Ted UnderwoodHuman beings have built an abstract model of language that *multiplies* their own linguistic powers. But most of my friends are really depressed about it because they’ve seen so much science fiction that they interpret anything called #AI as a *diminishment* of human agency. It’s a testament to the power of fiction, but also a little loopy if I’m being honest.
I seriously think it might be smart to move toward a discussion of “language models” & “image models” and ditch the AI acronym, which seems to contribute nothing but millenarian fantasy + apocalyptic despair + reactive moralism.
Then we could have a critical discussion about “who owns the language models?” We can’t have that discussion (in any useful way) if half my FB feed is weeping into their coffee because human life is meaningless now that robots are taking over.
Matthew Sag@TedUnderwood "Who owns the language models?" will turn out to be an underspecified question. Here are the questions I am asking as a copyright lawyer: (1) Was assembling the training data lawful? (2) is the LLM a "derivative work based on the training data" (3) does the output of the LLM infringe on any copyright in any of the training data? (4) does the output of the LLM reflect human intentions/choices/conceptions so that it qualifies as authorship? (5) if so, which humans?
@MatthewSag This is smart and persuasive. I admit that I am just ducking IP issues for the most part because I find them depressing. I prefer a very open world, but it's quite possible that's not the legal system I currently inhabit. Google's odds of doing an end-run around the laws seem better than my odds of changing them.
@TedUnderwood and I should be equally clear that the legal issues are not the only issues 🙂
Jeremy Kahn@MatthewSag @TedUnderwood y'all are so measured and thoughtful. This is definitely a different conversation than i would have expected on Twitter