A change in scale is a change in kind. There's a real qualitative difference between a party popper and a flashbang even though they're both "just" generators of light and sound. It's the same with regular ol' human learning---for which we have millenia of understanding and norms---and comparatively low-cost global-scale machine learning. The scale of the latter obliterates the structures we've built under the assumption of the former, so you can't just claim they're the same.

Our laws for carbon-based brains were designed pretty explicitly for carbon-based brains. Why assume these completely different things should be (legally) equivalent despite only superficial similarities?

In America, companies are people, no brain required and are protected in many ways because of that classification.

To me, the similarities do NOT seem superficial in any way.

I'd argue you're not looking very deep. On a physical level, chips and brains are entirely dissimilar. Some algorithms may share the same names, but that's about it. Brains aren't doing matrix multiplications all the time and chips don't use the Krebs cycle.

Yeah, but that carbon-based brain should have also obtained the learning material legally. Why would a “silicon-based brain” be any different.

In a discussion, one should strive not just to stick to saying things that are true, but to make sure that what they're saying is both true and relevant.

People should obtain their learning material legally. True statement (at least as "true" as any opinionated value judgement can be, I guess). The question is how, though, is that statement relevant here?

Even by the NYT's own telling (the way that OpenAI obtained their articles was from the NYT's website) what OpenAI did was not illegal copyright infringement. The problem is that NYT is under the impression that allowing search engines to access their paywalled stuff and hoping they don't do anything else with it besides putting up conventional, Google-style SERPs makes for copyright infringement if what one of them actually wants it for involves other reasons. It doesn't. There's an adequate legal instrument available for NYT to use if they want to enforce conditions on use: a contract. Do they have a contract that somebody violated? If not, they have no cause to go after anyone. And if they do have a contract that was violated, then that's still not copyright infringement—it's a breach of their contract.

You seem to be confused, giving someone permission to do X is only permission to do X and nothing else.

If I open a store you have implied permission to enter the premises, but not stay inside for 16 hours. Further the second I ask you to leave you no longer have permission to be on the premises. The store doesn’t need to add a lock or put up signs, you’re aware you don’t have permission and that’s it.

Ditch the swipes; I'm not the one confused here. We're talking about copyright infringement, not trespass.

(Your analogy is bad and doesn't hold up. Copyright doesn't grant rightsholders control of the sort required here. It grants them the right to make and distribute copies. It doesn't grant the right to undistribute copies when it turns out they don't like what someone is doing with them.)

OpenAI doesn’t maintain a copy.

A core argument OpenAI is making is transitory copying is allowed as long training is fair use. But a permanent copy stored in a training database isn’t transitory and would itself be copyright infringement, so they don’t do that.

Thus training each version requires permission to download a new copy, which they now lack.

EDIT: The comment I first responded to (quoted in parts below) has been edited to something to something almost completely different. Very uncool.

> ChatGPT keeps redownloading works to avoid the issue of keeping permeant copy’s of the training material

I don't know enough about how ChatGPT works to know whether or not that's true, but from an engineering standpoint it certainly sounds wrong because of how insane it would be if true, and I'm not at all convinced that you're right about this given how poorly you understand the other stuff you're trying to argue that I happen to know you're wrong about, so it doesn't seem unwise to conclude that the same is probably true about your claims here. But it doesn't matter, anyway:

> which would be obvious copyright infringement

Wrong. OpenAI keeps asking for copies, NYT keeps giving them out (whether/despite OpenAI having/not having "permission" or not). Not copyright infringement, let alone "obvious copyright infringement".

This is going to be my last response that takes a substantial amount of effort to compose. Arguing with /r/confidentlyincorrect-tier zero-effort Gish gallops* is not a good use of my time.

* especially from someone shameless about editing their posts after the fact to make them diverge substantially from what was originally written

> OpenAI keeps asking for copies, NYT keeps giving them out

The computer said ok isn’t enough or hacking would be legal.

> from an engineering standpoint it certainly sounds wrong

An engineering standpoint is completely irrelevant, this is a pure legal matter. The law is a strange place with it’s own rules you need to actually look into it not just make assumptions.

You seem confused. I didn't eat two tamales for lunch yesterday. I ate three. Don't make assumptions.

(Why do I need to post not just one but two exhortations to follow the basic rules of conversation? If you're going to say something, then say something true, but make sure it's also relevant.)

I just explained that “OpenAI keeps asking for copies, NYT keeps giving them out” doesn’t work. Hint what physically happens isn’t legal permission.

If you don’t understand I can clarify, but being obtuse just makes you seem childish.

PS: If analogy is annoy you I could stop, but you don’t understand what’s involved so I am trying to help.

Hitting your partner is at the very least inconsiderate to them. Depending on your jurisdiction, it's probably also varying degrees of illegal. If you need some guidance on how to communicate without expressing it in the form of physical violence, I can try to help, but ultimately it's up to you.

Sigh. At least you know when to accept defeat.

The way that the law is treated by courts can be very unintuitive to programmers, who often seem to think that all it takes is to construct some clever bytecode sequence for CourtVM and then you win. It doesn't work like that. There may be someone who can explain in a way that you understand better, but the short version is that you are likely to be very disappointed by treating it like something that can be "hacked".

I was using existing precedent which doesn’t act like bite code but does weigh heavily, while you were referring to intuition. Such as my point that a computer responding with yes doesn’t override a prior statement that someone doesn’t have permission to use a system which literally has hundreds of examples and isn’t in doubt. You seemingly understand you lost, but keep wanting to respond.

Thus I accept your defeat but find your continued commentary silly.

It's almost as if posting condescending explanations that don't track the discussion while smugly framing it as if you're correcting some misapprehension of the person you're interacting with is something that can be obnoxious.

It's okay if you're still confused. The world is tricky. Not everyone is equipped to reason about everything they encounter, even they see other people are, and that's okay if you can't. But if you're going to offer your interpretation you need to actually look into what the other person is arguing—not just make assumptions.