#AI#GenerativeAI#Slack#AITraining#Copyright: "It all kicked off last night, when a note on Hacker News raised the issue of how Slack trains its AI services, by way of a straight link to its privacy principles — no additional comment was needed. That post kicked off a longer conversation — and what seemed like news to current Slack users — that Slack opts users in by default to its AI training, and that you need to email a specific address to opt out.
That Hacker News thread then spurred multiple conversations and questions on other platforms: There is a newish, generically named product called “Slack AI” that lets users search for answers and summarize conversation threads, among other things, but why is that not once mentioned by name on that privacy principles page in any way, even to make clear if the privacy policy applies to it? And why does Slack reference both “global models” and “AI models?”
Between people being confused about where Slack is applying its AI privacy principles, and people being surprised and annoyed at the idea of emailing to opt-out — at a company that makes a big deal of touting that “Your control your data” — Slack does not come off well."
Sony Music is the prototype of the company that uses artists as mere puppets for getting the only thing it really wants: free money extracted through IP rents. It's a parasite that doesn't contribute at all to the promotion of arts and science.
#Sony#SonyMusic#AI#GenerativeAI#AITraining#Copyright#IP: "Sony Music is sending warning letters to more than 700 artificial intelligence developers and music streaming services globally in the latest salvo in the music industry’s battle against tech groups ripping off artists.
The Sony Music letter, which has been seen by the Financial Times, expressly prohibits AI developers from using its music — which includes artists such as Harry Styles, Adele and Beyoncé — and opts out of any text and data mining of any of its content for any purposes such as training, developing or commercialising any AI system.
Sony Music is sending the letter to companies developing AI systems including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Suno and Udio, according to those close to the group.
The world’s second-largest music group is also sending separate letters to streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple, asking them to adopt “best practice” measures to protect artists and songwriters and their music from scraping, mining and training by AI developers without consent or compensation. It has asked them to update their terms of service, making it clear that mining and training on its content is not permitted.
#AI#AITraining#Copyright#GenerativeAI#IP#Creativity#Art: "Creating an individual bargainable copyright over training will not improve the material conditions of artists' lives – all it will do is change the relative shares of the value we create, shifting some of that value from tech companies that hate us and want us to starve to entertainment companies that hate us and want us to starve.
As an artist, I'm foursquare against anything that stands in the way of making art. As an artistic worker, I'm entirely committed to things that help workers get a fair share of the money their work creates, feed their families and pay their rent.
I think today's AI art is bad, and I think tomorrow's AI art will probably be bad, but even if you disagree (with either proposition), I hope you'll agree that we should be focused on making sure art is legal to make and that artists get paid for it.
Just because copyright won't fix the creative labor market, it doesn't follow that nothing will. If we're worried about labor issues, we can look to labor law to improve our conditions."
#Robots#Robotics#AI#AITraining: "Roboticists believe that by using new AI techniques, they will achieve something the field has pined after for decades: more capable robots that can move freely through unfamiliar environments and tackle challenges they’ve never seen before.
(...)
But something is slowing that rocket down: lack of access to the types of data used to train robots so they can interact more smoothly with the physical world. It’s far harder to come by than the data used to train the most advanced AI models like GPT—mostly text, images, and videos scraped off the internet. Simulation programs can help robots learn how to interact with places and objects, but the results still tend to fall prey to what’s known as the “sim-to-real gap,” or failures that arise when robots move from the simulation to the real world.
For now, we still need access to physical, real-world data to train robots. That data is relatively scarce and tends to require a lot more time, effort, and expensive equipment to collect. That scarcity is one of the main things currently holding progress in robotics back."
#AI#GenerativeAI#StackOverflow#AITraining: "Stack Overflow, a legendary internet forum for programmers and developers, is coming under heavy fire from its users after it announced it was partnering with OpenAI to scrub the site's forum posts to train ChatGPT. Many users are removing or editing their questions and answers to prevent them from being used to train AI — decisions which have been punished with bans from the site's moderators.
Stack Overflow user Ben posted on Mastodon about his experience editing his most successful answers to try to avoid having his work stolen by OpenAI.
@ben on Mastodon posts, "Stack Overflow announced that they are partnering with OpenAI, so I tried to delete my highest-rated answers. Stack Overflow does not let you delete questions that have accepted answers and many upvotes because it would remove knowledge from the community. So instead I changed my highest-rated answers to a protest message. Within an hour mods had changed the questions back and suspended my account for 7 days."
Ben continues in his thread, "[The moderator crackdown is] just a reminder that anything you post on any of these platforms can and will be used for profit. It's just a matter of time until all your messages on Discord, Twitter etc. are scraped, fed into a model and sold back to you."