Comment on Grisham, Martin join authors suing OpenAI: “There is nothing fair about this”
knitwitt@lemmy.world 1 year agoIf I took 100 of the world’s best-selling novels, wrote each individual word onto a flashcard, shuffled the entire deck, then created an entirely new novel out of that, (with completely original characters, plot threads, themes, and messaged) could it be said that I produced stolen work?
What if I specifically attempted to emulate the style of the number one author on that list? What if instead of 100 novels, I used 1,000 or 10,000? What if instead of words on flashcards, I wrote down sentences? What if it were letters instead?
At some point, regardless of by what means the changes were derived, a transformed work must pass a threshold whereby content alone it is sufficiently different enough that it can no longer be considered derivative.
habanhero@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Y’all are missing the point, what you said is about AI output and is not the main issue in the lawsuit. The lawsuit is about the input to AI - authors want to choose if their content may be used to train AI or not (and if yes, be compensated for it).
There is an analogy elsewhere in this thread that is pretty apt - this scenario is akin to an university using pirated textbooks to educate their students. Whether or not the student ended up pursing a field that uses the knowledge does not matter - the issue is the university should not have done so in the first place.
knitwitt@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I imagine that the easiest way to acquire specific training data for a LLM is to download EBooks from amazon. If a university professor pirates a textbook and then uses extracts from various pages in their lecture slides, the cost of the crime would be the cost of a single textbook. In the case of a novel, GRRM should be entitled to the cost of a set of Ice & Fire if they could prove that the original training material was illegaly pirated instead of legally purchased.
habanhero@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I’m not sure your assessment of the “cost of damages” is really accurate but again, that’s not the point.
The point of the lawsuit is about control. If the authors succeed in setting precedent that they should control the use of their work in AI training, then they can easily negotiate the terms with AI tech companies for much more money.
The point is not one-time compensation, it’s about the control in the future.