Comment by fvv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fvv | Hacker News Reader

Imagine that the USA and Europe decide to avoid using data available on the Internet that doesn't fully comply with the usage policies of the data providers. This scenario raises significant questions about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) development on a global scale.

If the USA and Europe take this route, what happens next? It's conceivable that China might not follow suit, opting instead to leverage all available online data to boost its AI development. This could lead to a scenario where China manages to develop a super AI, while Europe and the USA get caught in a complex maze of licenses and expensive, specialized micro-AIs.

Faced with an advanced and accessible Chinese AI, what will users around the world do? It's plausible that despite initial concerns, many will end up using the Chinese AI, thereby giving it even more power, data, and growth capacity.

This brings us to the importance of balanced regulation. The European Union, for instance, is often viewed as having hindered innovation with excessive regulations over the past decade. If the USA were to follow this path, they might risk limiting their own capacity for innovation.

Excessive regulation thus emerges as a double-edged sword: on one hand, it aims to protect privacy and user rights; on the other hand, it risks stifling innovation and making one's companies and technologies less competitive globally. In this scenario, the question becomes: How can the USA and Europe balance data protection needs with the necessity to remain competitive in the global AI arena?

Moreover, this discussion isn't just about licensing MP3s; it's about managing common knowledge—that which is accessible to everyone, including competitors in different jurisdictions—for the creation of an industrial revolution. Before clamping down with regulations, careful consideration is needed. Licensing mechanisms can be introduced later if necessary, but they should not provide an undue advantage to competitors. Balance is essential.

> Moreover, this discussion isn't just about licensing MP3s; it's about managing common knowledge—that which is accessible to everyone, including competitors in different jurisdictions—for the creation of an industrial revolution.

Great, why don't these companies train their models on that "common knowledge" then and leave copyrighted work alone? Would be a great option wouldn't it? Solves the whole problem in one go.

Personally, I think these companies are just stealing copyrighted works, and should be sued for that. It's against the law, it's pretty simple.

And the whole China argument... Sorry but it makes no sense. They could beat us in AI by doing illegal things, so we should do the same illegal things to not let them win?

China has a lot of slave labour too. By the same reasoning, shouldn't we introduce slavery to not let them win production?

> Personally, I think these companies are just stealing copyrighted works, and should be sued for that. It's against the law, it's pretty simple.

Is it copyright infringement to count how many times each letter appears in a book?

I don't know that it is, and if it's not, then there is at least some line you can draw where mechanically reading and learning from a copyrighted work is not copyright infringement.

The question of whether training a transformer model is on the legal side of that line remains to be seen, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it out to be.

I'm not saying that in the future there won't be licensing methods that perhaps will serve to provide more direct access to the data, for example free = you can find them online, or do scraping... if you pay for them you have direct access to the dataset for training in real time , and you know that it is clean, without "watermarks" (even textual), etc.. the comparison with slave labor has nothing to do with it because here you are not violating a person's body to train AI, it is more like a duplication (but actually reinterpreted) of digital information that can be copied infinite times without damage, if I read it 3 times a PDF protected by copyright does not cause 3x damage compared to just once

I see it as more similar, for example, to how when the first search engines were born... if they had had to ask each site for permission to read, rework and provide the "external" search service, everything would have died immediately (at least in Europe and use )

another example is allowing emerging countries to maintain lighter copyright laws to facilitate their growth (yes, they violate them, yes perhaps a small percentage of Zambian inhabitants would perhaps buy the media by paying Western fees, but it is better to leave it alone and look at a greater good than managing copyright guarantees everywhere...) the Americans interpret this legislative concept better, the Europeans if they don't wake up will be left behind for a long time,

and I repeat, comparing the passing of a dataset containing copyrighted material into matrices for the generation of an AI is very different from slavery

It's a slippery slope. China developed one of the most sophisticated tracking systems to monitor each step be that digital or physical of it's citizens. Should EU/US do the same? IMO no, China is a 'masked' dictatorship and we must not follow every step China does. If they are detected to train their models on global data and we don't want this, simply pass even more laws to block inbound china traffic, apply more sanctions.

You have written "The European Union, for instance, is often viewed as having hindered innovation with excessive regulations over the past decade" - but how do we know if that's true? Maybe its regulation didn't do much and the US growth is simply caused by the printing machine for the global currency combined with an extremely homogeneous market (all ppl speak the same language and globally a lot more ppl speak english compared to say german/french) and it's part of one country compared to EU that's a group of countries operating under some agreements but with still different laws/cultures. How do we know that specifically EU regulation is the root cause of 'less' EU innovation compared to the US and not the other things?

"China developed one of the most sophisticated tracking systems to monitor each step be that digital or physical of it's citizens. "

that tracking system is not an industrial revolution ...

you are comparing different thing ( that was my mp3 licencing reference , the compromise on preventive legislative micro-management must be evaluated based on importance )

a further point could be cryptocurrencies, they are much more regulated in China than in Europe and the USA,

states choose what to regulate based on the need for control/growth/safeguarding/... everything affects different points differently,

make comparisons with others laws or regulations on other topics must take into consideration the implications that these different categories have on the compared subject

eu isn't regulating all ai usecases either, just some of them, you instead phrase it like we should let corpos act as they want, unbounded, suck all public data, build stuff that may not be legally allowed in normal cases and make huge profits because that's the only way our civilization advances. We know what corporate greed is, some bounds must be put in place to avoid unintended consequences

"simply pass even more laws to block inbound china traffic, apply more sanctions." .. like an eu/us "firewall"?

so "they" can have their AI that makes new molecules, new medicines, new materials, increases productivity by 5x , in the meantime should we separate all the scientific research papers because otherwise they will devour us? , so we move backwards but are we giving $5 more to everyone who wrote a book that no one has read? so they can buy the chinese vpn to access their ai to write the next book for the next 5$ ?

to remain on t he topic... obv. those 5$ would also go to all youtube channels gosh, those could also be 30$ if you really want to split revenue more equally, so everyone could be 30$ richer and open ai and all newcomers under that legislation could be dead, yeah probably we'll specialize on niche , small, and costly ai each with their limited and licensed dataset

yes, they will have own models, we will have own models (if the law permits, since not every usecase should be allowed). Even the productivity increase by 5x must be approached carefully, like what if it causes massive unemployment (since ppl working on automated jobs will suddenly be out of working field and will not be able to adapt/switch to other areas fast enough and be homeless as result). Some regulations are/can be bad, but other must be put in place to avoid unwanted consequences. The unbounded capitalism at all cost is a thing in US but not in EU and even less in China.

What strikes me, why do you think that EU/US can't do all this stuff if they put in place some regulations (like molecules,medicines,materials, etc...)? Regulations (normally) should limit only a subset of usecases while allowing others, don't you think it's a normal approach instead of letting big corpos suck for free any public data(be it copyrighted or personal) and act unbounded while profiting from this? We know what corporate greed is, look at the insulin price in US vs EU, why don't you think that the same will happen with AI tools/corpos?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com