As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a little older. I hear a lot about AI. I’m just trying to figure out what’s “good” AI, what’s “bad” and if there’s even a difference. I do know that there’s the whole stealing content to train AI bs going on, but is it deeper? Is there such a thing as good AI? Just trying to learn so I can be better person

  • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    Are you forgetting the IP theft

    I’m going to come out and say it: IP theft isn’t a thing. IP is not something that can be stolen. It can have its license violated or it can be copied against the wishes of its owner. What it absolutely cannot be is “stolen”.

    A car can be stolen. A phone can be stolen. A book or a CD or a DVD can be stolen. The concepts or ideas or literal content of what amounts to Intellectual Property cannot be stolen. It can only be copied.

    If anything has been stolen it’s the commons that is the public domain. It was taken away for about four generations. Long enough that no one remembers the IP that’s only just now becoming public domain. It’s a loss far greater than anything related to AI.

    I’ll also say this: Even if an AI were trained on nothing but public domain works (like most image generating AI a la ImageNET) people would still be spouting bullshit like, “it’s stealing IP!”

      • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        8 hours ago

        “IP theft” is a rhetorical term invented by the MPAA/RIAA in the 90s. It’s not a real crime. It’s just propaganda.

        There’s no law on the books that even remotely resembles “IP theft”. Here’s what we’ve got:

        • Copyright law. Which can be violated. Normally, when you violate copyright that’s a civil offense. Not a criminal one. Criminal prosecution of copyright violation is pretty rare, though there’s been a recent uptick with lawsuits against illegal IPTV sites and Anna’s Archive.
        • Trademark law. This is all about dealing with counterfeits and fraud (e.g. misrepresenting a trademarked brand).
        • Patent law. Pretty self explanatory, except software patents shouldn’t exist. Every software patent that’s every been granted is 100% bullshit and should never have happened.
        • Trade secrets. Not really relevant to this discussion but there’s laws about it that are really, really hard to litigate (again, civil law). You could copy the secret recipe for Coke but that wouldn’t be “theft”. It’s… Complicated.
        • Some obscure stuff like integrated circuit topography and in Europe there’s laws around databases.

        Not a single one of these laws deals with “theft”. The entire concept of theft is orthogonal to intellectual property.

        Until the MPAA/RIAA started their marketing campaigns in the 90s, “IP theft” as a concept didn’t exist. It wasn’t a thing. It still isn’t a thing. It’s propaganda/marketing BS.