TITLE: Do Machines Have a Right to Read?
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: August 23, 2023 12:31 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 Yes, according to Jeff Jarvis.  That is one of his
<a href="https://buzzmachine.com/2023/08/21/a-few-unpopular-opinions-about-ai/">
   unpopular opinions about AI</a>:

 <blockquote><em>
 <strong>Machines should have the same right to learn as humans; to
 say otherwise is to set a dangerous precedent for humans</strong>.
 If we say that a machine is not allowed to learn, to read, to
 extract knowledge from existing content and adapt it to other uses,
 then I fear it would not be a long leap to declare what we as humans
 are not allowed to read, see, or know some things.  This puts us in
 the odd position of having to defend the machine's rights so as to
 protect our own.
 </em></blockquote>

 I have been staying mostly out of the AI debate these days, except
 as devil's advocate inside my head to most every arguments I see.
 However, I must admit that Jarvis's assertion seems on the right
 trackto me.  The LLMs aren't memorizing the text they process so
 much as breaking it down into little bits and distributing the
 bits across elements that enable a level of synthesis different
 from regurgitation.  That's why they get so many facts wrong.
 That sounds a lot like what people do when they read and
 assimilate new material into their heads.  (Sadly, we get a lot
 of facts wrong, too.)

 My support for this assertion rests on something that Jarvis says
 at the end of his previous bullet:

 <blockquote>
 <em>I am no lawyer</em> but I believe training machines on any
 content <em><strong>that is lawfully acquired</strong></em> so it
 can be inspired to produce new content is not a violation of
 copyright.  Note my italics.
 </blockquote>

 I, too, am not a lawyer.  Good read from Jarvis, as usual.
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