A users misuse of a technology shouldn't be the responsibility of the developer. You could apply this to almost every product in the world otherwise.
Software developers and researchers should not be liable for distributing information or code, even if it's used for something illegal, as long as they aren't explicitly promoting the illegal activity and don't have any involvement with it outside of creating the software.
Not only is that consistent with previous decisions, such as those regarding copyright (i.e. torrents are fine, but making a client to torrent movies specifically isn't), but also any other decision would be a violation of the social contract with regard to open-source development.
I mean, there are really two categories of software:
* Free and/or open source software. In this case, I think there is no good reason to make the developer liable, unless they're promoting illegal use. No person wants to be attacked for giving away something for free. That's why the LICENSE.
* Commercial/paid software. In this case, it is reasonable to argue that companies should be liable if end users are harmed by the software. For paid software especially, disclaimers cannot be absolute.
But I do not think it is acceptable to hold developers liable for second-order effects - i.e., a user doing something illegal with the software and harming a third party - unless it was obvious to them that the user was going to do something illegal.
If Honda put a big spike on the front of their vehicles because they thought it looked good and would sell more cars, but the spike was good at skewering pedestrians, they'd be at fault too. It wouldn't matter that their designers thought the spike was sexy and would sell more cars. You can't make something you know to be dangerous and expect to sell it to the public without being regulated.
Want to avoid the regulation, don't steal a bunch of celebrity photos and an provide your users with a tool that that creates celebrity porn deepfakes on demand.
This isn't controversial. Go to Microsoft's AI chatbot today and try to get it to create a naked image of Taylor Swift. Microsoft has spent non-trivial engineering resources making that fail. Not doing that work is irresponsible and likely to lead to lawsuit that may or may not be winnable but that Microsoft and others clearly want to avoid.
That said, I dispute the idea that these models are "dangerous" in the first place. A box that generates texts and images is not even remotely as dangerous as a sharp spike strapped to a car. Such a comparison is hyperbolic.
People act like these models are going to be the end of US when they're literally just "instant photoshop." A dangerous model would be one designed to run a military drone or automatic weapons, not a random text and image machine.
All that aside, the deepfake issue has nothing to do with the model datasets including celebrity photos (in fact, it would work fine without any of them). And no, downloading public photos is not stealing either.
Obviously if a site promotes "download this tool to generate infinite nude pictures of celebrities", then that is illegal, since that particular tool was only developed for illegal uses.
* Honda made their car poorly and there are sharp edges at the fenders, and the driver purposely used those to injure someone. I think Honda should still have some liability; their poor construction resulted in extra injury, regardless of the application.
* Honda intentionally or with recklessness built the car in a way that would serve as a useful tool for murder, in ways that served no worthwhile purpose, in ways that could be secured. I don't know the law exactly, but I expect Honda would be liable, and IMHO that would be absolutely right.
Still, if Honda builds a safe car and someone simply chooses to use its mass x acceleration to kill someone, then I wouldn't hold Honda liable.
What's the equivalent of that for AI? Should there be a watermark so police can trace an image back to a particular person's software? If that isn't acceptable (and I don't think it would be), how do we prevent people from producing deep fakes? At the distribution level? These are hard problems, and I don't think the car analogy really gets us anywhere.
Yes, that's why I offered the kitchen knife example instead. Cars are also a problematic analogy, because even though some people still consider their operation to be fully controlled by the driver and not the manufacturer via their software, that's apparently becoming less the case.
> If that isn't acceptable (and I don't think it would be), how do we prevent people from producing deep fakes?
You don't. The problem isn't producing deepfakes. The problem is committing fraud, regardless of the tools used. Someone using deepfakes to e.g. hide facial disfigurement from their employer isn't someone I mind using deepfakes.
I agree here. But what about the harder questions? Do you think deepfake porn of celebrities should be allowed? What about deepfake porn of an unpopular student at the local high school?
If these aren't allowed, where is the best place to prevent them, but still has minimal impact on the allowed uses? At the root level of the software capable of producing them (what seems to be proposed in TFA)? At the user level (car analogy)? At the distribution level (copyright-style)? I don't know the answer to these questions, but I think we should all be talking and thinking about them.
Should be handled by impersonation/defamation laws. For celebrities, perhaps it may be handled by copyright. That would allow them to license their likeness under their own conditions.
> If these aren't allowed, where is the best place to prevent them, but still has minimal impact on the allowed uses?
By enforcing laws against the bad behaviors themselves and not trying to come up with convoluted regulations on tools just because of their potential to be used badly.
> At the root level of the software capable of producing them (what seems to be proposed in TFA)?
> At the distribution level (copyright-style)?
You'd just be increasing the costs of producing software and distribution means (thinking of stuff like YouTube). It's just setting up already powerful companies to become even more powerful by raising the bar on what potential competition must be ready for from the get-go.
and
> You'd just be increasing the costs of producing software and distribution means (thinking of stuff like YouTube). It's just setting up already powerful companies to become even more powerful by raising the bar on what potential competition must be ready for from the get-go.
These arguments could be made against any "custom" regulatory scheme like what we have for drugs, cars, airplanes, etc. But sometimes the unique harms presented by certain classes of products require unique regulatory schemes.
Maybe you're right (I hope you are) and the potential harms of AI are not really significant enough to warrant any special regulation. But I don't think that is _obviously_ the case, and I would be careful when it comes to talking with normies about this stuff - AI does seem to be really scary, and hearing a techie hand-wave their concerns over technology they don't understand has the potential to make it worse. Good luck out there buddy.
We have a long history of legally targeting companies that produce products targeted at criminal activity or implied criminal activity.
Ah but some cars today have automatic breaking, so can I sue the manufacturer for not including one? Maybe Toyota's would have seen the pedestrian, is it reasonable to assume Honda's should have as well? Since this is a safety issue, why did Honda allow the car to even start without an up to date pedestrian detection system?
Does this help you see the issue?
I'm not trying to address any perceived 'issues' with ai here, I'm pointing out the flaw in holding the developer/ manufacturer liable for what a end user does.
Also I could switch the analogy to planning a robbery over WhatsApp, hacking into a bank using 'pentration testing tools' or even just windows itself for allowing users to run any software they want. Or maybe windows allows piracy by not scanning every file against a hash of known piracy content.
You can make up a million scenarios of end users misusing products, I'm sorry you don't like the car one.
Let's do the same for A.I., right? How about you reply with the regulations that A.I. companies face today that are equivalent to what car companies face. I'll check back for your answers. If there are any gaps, then let's get to work on that legislation.
1. *Fuel Economy Standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE)*: Auto manufacturers are required to meet specific fuel efficiency targets for their fleet of vehicles. These standards aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote fuel-efficient technologies.
2. *Emissions Standards*: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets emissions limits for pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrocarbons (HC). Compliance with these standards ensures cleaner air and reduced health risks.
3. *Safety Regulations (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA)*: Auto manufacturers must adhere to safety standards related to crashworthiness, occupant protection, airbags, seat belts, and child safety. These regulations help prevent injuries and fatalities.
4. *Recall Requirements*: Auto manufacturers are obligated to promptly address safety defects by issuing recalls. The NHTSA oversees recall processes to protect consumers from faulty components or design flaws.
5. *Consumer Protection Laws*: Regulations ensure transparency in advertising, warranties, and pricing. Auto manufacturers must provide accurate information to consumers and address any deceptive practices.
6. *Clean Air Act*: This federal law regulates emissions from vehicles and sets emission standards for pollutants. Compliance with these standards is crucial for environmental protection.
7. *Corporate Average Emission Standards (CAES)*: Similar to CAFE, CAES focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Auto manufacturers must meet specific emission targets across their fleet.
(I'm sure the list goes on a good bit longer but I feel like this is enough for now.)
With cars, we let most people use some very dangerous but also very useful tools. Our approach, as a society, to making those tools safe is multi-layered. We require driver's ed and license drivers to make sure they know how to be safe. We register cars as a tool to trace ownership. We have rules of the road that apply to drivers. We have safety rules that apply to manufacturers (and limit what they are allowed to let those tools do). If a user continues to break the rules, we revoke their license. If the manufacturer breaks the rules, we make them do a recall.
I actually agree with you 100%, this is probably a good way to think about regulating AI. Some rules apply to individual users. Some rules apply to the makers of the tools. We can come together as a society and determine where we want those lines to be. Let's do it.
Note that courts take advertising over warning labels and the manual. Which is why many car ads have the text "professional driver on closed track on screen" - make it clear they they think car can do it but not most customers. Likewise cutting tools often have "guards removed for clarity" are clearly not operating (or clearly a cartoon image and not the real tool) - if they advertise someone running the tool without the guard they are liable.
There is also the concept of foreseeable misuse in courts. If you can imagine someone would do that you have do show the courts that isn't the intended purpose and you tried to prevent it. If someone does something you didn't think of, then you need to show the court you put a reasonable effort into figuring out all the possible misuses otherwise it becomes a lack of creativity on your part. Thinking of a misuse doesn't mean you have to make it impossible, just you have to make reasonable effort to ensure that doesn't happen (guards, warning labels, training, not selling to some customers - all are common tactics to sell something that can be misused without being liable, but even there you can't put a warning label on something if you could have placed a guard on the danger)
The above just brushes the surface of what the courts deal with (and different countries have different laws). If you need details talk to a lawyer.
The car allows you to break the law by going 2x faster than the highest speed limit in the nation. A faster car, with higher ground clearance does make it easier to fatally run into someone. The Tesla cybertruck is a killing machine in car form.
Cars are the leading cause of death in the US. Maybe we need to have a similar 'pre-emptive manufacturer-side intervention' bill for cars too.
s/deep-fake/photoshop
Deepfakes are simply more convenient photo/video/audio editing that has been around for decades[1], and we don't really need new legislation to deal with them. Fraud/defamation/etc, the actual harmful aspects of what can be accomplished with deepfakes, don't need any new updates to handle the technology. If we're going to hobble new technologies, we may as well go back and hold Adobe responsible for all the shady things people have done with Photoshop, and video/audio editing suites for all the deceptive clips people have spliced together.
I vaguely recall seeing some fairly convincing B&W Soviet-era photos (I think they had Stalin in them) where people were removed and other people moved around to fill the gap. And document forgery for the purposes of fraud and espionage has of course been around for centuries.
But I think the issue is less the capability itself, and more that companies will make it too easy (trivial, actually) for anyone to commit mischief. The ability to mass-manipulate images on command is no longer restricted to the General Secretary of the USSR.
That doesn't necessarily mean regulation is required, though--plenty of modern technologies make it very easy to commit crimes, but only some of them require special rules.