What the LLMs output fits our definition of genuine creativity because you can't tell the difference.
In fact the word itself is the ludicrous thing here. You just made it up to differentiate AI art and human art, but in reality there is no differentiator it's one category with zero recognizable difference... the only actual difference is "what" created it.
Why? Just observe how art and content is perceived before and after you tell people it was made by AI. I think it's an unfounded bias.
You probably remember the AI art piece that won an art contest? It was perceived as better than the rest, obviously, or it wouldn't have won - until it was revealed it was made by AI.
Now, IMHO, that was not fair and if it was disqualified, that was absolutely the right move, but that's not the point.
The same can be observed when people talk about (AI) art. I've seen people comment "Awesome! There is just something about [this artwork] that AI can't reproduce, human art has soul!" even though the artwork they commented on* was made by AI
After it is revealed to be AI made, it is suddenly "soulless" and not genuine anymore.
I remember there was an online mental health care platform that (without revealing this) introduced AI therapists. According to their analytics, the AI therapists, on average, got higher scores than the human therapists. Then, word got out they're using AI and suddenly, people rated the service a lot worse than before. It was obviously wrong to not disclose this.
There's nothing wrong with valuing craftsmanship and human work higher than machine work. We as humans do and I do, too - but generally, nowadays, digital watercolor art made in Photoshop (and co) is not inherently considered "not creative" or "soulless" because it wasn't painted with real watercolor... but I'm pretty sure that was not always the case. I'm sure artists discussed about how digital art is not genuine, creative or soulless back then, too.
Can anyone that was there at the time tell me if there were similarities in sentiment when digital art and Photoshop (and co) became popular?
What I'm trying to say is that there is definitely a bias at work and people generally can't tell the difference if they are not told about the (possibility of) involvement of AI.
I also fear that currently, we're just the lame adults that don't like the new thing and eventually in 10 to 20 years after AI art is normal and accepted by the generation that grew up with it, something new will come out that that generation will think is lame and not genuine, and so on.
That is how I remember it. I'm relatively sure, but take it with a grain of salt - memories are, as we know, not reliable.
Sure, there's incremental evolution. But, we also have breakthrough artists inventing new techniques and art forms. It doesn't matter that a computer program can clone a power chord structure and create something that sorta sounds like Nirvana. That's not proof of creativity. Yes, it created something so it's "creative" in entirely mechanical stance. Just like solar flares will flip bits in my computer and "create" things as well.
We can argue all day about what art means. It can get really philosophical really quick. I contend people can dream up new ideas and execute on them in a way that resonates with others and that they don't need to copy everyone else to do that. That given the basics (here's some paper an color pencils) people can develop skills and invent wholly unique ways to represent themselves and the world around them. That they're able to do that in isolation and without education. I point to the entirety of human civilization as my supporting evidence. I think it's reductive to claim we're just statistical models consuming media and shuffling things around.
It seems to me this whole argument hinges on saying humans and these image generation tools work the same way. If they do, then teach one of these programs what it means to draw, give them a sensor network to the outside world, and let's see what they generate. That would be hugely compelling and would sidestep this whole discussion about IP whitewashing. But, that's not what's happening. Whether because of convenience or because it's the only practical way to generate art, these systems only work by training on art created by humans. That they're able to generate a final product that looks like something else made by a human shouldn't be shocking -- that's the whole basis of copying.
I never claimed this. Art isn't a regurgitation. It's a composition of what came before plus a random seed. Humans do this. But so do LLMs.
Think about it. Can you erase all forms of memory in a human until it's brain dead and expect it to produce art? No. It can't.
> Children draw all sorts of fanciful creatures that they've never seen in the wild or in other art.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136039656660684880/1...
>We have art formed by completely isolated societies in very distinct styles
prompt: Draw art in the style of a society or civilization that has never existed. Make the art very distinct in style such that the style is very divergent from anything that has been seen before.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136039656660684880/1...
>It seems to me this whole argument hinges on saying humans and these image generation tools work the same way. If they do, then teach one of these programs what it means to draw, give them a sensor network to the outside world, and let's see what they generate.
No. The argument hinges on something far more insidious. If I showed you two pieces of art side by side.... One was AI generated in seconds and the other one was created through pure passion and hours and hours of hard work and toil. If you can't tell one was AI generated then all that toil and passion is useless.
Take a look at the image on the lower right hand corner. That is indisputably original. The badge doesn't exist anywhere else and the alien form with one entire leg jutting out of the torso has never been done before. We know that this one legged creature is entirely original because it doesn't exist in any of the shows.
This is the key how you know LLMs aren't regurgitating stuff. It's trying to reproduce something from a flawed understanding of reality. A regurgitation would get things truly correct, but a one legged human is a creative error due to a lack of understanding. The LLM doesn't understand reality as completely and as cohesively as we do but it understands an aspect of it enough that it can produce art that mostly works. The LLM is definitely creating stuff from pure thought. These things are not copies and that's what you don't get.
The hype for LLMs is so over the top that it looks like the latest outrage from something that occurred on social media. What you and other people are missing is that we crossed a certain AI threshold here. This isn't mere regurgitation.
But humans like LLMs do have copyrighted content. That means humans are breaking the law that LLMs are also breaking.
LLMs and diffusion models don’t “consume content” and the content they produce doesn’t come from inspiration, greed, boredom or any number of human traits. They don’t remember the Target logo to go shop there or a college class they took to apply for a job so they can be a tax paying member of society.
No LLMs use a cold and calculating algorithm to produce content that it equivalent and at times Better than anything a human can produce. When a human consumes content produced by an LLM it is indistinguishable from content that came from inspiration, greed, boredom or any number of human traits. You can't tell. That is the future. We can identify flaws now but we all know those flaws will be rapidly disappearing.
What the LLM tells us, what it teaches us, is that the human condition is trivial. We are a biological machines made out of wetware and the LLM is a solid state machine made out of silicon. Two machines that make content. We like to pretend that the stuff that comes from inspiration, greed or boredom as if those are things that have deep intrinsic meaning in the universe. No. It's a lie we tell ourselves. We make up the meaning, and so does the LLM.
Society is fucking changing. Creativity, art, works of inspiration... all that stuff will become as common as water and plastic cups. That's just the way things are accept it or don't.
But here's the thing. Don't pull justice into the mix. Don't say that a crime was committed because an LLM produced something better and faster than a human could. Don't call obviously original writing and original art a COPY when it is obviously NOT. These are the same tactics used by patent trolls.
This is a twisting of justice because people are afraid. No different from how a patent troll twists justice because people want profit.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136039656660684880/1...
here are four pieces of original art that I produced in 10 seconds using an LLM with the prompt: "the most original piece of art ever". Sue me!!
The law is arbitrary, written by humans, not by some platonic ideal inherent in the universe. It doesn’t need to be applied equally to people and tools.
The people producing these models just want profit as much as any patent troll and like them will interpret the law in such a way that benefits them or fight to change it so they can realize that profit.
It’s easier to go after the models and prevent copyright for AI generated works than to take issue with all of their users which is what we’re seeing in the courts.
“Society is fucking changing”
I agree with you there.
I’m not fundamentally opposed to AI generated anything actually but the training is problematic and I don’t see society as ready for it.
It would be an easier pill to swallow if we had a shortage of writers/artists/etc and this was the solution to that.
Here's a common experience most people will have had: Think about what it feels like to slip and fall on a wet road and skin your palms on some gritty tarmac. Think about how many senses that involves, and how it's a basic experience most people have had. And now consider how we aren't even remotely close to the process of beginning to digitise such a basic experience.
'Real physical objects' don't have 'colour properties', as grouping together certain wavelength ranges of EM radiation and then assigning them a 'colour' label is a human invention.
For example, even if every human disappeared from Earth tomorrow, objects will still emit EM radiation, but won't emit human invented labels.
The LLM is just deriving unique works in between the data points along that best fit curve.
We see things, we recognize patterns, and we reproduce those patterns to the best of our abilities - that is the human creative process in a nutshell. It’s the process that lead to the creation of LLMs in the first place - why should our creation not follow the same methodology in order to create the same way we do? Why should a computer looking at a hundred pieces of art and producing something objectively similar to what it’s seen be any different than a human being doing the same thing?
You realized machines didn't break copyright right? Machines can't do this yet so it's a non issue at this point.
Humans were sued in this lawsuit because humans are the ones who did this action.
The lawsuit is about this: I can copy stuff into my brain but not into my cybernetic assistive brain.
Just because I make an algorithm that linearly interpolates between two (copyrighted) values doesn't mean that it is creative or holds the wisdom between them.
"The other problem for plaintiffs is that it is simply not plausible that every Training Image used to train Stable Diffusion was copyrighted (as opposed to copyrightable), or that all DeviantArt users’ Output Images rely upon (theoretically) copyrighted Training Images, and therefore all Output images are derivative images"
This displays either ignorance as to how artists work and the extent to which they are involved or can be involved in the legal copyright system, or reflects incoherence around the copyright system.
In this case the Judge chose to say, in effect: unless you have explicitly copyrighted it, it's fair use
That is now a new precedent that negatively impacts individual artists who have no power in the market, and protects giant corporate interests which have tons of power in the market
No, this has always been the case. The judge ruled nothing new.
You cannot sue someone for copyright unless you first register the copyright.
https://www.nycbar.org/get-legal-help/article/intellectual-p....
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/why-register-copyright/
> Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b),[1] no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.
[NB: 106A(a) is right of attribution].
It's the law, as enacted by Congress (even though it is probably a violation of the TRIPS Agreement, an international treaty signed by the US).
But note there is nothing preventing you from registering your copyright well after you first published the material, although the work has to be registered before infringement if you want statutory damages (the big $$$$) instead of just actual damages.
"there is nothing preventing you from registering your copyright well after you first published the material"
Your point is exactly what people in power want. IT IS CODIFIED IN LAW that unless you go through a kafkaesque process, your work can be reused and you get no compensation for it.
That is precisely the OPPOSITE of "just" and the law was written by capitalists for capitalists.
Just look at the original precedent case: https://casetext.com/case/vacheron-constantin-le-coultre-wat... "two successive applications for a certificate of registration were refused by the Register of Copyrights upon the ground that the subject matter was not a work of art within the requirements of the Act"
Perfect - so we set up a kafkaesque process that is opaque and up to a handful of unelected elite to make rulings on art (oh please) and if you don't do this then it's Legal and therefore right.
Diogenes remains dissapointed
(Also, fwiw, your copyright registration being denied is sufficient to bring action. You just now have to plead why you have copyright despite the US Copyright Office disagreeing.)
> Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
> Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
> No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”
from https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#:~:text=....
I’m surprised to see this reasoning (well all billion images can’t have been registered, so they can’t sue). I wonder how much it would cost in copyright fees to register all of LAION.
Well, here's the actual text from the decision:
> Each defendant argues that McKernan and Ortiz’s copyright claims must be dismissed because neither of them has registered their images with the Copyright Office. They also move to “limit” Anderson’s copyright claim to infringement based only on the 16 collections of works that she has registered. See, e.g., Declaration of Paul M. Schoenhard (Dkt. No. 51-1), ¶¶ 5-6; see also Compl. ¶ 28 & Exs. 1-16.3
> In opposition, plaintiffs do not address, much less contest, McKernan or Ortiz’s asserted inability to pursue Copyright Act claims. At oral argument, plaintiffs’ counsel clarified that they are not asserting copyright claims on behalf of these two plaintiffs. July 19, 2023 Transcript (Tr.), pg. 17:1-5. As such, McKernan and Ortiz’s copyright act claims are DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.
> Likewise, plaintiffs do not address or dispute that Anderson’s copyright claims should be limited to the collections Anderson has registered. The scope of Anderson’s Copyright Act claims are limited to the collections which she has registered.
TL;DR: plaintiffs didn't attempt to argue that the copyright claims should be construed broadly, defendants argued they should, so defendants win at motion-to-dismiss stage. The defendants actually lost their argument that they should win because Anderson didn't identify the specific registered works, the entire case should be thrown out--the judge said there's enough specificity to let the case go to discovery to figure out which registered works may have been infringed.
The judge didn't say that (for one thing, copyrights aren't handled by the Patent and Trademark Office.)
What he did say is a bit bizarre. because copyrightable works are cooyrighted automatically when set in fixed (including digital) form. So, if it existed to be trained on and was cooyrightable, it was cooyrighted.
The judge may have been using sloppy language to refer to registration, which legally must be done before pursuing most copyright claims in court. (This isn't about being cooyrighted, and registration can happen after alleged infringement without invalidating the claim, but it doesn have to happen before filing a lawsuit; it is a procedural reauirement that is black and white in the law.)
Moreover, at least in the case of music, people have been successfully sued when their song strongly resembles another copyrighted work. Thus "holding the human brain guilty for memorizing copyrighted work" is actually the status quo.
The question is that vague resemblance is subject to copyright.