Anthropic's distillation complaints expose an awkward question: does AI's fair use argument cut both ways?

For years, tech giants have argued that if information is available on the internet, it can be used for AI model development and outputs. They call it fair use. Content owners have tried to prevent this, with no success.

Now Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are discovering what the rest of the internet has already learned through painful experience: once you put something online, people will find ways to use it in ways you don’t like and can’t stop.

The latest flashpoint is something called “distillation,” using the outputs of one AI model to improve another. Anthropic says competitors are harvesting its outputs at scale, turning billions of dollars of research into a shortcut for rivals. OpenAI and Google have made similar warnings recently.

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  • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
    10·
    2 hours ago

    It just shows that these tech bro CEOs possess the interpersonal skills of a potato. This exact same dynamic plays out in every human interaction, this isn’t some AI exclusive thing. How you choose to act dictates how people will respond to you.

    However because these idiots have barely anything in common with the rest of the human race this is actually new news to them.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    28·
    6 hours ago

    This is how we know AI should be a collectivist project, one that isn’t owned by large corporations but is funded by taxes and developed in academies, and all IP derived from it falls into the public domain.

    Besides which a lot of artists mind a lot less when their material is borrowed by a non-profit, or to serve a public works project. (There are exceptions. Disney is notoriously litigious about murals in nurseries.)

    PS: Development of a robust public domain is the only reason that intellectual property should exist at all. Also it’s not property so much as a licensed temporary monopoly.

    PSS: History has already shown us that people will invent stuff and do fabulous art simply by being allowed to live in a state other than desperation. Public welfare programs beget art booms. The most recent example of this was during the COVID-19 lockdown which came with extended unemployment and stimulus checks, resulting in the Great Resignation in which a lot of people turned their hobbies into something lucrative.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 hour ago

      One small problem: LLMs are mostly useless save for being slop generating machines. We should create solutions for already existing problems, not continuing trying to find problems for techbro “solutions” to solve.

    • qaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      I agree. The worst part about GitHub training LLM’s on my FOSS code without permission for me is that they then keep the models to themselves. Like if you’re going to use all my code without permission, at least allow me to run the model locally.

      My personal opinion is that all models trained on copyleft code should be open-weights, most FOSS licenses didn’t account for this specific possibility, but this is the only way to follow them in spirit.

    • AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      3 hours ago

      Yeah it has to be open weight and free to use for everybody, with regulation to tag all AI output as generated so we know what is what.

      The worst outcome would be if somehow all open weight AI models that can’t show their training data will be subject to some kind of tax or rent by AI / IP collection agencies, ultimately going to the plutocrats. That would be techno feudalism. Big corporations can afford to negotiate and pay license fees and often profit from cumbersome regulation too that prevents others from producing value. So the worst outcome is if we have robots doing all the work, and all the robot IP is owned by the techno-feudalists. And we can’t even use robots to help with subsistence farming because we can’t pay the expensive AI IP licenses.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    5 hours ago

    Awww, shuck. Pot. Kettle. Black.

    As if the parrots’ dictionary wasn’t stolen from millions of content creators.

  • melfie@lemmy.zipEnglish
    18·
    8 hours ago

    At least the models like Qwen have open weight versions. It’s the same concept as distributing compiled binaries, though, whereas we really need true FOSS models where all of the code and training data are available under a permissive license. All of these models were trained on copyleft-licensed content, so all of it should be FOSS if the licenses were actually being respected. From that perspective, distillation attacks shouldn’t even be necessary and I couldn’t give two shits that there is no honor among thieves when the real thievery is that these models are closed source.

  • CyberneticOwl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    13 hours ago

    Wait, they’re mad at innovation?

    “No, no, that’s wrong! Just use our inefficient model like it was before…”

    This is why open source/copyleft is preferable

  • beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    10·
    10 hours ago

    That’s not good. Investors hate costly and protracted legal fights. There was another story about OpenAI stealing tech from apple and I think some kind of data leak maybe? If investors lose confidence in OpenAI that pretty much pops the bubble.

    • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
      6·
      9 hours ago

      With hundreds of billions in their warchests, are there enough lawfirms in the world to meet their legal needs in the coming battle?