Author: William Wayne Smith

William Wayne Smithhttps://sesquibits.wordpress.com

Fair use and ChatGPT

Magnifying Glass

A quick note about the copyright lawsuit centered on fair use and ChatGPT’s use of copyrighted texts. I think the lawsuits are looking at the wrong moment in time to demolish fair use arguments.

My understanding is that there are 4 factors for determining fair use. The Stanford libraries explain them as:

  • The goals that the material is being used for
  • The copyrighted item’s properties as a work
  • How much of it was copied and how substantial that part was
  • How will the use affect the value of the original source.

Unfortunately, these criteria are fuzzy and need a legal proceeding to come to a definite conclusion.

Most discussions of fair use in the OpenAI copyright lawsuits focus on the final product: the large language model developed from the documents OpenAI accessed. Looking at the ChatGPT product is the wrong moment in the process to identify infringement.

Before the large language model had been created, the text was downloaded to OpenAI’s servers. At this moment, the claim of fair use is most tenuous. The information has been copied in full and potentially can destroy the market for the copied text. It is a situation to deny fair use claims and to apply conventional copyright protection statues.

At this moment of text ingestion, the purpose of the use is to transform the information into an unpredictable level of fidelity. The work is textual, and its value is the information in contains. The majority, if not all, of the information has been taken and it could harm the potential market by making the information available without accessing the original service.

To make an argument for fair use more convincing, fair use evaluation should be made before the information has been taken. One can always say, after the fact, “this is fair use,” but unless the analysis has been made up front, OpenAI can throw out all the ideas they can think of and see if any stand up in court. It is similar to the situation where the police find a criminal using techniques they can’t bring up in court, for example by using a Stingray. The police can backtrack and wash the information they already know, hiding the improper methods from the defendant. OpenAI can backtrack and find any idea they can think of no matter how disingenuous.

Another issue of fair use is that the user of the information should be able to make a listing of the materials that have been accessed. If I’m going to take a painting and claim my use is fair use, I need to be able to present where the work came from. If OpenAI can’t identify what they have taken, they can deny a practice of violating copyrights by hiding the “low hanging fruit” of implausible fair use claims.

If they could show these secondary properties of a fair use access, it would bolster OpenAI’s claim of fair use. Did they make their analysis before accessing the data? Can they completely identify what information they used for fair use. Did they consider the different fair use situations for the different kinds of sources?

They took the text verbatim when they acquired the text. They intended to use it in a way that they can’t argue convincingly that it would not harm the existing market for the text. Those are strong violations of the fair use definitions, it’s just a different point of time when the problematic behavior happened.

News organizations such as the New York Times can argue that the infringement happened when the text was acquired. Whether or not the original text can be retrieved from the created system is irrelevant. The infringement happened long before the OpenAI was brought to defend itself.

Angels in the Snow

headphones

When you’re pulled away from connection, the emptiness cannot be filled with distractions that try to protect the best memories. Remembering is a burden that freezes life. The time spent in the evening alone can be an opportunity for sadness and a time for melancholy reflection. The song Alienation by Morning Parade comforts the listener with an appealing image of childhood, making angels in the snow, which contrasts with powerful memories of regret.

The music of Alienation has an insistent beat that matches the chorus’s encouragement to “love a little more” and “live without regrets.” The lyrics insist that it is possible to distract oneself from the anguish of being alone in a world that doesn’t need you. While waiting for change, the song offers hope that one’s life is not set in stone: you’re not doomed to repeat the suffering that came unbidden.

Alienation is a song about distance and separation. It suggests one can escape the schizoid attitude that one doesn’t need anyone else. Rather than knowing that they have nothing to offer, the musicians explain that they might be a source of renewal. The song says that isolation is not an inescapable fate. One can save a few happy memories like playing in the snow as you search for a new way to relate to the world.

This song is the second track from the Morning Parade album “Pure Adulterated Joy” which was released in 2014.

The lyrics describe the tension between one’s world being destroyed and finding a new way to live. Loving more is a way out of despair over one’s past. Even though you are alienated from your past life, you’re in a galaxy full of possibilities. Once you can’t reach out to home anymore and you’re on your own, you can live without regret as you remember simple pleasures and construct a life worth living.

Can’t add account in iPhone Hangouts

I was trying to open Google Hangouts on my iPhone to verify my Google Voice number. The app on my iPhone asked me to log in and then once I gave my password, I got an error message to the effect that it was unable to add the account. The app seemed stuck in a loop so I searched for “Hangouts iphone can’t add account”

This question has a simple answer: Google Hangouts has been replaced by Google Chat and Google Meet. See, for example, “The latest on Google Hangouts and the upgrade to Google Chat” at blog.google and “Google puts an end to Google Hangouts once and for all” from Techcrunch.com.

However, when I searched for information with search engines such as Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo, they have at the top of their results a post on the Apple “Ask Different” Stack Exchange (apple.stackexchange.com StackExchange is a collection of topical question and answer sites that allow members to vote on answers. The name is a play on Stock Exchange and the name of one if its first sites, stackoverflow.com that is targeted for programmers.)

What is surprising and frustrating about this is that the preview text of some of the search engines comes from a downvoted answer from 2014. Answers with a negative rating should generally be ignored because they’re considered wrong or unreliable but that is what the search engines present as the answer. None of the answers are current to the January 2023 Hangouts end date. I learned that the transition was announced years ago but the information is drowned in the search results by a lot of obsolete information.

This is a stark example of a weakness of search engines: Once a piece of information is resolved as the highest ranked answer, it is very difficult for it to be replaced, even if it’s wrong. Search engine autocomplete indices are difficult to update and in this case, the auto-completes for a Hangouts search has been captured by ancient history. Typing “google hangouts” in the search box gives autocompletes that appear to indicate that Hangouts is still available.

Fortunately, in this case, the problem could be resolved with an edit to the Apple Stack Exchange question to include a currently valid answer. (I don’t have the reputation points to edit the question nor Apple expertise to get them.)

Mini-review: Nope (2022)

A Neon sign of the word Nope

It’s hard wrangling horses for Hollywood. Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David) dies after a strange accident while on the back of his horse. His kids OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) try to make it financially but end up selling horses to a former child star, Ricky Park (Stephen Yuen) for his western themed attraction.

As the tension grows between making a living and living on the ranch, the Haywoods see an opportunity to make it big by photographing the mysterious cloud that is lurking in the area. They learn not to look at it so that it won’t attack. The monster neutralizes electricity when it is near and a herd of stolen sky dancers spread across the ranch is an early warning system during OJ and Emerald’s hunt. Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) helps them install equipment to surveil the area to record evidence.

Nope is a fun horror/science fiction story. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the film is the incident that happens long before the main action, when Ricky was a child character in a sitcom. It’s primate terror leading up to the terror that the Haywoods are trying to capture on film.

Image: NOPE by Tom Hilton

My Cookie Monster

city skyline in front of bold sky

An acquaintance on DeviantArt posted a drawing of the dog Perrito offering a platter of cookies. “Want a cookie?” I replied from my phone “Yes, definitely. I’m a Cookie Monster lol”

Just some regular silliness. However, I was surprised that the autocomplete on the iPhone had fully capitalized the name “Cookie Monster” without any intervention. I thought that was pretty cool.

Has your autocomplete done anything surprising recently?

Closed captioning in an election year

A computer screen with the closed caption logo

In November I was exercising at the gym. At the front of the room, they’ve got four different networks on the TVs. When I’m on the bike machine, it’s hard to not watch the video. Being November, it was time for the renewal of Medicare insurance policies.

It was hard to not want to mock the Advantage plan advertisers which didn’t include captioning. The vendors are trying to reach an audience that has a higher likelihood of having hearing loss, yet their ads are inaccessible to that group of people.

Election year is another time for lots of targeted advertising. Again, the gym is a good opportunity to see how much different candidates or political parties value the community. If they omit preparing captions, they appear not to care about a wide swath of their hoped-for constituents.

Hearing loss isn’t the only situation where captioning is valuable. Just as I can benefit from the captioning at the gym, live captioning of sports events enhances the experience of the game at a bar or restaurant. At family gatherings such as Thanksgiving, the ones who want to watch a game can turn on the captions and mute the sound to allow the rest of us to visit.

Although my hearing is normal, it is nice to have the captions on while watching a movie. It helps when background sounds in the film muffle the speech. My mom has good hearing but prefers to have the captions on as well. Sometimes people talk too quickly. It helps us enjoy the latest Marvel series more.

YouTube and Nebula also have captioning in the videos. In addition, to the presence of captions, the videos, the urgency for captions on new material can come at the prices of accuracy. It’s not easy to create good quality captions. Captions can degrade when the transcriber or voice recognition system isn’t primed with the vocabulary of a technical video. The technology can continue to improve. Some shows acknowledge the service and who paid for the transcription as the first of the captions.

In the teaser trailer for the Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, I learned from the captions that the laughter at the very end is the Emperor. That was an interesting clue that felt like insider knowledge when I first saw the trailer.

I don’t really like to vote for a candidate whose ads don’t include captions. It shows a lack of care and consideration for who they are asking to vote for them. Do they really care about disabled or older voters, or do they just want to win the election as cheaply as possible?

Image “Closed captions” by Oregon State University [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Everything, Everywhere at Eckhart

A few years ago, my community’s library was attacked by an arsonist that destroyed most of their collection as well as caused severe damage to the main library building. It was really heartbreaking.

While the building was being renovated, the library set up a branch location in a local strip mall. It had a big banner above it “Eckhart Public Library.” Now that the library building is alive again, they have been building their collection for quite a while. I go to borrow videos. I also borrow books and videos from the inter library loan service available through their participation in the statewide Evergreen consortium.

Libraries aren’t just for books. The nearby Allen County Public Library has a makerspace. One time I used their tools to transfer a video I had made onto a DVD. They had a 3-d printer. Locally in Auburn, our library offers many digital services. One that I used last night was Kanopy.

Kanopy is a video streaming service that is optimized as a service for libraries. The library provides access to the service and the patron can stream the videos offered by the service. Months ago, I had watched “Parasite” there. Last night, I saw “Everything, Everywhere All at Once.” It was fun to see it again after seeing it in the theater when it was new. The next video that I hope to watch is Beau is Afraid with Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Ari Aster. I saw news about the Aster film when it was in the theater but never went when I had a chance.

The library is welcoming and a nice space to visit. Having an online presence makes it even more useful. They offer Wi-Fi hotspots for people to borrow. The fire happened in the middle of the summer reading program so there were more books checked out than normal so they that they could rebuild a small offering right away as they were returned.

I was concerned when they closed the temporary branch location before the new library was fully ready. However, it was providential that they did because shortly after that, the pandemic hit. The amount of money saved on not renting a facility no one could use could be folded into their renewed presence.

It breaks my heart for librarians who only want to provide the best service to their patrons are forced to spend time dealing with attacks on their professionalism and the people they serve. Even more so that a small number of people are filing complaints to harass communities that they don’t reside in. It’s shameful that people are losing out in valuable services because of a few troublemakers. According to the Washington Post’s research “The majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.”

Libraries are more than just books and offer lots of services. Our library here has a teen library with youth-oriented activities and resources. I’m glad that the community rallied around our library after the fire. It was definitely something that people who threaten librarians and libraries must never think of as a possibility–that libraries are an asset to a community and not a threat that needs bow to such a limited view of a library’s mission.

Overlooking the garden

a few green leaves from a garden

Bang! The window rattled in the kitchen overlooking the garden. The morning sun slanted into the room, lighting up the counter piled with dishes just washed. The knives that she received for Christmas were from the uncle who was distant because he seemed to listen but rarely spoke.

The garden was just starting. She was proud of the even rows that are kept clear of weeds and pests. Somehow, the insects overlooked her garden. Her hatred of poisons and herbicides had been well respected most years.

The window was not normally a target. All spring, the cool breeze that came through it spread the aroma of stew and spices. Past years, the bakery items would be shared with the neighbors. The perfection of the garden’s beauty seemed far from the mess that was her childhood. It was overwhelming and nothing made sense.

Uncle Mark was surely a misfit. No one visited him. I was glad when he gave the gifts last year. He was pulled into the family finally and his reticence to speak was replaced with his chuckling followed by hearty laughter and everyone knew something had changed. At the get-togethers, they always played cards. Oh Heck and Euchre. Uncle Mark had pretty bad luck. The cards ware never what he needed to earn points. He was a good sport and even played to help the kids beat the serious players. It wasn’t so much sacrificing to help the others but rather a streak of mischief-making that had never been evident to anyone.

The knives were still new. their hardwood handles didn’t have much wear. The days of cooking had been slowly fading away. It wasn’t a problem that made her slow down, but rather the old enthusiasm and inventiveness weren’t fun anymore. Perhaps it was time to share the household with another person.

The summer was just beginning, and the harvest was not yet causing the fridge and pantry to overflow. Peas would be the first followed by beans and radishes. The sunny days had been slow to arrive this year. It was time to find something new to do. The days are growing longer, but the time spent alone is more burdensome than before. Life was changing and the future was not so shiny anymore.

… from the red book

Review: Oppenheimer (2023)

radiation protection goggles

Early in the film “Oppenheimer,” J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) rides a horse into a wild area of New Mexico. In a moment of foreshadowing, he describes the quirky weather of the Los Alamos region. This introduction also demonstrates that Oppenheimer was comfortable with horses and the wilderness.

Somehow, I think of a physicist as from an urban background; they are natives to a university in the city. Oppenheimer puts that bias to rest. First, he finds the wilderness a place of refuge, and his academic institute was filled with nature; it’s not concrete nor steel and glass towers.

The film Oppenheimer travels between different threads of his biography as a collection of episodes. The time he spent at Los Alamos and his interaction with left wing activists are intertwined with his personal relationships, as well as a conflict with Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). The threads are woven together to reach a comfortably cinematic conclusion.

The film amplifies the emotional intensity by using sound as a powerful force for the audience to experience. Discussions of nuclear physics are paired with abstract displays of particles and a deep, pulsing roar. The powerful displays helped retain interest by invoking the ultimate product of the nuclear physics research: the Trinity test and the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When I felt that the emotions in the film were getting a little muddied, the story leaned on the conflict between Strauss and Oppenheimer. The film made their conflict become a central part of the biopic. It was easier for the director to expose their proxy battle as something meaningful and familiar to a modern audience. To accomplish that, the film overlapped Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearings with the cabinet nomination hearing of Strauss.

One episode discussed in Oppenheimer’s general biography is the issue of whether he poisoned an apple to spite a professor who had been unkind to him. The film covers the episode by taking a middle, unlikely path. The incident is built into a cinematic climax before being resolved harmlessly.

The Manhattan Project and the end of WW II were followed by Oppenheimer’s advocacy for nuclear disarmament agreements to prevent nuclear weapons from being used in the future. His efforts toward that were unsuccessful and once Oppenheimer’s security clearance was rescinded, he was unsuccessful.

I was able to see Oppenheimer in an IMAX theater which was welcome. It made the open landscapes of Los Alamos seem more encompassing and the sound more visceral.

I don’t feel like I know much more about Oppenheimer or Strauss as individuals because their characterizations are pretty one-dimensional. The story is important in that it describes a critical moment in history, but this presentation of that story is not very satisfying.

So much poison

I am walking down the street.

There are conversations I cannot hear.

There are lies I cannot deny.

There are fears that grow deep.

Although I am in a community, I do not know them. I don’t know what they want. I don’t know what they need.

There is so much poison. My hand stretches forth but none can grasp it. I would offer it in love, but I am not of them. I can’t help them stand tall when they doubt my motive. Bad things done by others have the same shape as my gift.

I look in the mirror, yet I cannot see what you see. I stand in front of a camera and the image is transformed by an aura of doubt. Even if I offer words for a caption, they may not mean what I intend.

If I close my notebook, I won’t be able to write a better story. Without an antidote to the poison, it will fall short.