AI and the Copyright Violation Charge

The language related AI (the ones that generate text-based responses) are called LLM (Large Language Models). They “learn” by being trained (by humans) on texts that are fed to them. Over time, once the LLM gets the hang of things, it is let loose on different parts of the Internet to continue to learn on its own.

 

It is that last part – learning from content on the Internet – that raised the charge of copyright violation from various content provider sites e.g. news agencies, book sites and many authors. Is this a valid charge? LLM supporters say the AI is no different from humans who read content and generate new content that is influenced by, but not a copy of the material they read. The copyright violation brigade responds that humans read a small quantity, whereas LLM’s have changed the game by the sheer volume of content they read, and are thus a risk to the livelihood of the content creators.

 

Rahul Matthan has an interesting take on the matter. Sure, a lot of written material is/can be copyright protected. But, he asks, how many authors make decent to good money from their copyrighted stuff? As you might have expected, very few. The overwhelming majority make little or no money via their books and publications. And yet, so many people write, blog and publish content. Obviously, most of them are not doing it in hope of great or even decent money. Maybe they want to express their ideas, their thoughts. Maybe they just want to be read, money or no money. That being the case, how many people are really being hurt by the rise of LLM’s, he asks. As opposed to the benefits being produced.

 

Tyler Cowen suggests going with the flow. Today, Internet search is increasingly including AI/LLM generated content along with regular references to web sites. If that is the direction in which the wind is blowing, perhaps authors and content creators should tailor the way they write:

“Remember that the AIs are part of your audience — communicate with them in mind.”

And adds an interesting point about how AI/LLM’s can help you to “achieve some kind of intellectual immortality”:

“If you want your grandchildren or great-grandchildren to know what you thought about a topic, the AIs can give them a pretty good idea. After all, the AIs will have digested much of your corpus and built a model of how you think. Your descendants, or maybe future fans, won’t have to page through a lot of dusty old books to get an inkling of your ideas.”