I was reading this article about the NYT’s suit against OpenAI. OpenAI argued that NYT couldn’t sue for damages because it had been “too long” since the infringing started, and since NYT “must have known” that OpenAI was doing it, they lost the privilege of collecting damages (IANAL but I think it’s because the Doctrine of Laches). In any event, the judge sensibly threw this argument out, telling OpenAI they hadn’t demonstrated that NYT could have known the size or scale or timing of the any alleged infringement.
This made me think: now that the cat is out of the bag and everyone DOES know that everything on the Internet (and beyond) is being fed into AI factories, do we as creators have an obligation to somehow collectively sue LLM makers so that laches can’t be used as a defense in the future?
But then I’d ask how do you outlaw human systematic consumption of information. The camera on my car cant watch 24/7, then why should YOU be allowed to watch 24/7? What you’re outlawing is the literal methodology.
This has always been an issue with my thoughts on AI. If the computer became sentient does the LLM learning rule go out the window? or is it because they are made of metal?