Politicians' books pirated and 'used to train Meta AI'

Source: The Times

Articles by the prime minister and books by the chancellor, culture secretary and technology minister are contained in a pirated digital archive allegedly used by Meta to develop its artificial intelligence software.

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The existence of the politicians’ books and articles in LibGen is potentially embarrassing for the government as it is proposing to reform copyright law to enable AI companies to take copyrighted works without permission unless the owner opts out.

The creative industry has opposed it, labelling the move a mass theft of works. It said there was no practical way of opting out. Starmer, Reeves, Nandy and Bryant are key players in the copyright reforms but it appears they are also potentially creative “victims” of infringement.

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“I feel that using pirated material should be beyond our ethical threshold,” one researcher quoted in the legal documents said. Another employee referred to it as an “illegal pirated website” and said “it should not go into the training of the published model”.

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Read more: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/rachel-reeves-keir-starmer-books-pirated-meta-ai-vfhmjfnws

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Generative AI models exist because of grand theft of intellectual property by tech companies.

It's horrifying that anyone would ever be okay with that.

And very foolish of some in the UK's Labour Party, which is supposed to be liberal, to be so desperate to pander to AI bros that they ever proposed changing British law to legalize this theft.