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For Episode 221 of our award-winning podcast, we take on Meta and discuss their “fair use” of seven million literary works to train their artificial intelligence system.
For those untouched by the controversy, we referred Keziah Weir’s excellent Vanity Fair article, “This Is How Meta AI Staffers Deemed More Than 7 Million Books to Have No “Economic Value” (link) and cite this paragraph as background:
“Lawyers for Meta are indeed invoking that very “fair use” defense in a copyright suit that’s been wending its way through the Northern District of California legal system for nearly two years. Richard Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms—and the reams of confidential Meta communications, newly in the public record as exhibits for the plaintiffs—offers an unprecedented look at the internal maneuverings behind the company’s decision to train its model on a database containing more than 7 million pirated books.”
As writers, CC and I have strong opinions about the subject, and we are in sync about how we came to this point, and we agree that the damage is done, and that “the horse has left the barn and it ain’t coming back.” We have different and, I think, interesting opinions about the outcomes to this controversy.
For our discussion, we pull in:
–The Lord of the Rings,
-Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon,
-Thomas Edison,
–Covenant (the movie),
-John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway,
-CC’s professional and extensive experience on the “fair use” issue, and
-Our short-lived use of Artificial Intelligence (not what you think).
Aside from AI, we bring you up to speed on current events, including CIMA and our book signing on Saturday, and we talk about our current writing projects and how we’re abused by our editors (no names mentioned)(kidding!).
And we started a presale on Serving Salvation Book Two.
Check us out and let us know what you think. TIA! LYL!
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Our Books: https://carsonhume.com/books-2/
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This whole AI question has so many nuances I am constantly bumping into the question of what does a speaker mean when they say AI. For instance, are expert systems such as spelling and grammar checkers AI or something else? For me, the big issue is once we’ve crossed the line into generative AIs that are doing more than analysing an input and giving feedback on what they see. Of course, the Meta thing adds a whole new level to its story by starting with the fact they used a pirate site to acquire their inputs, meaning this material has been stolen twice in the process.