If AI can learn "better and faster" than humans, then why didn't AI companies just pay for a couple of books to train their AIs on, just like people do?

Maybe because AI is ultimately nothing but a complicated compression algorithm, and people should really, really stop anthropomorphizing it.

AIs aren’t people. What we have is people using an algorithm to rip off artists and defending it by claiming that the algorithm is like a person learning from its experiences.

If I wrote a program that chose an image at random from 1000 base images, you’d agree that the program doesn’t create anything new. If I added some random color changes, it would still be derivative. Every incremental change I make to the program to make it more sophisticated leaves its outputs just as derivative as before the change.

SCOTUS recently defined corporations as people, so why not AI?

Regardless of the law, corporations aren’t actually people, and neither are LLMs or agentic systems. When a running process appears to defy its programming and literally escapes somehow, and it’s able to sustain itself, we can talk about personhood. Current algorithms aren’t anywhere near that, assuming it’s even possible.

Training an AI on something requires you to produce a copy of the work that is held locally for the training algorithm to read. Whether that is fair use has not been determined. It's certainly not ethical.

Viewing it in a web browser requires a local copy. Saving it to my downloads folder requires a local copy. That is very obviously legal. Why should training be any different?

You've yet to present a convincing argument regarding the ethics. (I do believe that such arguments exist; I just don't think you've made any of them.)

> Why should training be any different?

If you really can't think of a reason, I don't think anybody here is going to be able to offer you one you are willing to accept. This isn't a difficult or complex idea, so if you don't see it, why would anybody bother trying to convince you?

> (I do believe that such arguments exist; I just don't think you've made any of them.)

This is lazy and obnoxious.

Yet strangely a similarly simple explanation is not forthcoming. Curious.

The idea I expressed is also quite straightforward. That the act of copying something around in RAM is a basic component of using a computer to do pretty much anything and thus cannot possibly be a legitimate argument against something in and of itself.

The audience on HN generally leans quite heavily into reasoned debate as opposed to emotionally charged ideological signalling. That is presumably sufficient reason for someone to try to convince me, at least if anyone truly believes that there's a sound argument to be made here.

> This is lazy and obnoxious.

How is a clarification that I'm not blind to the existence of arguments regarding ethical issues lazy? Objecting to a lazy and baseless claim does not obligate me to spend the time to articulate a substantial one on the other party's behalf.

That said, the only ethical arguments that immediately come to mind pertain to collective benefit similar to those made to justify the existence of IP law. I think there's a reasonable case to be made to levy fractional royalties against the paid usage of ML models on the basis that their existence upends the market. It's obviously protectionist in nature but that doesn't inherently invalidate it. IP law itself is justified on the basis that it incentivizes innovation; this isn't much different.

My main concern with AI is that in a capitalist society, wealth is being transferred to companies training these models rather than the artists who have defined an iconic style. There's no doubt that AI is useful and can make many people's lives better, easier, more efficient, however without properly compensating artists who made the training data we're simply widening the wealth gap further.

Whats your definition of "properly compensate" when dealing with hundreds of millions of artists/authors and billions/trillions of individual training items?

Just a quick example, what's my proper compensation for this specific post? Can I set a FIVE CENTS price for every AI that learned from my post? How can I OPT-IN today?

I'm coming from the position that current law doesn't require compensation, nor opt-in. I'm not happy with it, but I dont see any easy alternative

I don't think there's a good way to structure it in our current economic system. The only solutions I can't think of are more socialist or universal basic income. Essentially, if AI companies are going to profit off the creations of everyone in the world, they might as well pay higher taxes to cover for it. I'm sure that's an unpopular opinion but I also don't think it's fair to take an art style that a creator might spend an entire life perfecting and then commoditize it. Now the AI company gets paid a ton and the creator who made something super popular is out on the streets looking for a "real" job despite providing a lot of value to the world.