This is a lobby organisation using only the pieces and bits they like to push their own agenda.
"sketchy russian website", how about using some more clear description like: A library for sharing books and articles that should be partly public domain because they were paid for by the public. Only some of the material is copyrighted by authors. However, some of their work is so old that it is not reprinted anyway.
But of course such an explanation would not click.
I also don't see a problem with statements about making people jobless. Imagine if every robotic or automation company advertised like this: Yeah, you'll buy tons of expensive robots and still rely on expensive labor from real people without any efficiency gains.
It's just sad that this is the top comment on Hacker News. Why are we giving free pass to these tech companies? Why are we trusting these CEOs when they have repeatedly broken laws? Remember Aaron Swartz and the fate he suffered? Why is big tech getting away with so much more?
> Remember Aaron Swartz and the fate he suffered? Why is big tech getting away with so much more?
Why are you turning him into perpetuum mobile in his grave?
Do you really believe Aaron would be arguing against AI companies and for publishing / recording guilds on the grounds of intellectual property claims?
No, it's the tech community that did a sudden about-face, and is now all "friendship ended with free access to information and technologies enabling people; now RIAA is my best friend", and this move is as dumb as that meme (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/137501417/Friendship-ended).
Sure. But the fact is they broke current existing laws, with known punishments with precedents. Same as a new law doesn't retroactively punish someone, then a new law shouldn't absolve someone before it's passed.
>A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time.
The more interesting question is IMO if AI training actually falls into one of these cases. You can read a book and also copy it, but you do not do because of the law. However, you have the ability to do so. Is having the ability to do something already forbidden?
"This is a lobby organisation using only the pieces and bits they like to push their own agenda."
Do you have any evidence of them being a lobby organisation (as opposed to OpenAI for example which spends millions of dollars hiring actual lobbyists)
>The group lobbies at the national and state levels on censorship and tax concerns, and it has initiated or supported several major lawsuits in defense of authors' copyrights.
It can be a bit confusing due to the terrible style of the article (ironic given the source) but it seems the "sketchy russian website" part is a direct quote by Anthropic's Sam McCandlish. And apparently Dario Amodei referred to it as sketchy as well.
I find the brazenness of saying this while running what's arguably the largest copyright theft operation in human history astonishing. If libgen is "sketchy", then what is OpenAI?
Any source that this was a library? Even then that would still raise a question if OpenAI is a Russian organisation or not to access that library with good faith.
apparently, the website in question is libgen.io (appears to have been taken down now), currently it has lots of mirrors like libgen.im , libgen.com.de, etc.
"A lobby organisation?" Of course a single author would not be able to afford facing a multi billion dollar company on their own? And the "sketchy russian website" quote is from OpenAI employees themselves? What are you on about?
First, it's still a lobbying organization, so it's their job to make exaggerated claims, like a union in a company or any other organization with a political purpose. My first point was to highlight that it's not neutral or news related. It's fine that they have their opinion, but it's also my right to say that they're biased.
The second thing underscores my point. They use one line and think they've made a great point because one employee called LibGen sketchy. This site has been around since the 2010s, and it has helped many people do research. It's not just a sketchy website that suddenly appeared and is always doing bad things. I think a more nuanced stance is necessary.
> They use one line and think they've made a great point because one employee called LibGen sketchy.
No, you are using one line from the post to discredit them. The release has more than that and it’s not the only communication they made on this matter nor is there any indication it will be the last, it’s just the current one.
They are having it in the subtitle. In general their whole article is about two main points, first the use of stuff from Libgen, second the points of making people jobless. Three of their points are about the jobless thing two about the LibGen.
About LibGen, there might be more discussion - fair. However, the second argument is no real discussion IMO. Why is putting people out of work suddenly a bad thing? Since when do we argue this when talking about automation?
What are you on about? “Sketchy Russian website” is part of a quote by Sam McCandlish (who worked at OpenAI), not the Author’s Guild characterisation.
Also, come on. Defending it on the basis that some books on libgen are public domain is an hilariously poor excuse, to the same level as people claiming they used The Pirate Bay to “download Linux ISOs”. Even if some of that is true, we all know that use case is not the popular one.
For someone who’s accusing others of being a lobby pushing an agenda, your bias is showing quite a lot.
Newly released court filings quote an OpenAI researcher saying: “I was just worried about optics - i.e. 'openai uses
copyrighted data from sketchy russian website’ showing up on HN would be unfortunate."
That's just one of several interesting quotes that have surfaced in documents from the Authors Guild's lawsuit against OpenAI.
Think they're referring to the following, when Amodei was still working for OpenAI:
'OpenAI Feared “Optics,” Not the Law – “Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s then-Research Director, responded that ‘as a training set [LibGen is] a bit sketchier.’ [OpenAI researcher Sam] McCandlish explained: ‘I was just worried about optics – i.e. ‘openai uses copyrighted data from sketchy russian website’ showing up on [Hacker News] would be unfortunate.”'
> Newly released court filings quote an OpenAI researcher saying: “I was just worried about optics (...)"
As a side-note, most orgs already cover the need to STFU in their training material for new hires, particularly how personal comments should not and cannot represent the company. I'm sure this lawsuit will be explicitly mentioned in upcoming versions of this sort training material in multiple orgs.
Can we fix the title? This is clickbait for HN, the actual article's title is "Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI: Top Execs Knew Their Mass Book Piracy Was Illegal And Would Put Authors Out of Work"
I think you mean he's siding with Dario Amodei and the strictest of government regulations cementing Microsoft's position and its investments is IMMEDIATELY needed, or "a billion people will die":
His position is not at all that AI itself should be limited or anything more drastic than slowing down Microsoft's spending (sorry I mean slowing down AI progress). Second, he still wants companies to adopt it on a very large scale, and fire everybody, but he's having to spend too much now. To put it bluntly, he wants the money currently paid to employees, but he doesn't want to or outright can't spend enough much to guarantee it's him getting the money. I mean, this is a bet on his part, so we can't be sure, I even think he himself is not entirely sure, but it's pretty clear he's not comfortable.
(because in a winner-take-all monopoly business billionnaires get one chance to outspend everyone else. Everyone but the top dog doesn't get the monopoly, they get scraps. It has become clear China is the biggest spender and so now he thinks the billionnaire-but-still-not-the-biggest-spender urgently need protection from the bigger dog)
I'm giving the less charitable interpretation of his words, because his demands come down to denying access to Chinese models, and of course Bill Gates can hardly be considered a neutral party here, he personally has a huge financial interests in OS, Cloud and AI.
"sketchy russian website", how about using some more clear description like: A library for sharing books and articles that should be partly public domain because they were paid for by the public. Only some of the material is copyrighted by authors. However, some of their work is so old that it is not reprinted anyway.
But of course such an explanation would not click.
I also don't see a problem with statements about making people jobless. Imagine if every robotic or automation company advertised like this: Yeah, you'll buy tons of expensive robots and still rely on expensive labor from real people without any efficiency gains.
Why are you turning him into perpetuum mobile in his grave?
Do you really believe Aaron would be arguing against AI companies and for publishing / recording guilds on the grounds of intellectual property claims?
No, it's the tech community that did a sudden about-face, and is now all "friendship ended with free access to information and technologies enabling people; now RIAA is my best friend", and this move is as dumb as that meme (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/137501417/Friendship-ended).
There are several multi billion dollar companies where the founding thesis was “what if we just ignore the law?”
The more interesting question is IMO if AI training actually falls into one of these cases. You can read a book and also copy it, but you do not do because of the law. However, you have the ability to do so. Is having the ability to do something already forbidden?
Do you have any evidence of them being a lobby organisation (as opposed to OpenAI for example which spends millions of dollars hiring actual lobbyists)
>The group lobbies at the national and state levels on censorship and tax concerns, and it has initiated or supported several major lawsuits in defense of authors' copyrights.
I find the brazenness of saying this while running what's arguably the largest copyright theft operation in human history astonishing. If libgen is "sketchy", then what is OpenAI?
Judging by how AI threads look like for the past year, they were absolutely right to be worried.
> largest copyright theft operation in human history
In fact, you're doing exactly that right here.
Many people think that it was fair use: training is akin to reading, not copying.
Especially the courts.
I think they just used a Russian torrent site.
>Microsoft knew about OpenAI’s use of LibGen as early as April 2019
(note: https://z-library.sk/ is prettier/nicer)
The second thing underscores my point. They use one line and think they've made a great point because one employee called LibGen sketchy. This site has been around since the 2010s, and it has helped many people do research. It's not just a sketchy website that suddenly appeared and is always doing bad things. I think a more nuanced stance is necessary.
No, you are using one line from the post to discredit them. The release has more than that and it’s not the only communication they made on this matter nor is there any indication it will be the last, it’s just the current one.
About LibGen, there might be more discussion - fair. However, the second argument is no real discussion IMO. Why is putting people out of work suddenly a bad thing? Since when do we argue this when talking about automation?
Also, come on. Defending it on the basis that some books on libgen are public domain is an hilariously poor excuse, to the same level as people claiming they used The Pirate Bay to “download Linux ISOs”. Even if some of that is true, we all know that use case is not the popular one.
For someone who’s accusing others of being a lobby pushing an agenda, your bias is showing quite a lot.
That's just one of several interesting quotes that have surfaced in documents from the Authors Guild's lawsuit against OpenAI.
'OpenAI Feared “Optics,” Not the Law – “Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s then-Research Director, responded that ‘as a training set [LibGen is] a bit sketchier.’ [OpenAI researcher Sam] McCandlish explained: ‘I was just worried about optics – i.e. ‘openai uses copyrighted data from sketchy russian website’ showing up on [Hacker News] would be unfortunate.”'
As a side-note, most orgs already cover the need to STFU in their training material for new hires, particularly how personal comments should not and cannot represent the company. I'm sure this lawsuit will be explicitly mentioned in upcoming versions of this sort training material in multiple orgs.
https://www.ft.com/content/1ade33b1-b5eb-43bb-9ee4-2272ec91f...
His position is not at all that AI itself should be limited or anything more drastic than slowing down Microsoft's spending (sorry I mean slowing down AI progress). Second, he still wants companies to adopt it on a very large scale, and fire everybody, but he's having to spend too much now. To put it bluntly, he wants the money currently paid to employees, but he doesn't want to or outright can't spend enough much to guarantee it's him getting the money. I mean, this is a bet on his part, so we can't be sure, I even think he himself is not entirely sure, but it's pretty clear he's not comfortable.
(because in a winner-take-all monopoly business billionnaires get one chance to outspend everyone else. Everyone but the top dog doesn't get the monopoly, they get scraps. It has become clear China is the biggest spender and so now he thinks the billionnaire-but-still-not-the-biggest-spender urgently need protection from the bigger dog)
I'm giving the less charitable interpretation of his words, because his demands come down to denying access to Chinese models, and of course Bill Gates can hardly be considered a neutral party here, he personally has a huge financial interests in OS, Cloud and AI.