Comment by matt_kantor
3 days ago
I'm spiritually sympathetic to your final sentence, but intellectual property law is not.
There are already a bunch of replies pointing out ways in which your metaphor breaks down, but here's another: the super intelligent speed reading human is not a "work" (in the sense of "derivative work").
Also, if I'm understanding your position, why wasn't your scenario about the human pirating the books and then reading them? It should make no difference if you really believe knowledge can't be stolen; both situations should be equivalent.
I hear you on IP law, but how it applies to AI training is far from settled.
I don't believe we should have software patents, and I am highly skeptical of the US copyright system in general.
As for why I didn't use a piracy analogy: humans don't need to pirate books to access them for free. They can just go to the library. That is exactly my point. Reading books isn't a crime. Why would we stop an AI from reading publicly available material just because it's automated and upsets the commercial status quo?