I've had that same thought. It's a surprisingly valid point even though people tend to think you're joking. A human is capable of consuming a certain percentage of all human output, admittedly a low percentage, but that might change with, say, vastly extended lifespans in the future. What percentage is allowed?
The first difference is that somebody is typically getting paid for any content you consume. You buy books, TV shows, movies, magazines, whatever. Or you borrow them from a library who bought them. Or you pay a subscription for a streaming service. Or you use an ad-supported platform. If you bought any commercial IP and then reproduced it one million times so you can train a whole bunch of people at once, well that's a crime. So why isn't it a crime when AI companies do it?
The second is that you can only produce so much output. You can't be cloned a million times to produce a million times the output. Software can be.
LLMs are kind of like a billion people sharing one NYT account, 1 Netflix account and so on. And that's simply not sustainable.
I also believe that the lifespan of IP is way too long. Software shouldn't be patentable because it's ultimately math and math formulae aren't patentable. Other patents should generally have much shorter lives. Books, music, TV, movies should have much shorter copyright periods, say 10-30 years total.
AI companies ingesting all the IP on earth for free is like saying there is no IP at all. Some will agree with that. I don't. But again, I would have less of an issue with it if we as a society owned the output.
The first difference is that somebody is typically getting paid for any content you consume. You buy books, TV shows, movies, magazines, whatever. Or you borrow them from a library who bought them. Or you pay a subscription for a streaming service. Or you use an ad-supported platform. If you bought any commercial IP and then reproduced it one million times so you can train a whole bunch of people at once, well that's a crime. So why isn't it a crime when AI companies do it?
The second is that you can only produce so much output. You can't be cloned a million times to produce a million times the output. Software can be.
LLMs are kind of like a billion people sharing one NYT account, 1 Netflix account and so on. And that's simply not sustainable.
I also believe that the lifespan of IP is way too long. Software shouldn't be patentable because it's ultimately math and math formulae aren't patentable. Other patents should generally have much shorter lives. Books, music, TV, movies should have much shorter copyright periods, say 10-30 years total.
AI companies ingesting all the IP on earth for free is like saying there is no IP at all. Some will agree with that. I don't. But again, I would have less of an issue with it if we as a society owned the output.