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Comment by JimDabell | Hacker News Reader

> how can you argue about about IP and copyright if the breakthrough of LLMs is potentially based on circumventing or breaking IP and copyright in the first place?

Easy answer: it’s not. Learning isn’t copyright infringement. Never has been and hopefully never will be.

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This is another case of anthropomorphic language for AI failing us. Who could be opposed to “learning?”

If I learn from a textbook I stole, some people maybe be thrilled I learned something, but stealing is still a crime and hopefully always will be.

Well, of course learning isn't the problem and shouldn't be. But what about reselling/commercialising that knowledge? That is the big (commercial) opportunity. But if AI models learn by fitting their parameters to the given data, then overfitting on said data could result in the IP or copyrighted being "slopped" out verbatim?

The knowledge isn’t copyrighted and, thank god, cannot be.

I thought we were supposed to be hackers. Information wants to be free and all that. What a bunch of hypocrites, willing to betray their ideals as soon as it’s convenient.

1. You're lumping distinct groups of people. This is Hacker News but "hack" often in the sense of "growth hacking", not in the "hacker manifesto" sense.

2. Even in that case, people might just be demanding equal justice. If I make information free I might get jailed. Regardless of my moral framework.

1. What? No. You’re simply wrong.

2. What’s your point? People are demanding justice for behavior they don’t like but isn’t illegal? The way to fix that is to gather a majority and change the law.

1. I'd agree with parent. HN is at least 50% growth instead of hacker ethos. Sure there are a ton of users who don't even know what the manifesto is.

As support: How many top articles are there about "Someone used AI to ___" vs "Here's a technical dive into this AI architecture"?

Learning isn't but using that knowledge is.

> Learning isn’t copyright infringement.

Of course, but only humans are able to learn. Clanker enhancement is stealing.

> Learning isn’t copyright infringement. Never has been and hopefully never will be.

For humans.

Why should computer systems owned by corporations have anything remotely similar to the same freedoms as humans?

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