Zuckerberg Approved AI Training on Pirated Books, Filings Say

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/zuckerberg-approved-ai-training-on-pirated-books-filings-says

by gnabgib • 2 years ago

59 54 2 years ago

news.bloomberglaw.com

asdefghyk• 2 years ago

Its also reported elsewhere ( in media articles linked to by Hacker News ) they torrented copyright material. AMAZING

I would speculate this is true of all the leading commercial LLM models. Don’t have enough training data? Just steal some!

Havoc3• 2 years ago

On true for all - you’d need to split it by era I think

During the early Llama 1 days The Pile dataset was in heavy use by many. Bit later people figured out that a subset of it - Books 3 - was especially problematic.

I’m guessing all the big houses threw that piece out in later models since it’s extra radioactive

archerx2• 2 years ago

What was problematic about it?

gooosle2• 2 years ago

Copy some*

dehrmann• 2 years ago

Courts have yet to decide on which it is, and it might depend on how well the model can transform vs. recite.

BSDobelix• 2 years ago

That's exactly the difference, one does not steal in the digital world. If i could download/copy a car i would do it ;)

pera• 2 years ago

It depends who you are:

- if you are an individual then it's called "pirating copyrighted work"

- if you are a multi-billion dollar corporation then it's called "use of uncleared material for training"

bodiekane2• 2 years ago

If we're going to use absurd hyperbole like "steal", I think we should just keep going further.

Zuckerberg murdered some old library books to train a model. Zuckerberg genocided training data!

Heck, everyone who read your comment here stole it. I'm so sorry for your loss.

aprilthird2021• 2 years ago

It's not absurd hyperbole. If I took the text of, say the NYT Bestseller this week, stored the text along with various Projects Gutenberg books, then created a program to randomly deliver you a chapter from any such book. That would probably get me a lawsuit.

This is just that with lots of levels of indirection.

dekhn• 2 years ago

I believe it was already known that anything trained on The Pile contained references to copyrighted material from scihub. It seems unlikely that folks who chose to use these sources were completely unaware of the nature of the data. Presumably, given the urgency in the last 2-3 years to be a leader in this space, a number of shortcuts were taken.

nobrains• 2 years ago

Zuck did a calculation: "Does the risk of lawsuits and bad PR outweigh the benefits of being early?".

If u remove morals from the equation, nearly every CEO would have made that same decision if in that position.

throw59593• 2 years ago

You talk about morals, but did you consider that they are releasing the model as open source, and given that OpenAI and others do the same, Zuck is really the only current option to have a reasonably comparable open source model? Also, did you consider that it might be more moral to create an AI model than to uphold copyright law, which actually many on this site deem immoral?

IMHO this is a moral win on Zuck side.

Havoc3• 2 years ago

Stripping out the copyrights is quite damning.

There is wrongdoing and there is obvious evidence that you known what you’re doing is wrong. That really limits options on Defence

atulvi• 2 years ago

Good. These laws are anti progress.

ulfw• 2 years ago

What "progress"?

pizza2• 2 years ago

Exfiltration of information from the economy

idiotsecant• 2 years ago

We're literally extracting, refining, and re-using the information, art, and thoughts of fellow humans to make billionaires money.

This isn't the 90s. Computing isn't about discovery, not in the big leagues. Its about grinding up authenticity and feeding it into a machine to convert it into shareholder value.

If they want the value, let them pay for it or release the models open source for all to benefit.

archerx2• 2 years ago

They have released all the models for free so far unlike other companies like OpenAI who are most likely doing the same but keeping it private and proprietary.

covofeee3• 2 years ago

horsawlarway2• 2 years ago

No.

There is a theoretical implementation of copyright that is your friend.

The realities of the laws as implemented today are abusive and hostile.

bodiekane2• 2 years ago

(Of course, I'm using "the 1%" rhetorically, it's really more like 0.01%)

As a society, we all clearly benefit from fair use far more than we benefit from members of the copyright cartel buying another mansion or private jet.

vivzkestrel• 2 years ago

Stupid question: I have 400000 ebooks (yup pirated ones) what happens if I build an LLM with this?

stuckkeys• 2 years ago

Nothing.

solumunus• 2 years ago

What do you imagine could happen?

rcakebread• 2 years ago

You'd still ask stupid questions?

gooosle2• 2 years ago

You go to jail forever.

anothername12• 2 years ago

You’ll be fine. It’s like laundering money.

blitzar• 2 years ago

You would have a net worth of 1bn

covofeee3• 2 years ago

You also need $100m to train it

fooker• 2 years ago

Depends on the parameter count.

Too high? Straight to jail.

Too low? Believe it or not, straight to jail.

wil421• 2 years ago

Build Chappie.

musicale• 2 years ago

"I'm shocked, shocked to find out that piracy is going on here!"

"Your LLM, Captain Zuckerberg."

"Oh, thank you very much!"

udev4096• 2 years ago

Everyone knows that LLMs are trained on shit ton of pirated content

rurban• 2 years ago

Jail time? Or just multi-million fines.

Will he be allowed to lead Meta if convicted as criminal?

covofeee3• 2 years ago

You saw the WP cartoon right?

exe344• 2 years ago

he should run for election!

htrp• 2 years ago

i was under the impression that almost everyone trained on books3

cma• 2 years ago

A book's copyright is no more valid than a website's

alightsoul• 2 years ago

Given how things are going, maybe it will be ruled as "fair use" whereas something like controlled digital lending at the internet archive was ruled as "infringing" disgusting. So AI might become the only "legal" way to access a lot of knowledge for free you otherwise wouldn't have access to.

palata2• 2 years ago

Same old story: Meta is too big to care. What will happen? A fine? Sure, they can pay.

dudek1337• 2 years ago

When I read about this I immediately thought about Aaron Swartz. He was persecuted for downloading copyrighted stuff, while Meta and other Corps will get a slap on a wrist. Such a sad story. And it's his death's anniversary today... RIP

pointedAt• 2 years ago

ugh, that stuff from piratebay is full of errors and "pranks"

#dataPoisoning

Zuckerberg Approved AI Training on Pirated Books, Filings Say

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