[LINK] OpenAI just admitted it can't identify AI-generated text.

[Stephen Loosley]

On 29/07/2023 6:32 pm, Kim Holburn wrote:

> What is this "admitted"?  AI can't identify anything.  It's a machine 
> learning system that strings words together.  It chooses the next word 
> based on the one before it.  That's it. There is no "identify", "admit",
"truth", meaning, "understanding" here.


Seems little of true value in AI socially expensive false-flag eye-candy?

AU Edition | 29 July 2023

The Conversation

This week, the Australian Society of Authors sounded an alert over the 
risks generative AI technology poses to authors and illustrators, in a 
submission to an Australian government inquiry. The inquiry, which 
closes next week, will consider what the government can do to mitigate 
risks and support “safe and responsible AI practices”.

“We consider the large-scale scraping and exploitation of works without 
regard to authors and illustrators rights to be outrageously unfair,” 
the society wrote. They’re concerned about the risk of copyright 
infringement and degradation of author rights, the risk to incentives to 
create and the risk to integrity in publishing.

Publishing academic Millicent Weber surveys the worldwide scene in an 
article this week. In the United States, the Authors Guild last week 
submitted an open letter to the chief executives of AI companies, asking 
their developers to obtain consent from, credit and fairly compensate 
authors. Some of the world’s best-known authors were among the more than 
10,000 signatories, including Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, 
Geraldine Brooks and Linda Jaivin.

In the world’s first copyright-related ChatGPT lawsuit, authors Mona 
Awad and Paul Tremblay are suing OpenAI, claiming their books were used 
to train the AI software without their consent. Science-fiction magazine 
Clarkesworld temporarily closed its submissions earlier this year, after 
receiving hundreds of AI-created stories. As of this month, 984 books 
for sale on Amazon list ChatGPT as a coauthor.

AI now shadows publishing contract negotiations, with some authors 
reporting stalled contracts as a result of AI uncertainty. The 
Australian Society of Authors reports actively working on, among other 
things, a model clause for publishing agreements specifically relating 
to AI.

Every new technology brings concerns about how old media might be 
superseded, and the social and cultural implications, says Weber. 
Unpacking these concerns can reveal as much about existing practices as 
it does about new technology.

It prompts us to pause and ask – why do we read? Relationships with 
human authors are central, says Weber. This is proved by the fact 
bestsellers are created as much by author-focused promotion as by a 
book’s contents.

Concerns about the impact of generative AI on creators – and their 
livelihoods – are also at the heart of the current Hollywood writers’ 
and actors’ strikes, writes Jasmin Pfefferkorn. “It is crucial,” she 
says, “that an equilibrium is reached between protections for creative 
professionals, and the application of generative AI as a useful tool.”

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Jo Case

Deputy Books
+ Ideas Editor
The Conversations