You shouldn't need a permission slip to read a webpage–whether you do it with your own eyes, or use software to help. AI is a category of general-purpose tools with myriad beneficial uses. Requiring...
Read Full Article »AI and Copyright: Expanding Copyright Hurts Everyone—Here’s What to Do Instead
Discussion Points
- Balancing Intellectual Property Rights with Innovation: Should developers be required to obtain permission slips to read and train on copyrighted materials in order to create innovative AI models, or would this hinder the progress of beneficial technologies?
- The Impact on Socially Valuable Research: How would licensing requirements for fair use of AI training data affect the conduct of socially valuable research, such as scientific studies and text and data mining methodologies?
- The Role of Competition in AI Development: Would limiting access to training data through licensing requirements stifle competition in the AI development industry, leading to higher costs and reduced innovation?
Summary
Requiring permission slips to read webpages or use software assistance to comprehend digital content threatens the creation of beneficial AI models. This could hinder socially valuable research, such as scientific studies and text and data mining methodologies, by making it prohibitively expensive or impossible.
Licensing requirements would limit competition in the AI development industry, leading to higher costs and reduced innovation. Empirical evidence suggests that countries protecting text and data mining research from copyright control have more common research using these methodologies.
The stakes are high, as ML is critical to understanding our world and driving scientific progress.