Let’s talk about AI trainers “stealing” people’s data or creations.
If your child sits in front of YouTube learning how to pair photons using Swain’s Wobulation Theorem, invents wormholes, and goes on to get mega rich by commercializing the process into a “travel anywhere instantly” business, do you say he stole his ideas from YouTube creators?
Going to the root: Can you own an idea?
And whether we deem it “right” or “wrong” to train an AI on publicly available data, I’m thinking it is and will continue to happen anyway. And maybe this practice will stimulate more support for questioning current beliefs and laws around intellectual property.
Interested in exploring this idea further?
On the surface a person might believe, “If we didn’t have intellectual property laws, it would open the floodgates for copycats everywhere, reducing incentive for people to create. We would have Chinese phones that look like iPhones and poor Apple! Innovation would be lost because no one needs to innovate in order to get sales.”
Yes, some entities will copy instead of innovate. Yes, many believe the government is the only way to prevent this scenario.
Nine points that weigh in favor of reforming or even completely removing intellectual property laws (1) How many of these “copycats” will do this and be successful at it? Not everyone will do this or even want to. The fact that we have anything new in the world is a testament to that.
(2) Reputation, brand, first to market, quality, and integrity. These factors all influence the market and have value.
(3) Consumers win (price, etc.). Example: If a Chinese company succeeds in making an iPhone copy equal in every way (price, perceived quality/looks, AND quality), then one would assume they would try to sell it cheaper to draw away Apple customers. This is a big “IF” because Apple has agreements with their suppliers, economies of scale, etc. where it might be difficult for most companies to exactly dupe the iPhone in all ways, including quality, and afford to sell it cheaper. BUT let’s say they can. Then that means Apple is overpricing their product (it does cost Apple around $400 to make an iPhone X 2018), so the Chinese iPhone would force a market reckoning to a more fair price and keep Apple on their toes INNOVATING instead of SUING. The other, and more likely scenario is that the Chinese copy would be inferior. So yay, customers have a choice to buy the inferior version and save money. Given the number of tech review sites, word of mouth, Internet, etc., it would not be a secret for very long that the Chinese version is substandard. But hey if some people want a cheaper knockoff then why not?
(4) Joe Blow Middle Income Guy Inventor wants to make a new phone/OS that blows away Android and iOS. He has some revolutionary ideas but does need to at least use some of the basics that came before him, standing on the shoulders of his predecessors. Think touch screen or swiping or removable battery or long touch or… Get the point? But if you look at all the patents that exist in the phone market, you would see that Joe Blow has no chance in hell of creating his badass new phone/OS unless he joins Google/Apple or finds some super rich investor so he can afford licensing basic ideas from Google and Apple. Patents actually make it harder for the small guy!
(5) If Joe decides to stand on the shoulders of those before him and one of them uses the force of government to prosecute Joe, his time and efforts are being stolen.
(6) More often than not, copying increases the popularity of the author and/or work that was copied. Sure, there are cases where the opposite happens, but overall, publicity is good and “negative publicity is better than no publicity” is a saying for a reason. And heck, in this case, the “negative” publicity has the negative pointing at the copycat, not you.
(7) Removing patent/copyright law does not prevent creators from making private agreements to increase security for their innovative ideas.
(8) “Inventors and creators express a skill that CANNOT be copied, but it can be learned, and so a patent amounts to HIDING the value of the creators and inventors.” ~ Dave Scotese
(9) Copyrighting and patenting are often the reason a brilliant new idea gets stolen because these ideas are published where the public can see.
So yes, I believe that if we radically changed patent law or even removed it, some would copy even more than we see now but the real question is: when you consider the potential small negatives as well as the big positives [to removing all government-controlled copyrights and patenting] I mentioned above, will the net affect [to us all] of that happening be positive or negative? And bonus: less rules and less bureaucracy means a more efficient system!
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