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OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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The issue is that fair use is more nuanced than people think, but that the barrier to claiming fair use is higher when you are engaged in commercial activities. I'd more readily accept the fair use arguments from research institutions, companies that train and release their model weights (llama), or some other activity with a clear tie to the public benefit.
OpenAI isn't doing this work for the public benefit, regardless of the language of altruism they wrap it in. They, and Microsoft, and hoovering up others data to build a for profit product and make money. That's really what it boils down to for me. And I'm fine with them making money. But pay the people whose data you're using.
Now, in the US there is no case law on this yet and it will take years to settle. But personally, philosophically, I don't see how Microsoft taking NYT articles and turning them into a paid product is any different than Microsoft taking an open source projects that doesn't allow commercial use and sneaking it into a project.
Well, regarding text online, most is there fir the visitors to read fir free. So, if we end up treating these AI training like human reading text one could argue they don't have to pay.
Reddit doesn't pay their users, anyway.
Agreed. That said, NYT actually intentionally allows Google and Bing servers to parse their news articles in order to put their articles top in the search results. In that regard they might like certain form of processing by LLMs.
I thought about the indexing situation in contrast to the user paywall. Without thinking too much about any legal argument, it would seem that NYT having a paywall for visitors is them enforcing their right to the content signaling that it isn't free for all use, while them allowing search indexers access is allowing the content to visible but not free on the market.
It reminds me of the Canadian claim that Google should pay Canadian publishers for the right to index, which I tend to disagree with. I don't think Google or Bing should owe NYT money for indexing, but I don't think allowing indexing confers the right for commercial use beyond indexing. I highly suspect OpenAI spoofed search indexers while crawling content specifically to bypass paywall and the like.
I think part of what the courts will have to weigh for the fair use arguments is the extent to which NYT it's harmed by the use, the extent to which the content is transformed, and the public interest between the two.
I find it interesting that OpenAI or Microsoft already pay AP for use of their content because it is used to ensure accurate answers are given to users. I struggle to see how the situation is different with NYT in OpenAI opinion, other than perhaps on price.
It will be interesting to see what shakes out in the courts. I'm also interested in the proposed EU rules which recognize fair use for research and education, but less so for commercial use.
Thanks for the reply! Have a great day!