Comment by _djo_
7 days ago
I'm not failing to understand that, I just don't think it's an insurmountable barrier.
You could overcome it through various means, including helping to set up a clearinghouse for bulk rights, implementing a data clean room approach that models could train on in situ, lobbying Congress for copyright law changes especially around orphan works, using Section 108 of the Copyright Act to set up a specific preservation vehicle like the HathiTrust, and other options.
I find it ridiculous that so many in this thread are acting as though AI companies are simply powerless to do anything but buy up and destroy these rare books.
Make a case that it's more profitable to take any of the courses you suggest and you might be on to something but they aren't. All of those things take time and time is money when you're running a business.
Of course they’re not more profitable, they’re negative externalities that aren’t being priced into a finite commodity.
That’s the whole point: Companies are doing this because it’s easier and cheaper for them, and those doing it now are first-movers who don’t care about how catastrophic the end result will be for the rest of society as they’ll have their training data moat.
It should be obvious, but the things that are most profitable are not always the things that are best for society as a whole. That’s why we have regulation.
I would rather make the case that with the increasing consolidation of media under the big tech companies, regulation is more effective than a business case.