I didn't catch that on first read, but I see why you'd say that. LLMs are ridiculous in the constant usage "it's not X it's Y" -- It's in almost every response from Opus 4.5. "It's not X it's Y" is ruined for regular writing.
I'm also skeptical of anything that claims to reliably detect AI writing. FWIW, I plugged the comment into Pangram Labs, which claims to be the most reliably and seems to have worked well before. It categorized the comment as 100% human written with medium confidence.
Stated more cynically, many platforms have an interest in attention hijacking. Done well, agents' 'laser focused attention' could help users avoid wasting time (wandering attention) and money (impulse buys). This is a good thing, even if it dings revenue of some existing platforms. If a company's business model is impulse buying and ad revenue (this isn't eBay IMO), then good riddance.
This is a really interesting point, and you're right to say it's complicated. I'm sort of an anti-IP hawk (I actually rep defendants in IP cases) and personally agree with it. But the US Copyright Office's position on GenAI supports the opposite view:
> Nor do we agree that AI training is inherently transformative because it is like human learning. To begin with, the analogy rests on a faulty premise, as fair use does not excuse all human acts done for the purpose of learning. A student could not rely on fair use to copy all the books at the library to facilitate personal education; rather, they would have to purchase or borrow a copy that was lawfully acquired, typically through a sale or license. Copyright law should not afford greater latitude for copying simply because it is done by a computer. Moreover, AI learning is different from human learning in ways that are material to the copyright analysis. Humans retain only imperfect impressions of the works they have experienced, filtered through their own unique personalities, histories, memories, and worldviews. Generative AI training involves the creation of perfect copies with the ability to analyze works nearly instantaneously. The result is a model that can create at superhuman speed and scale. In the words of Professor Robert Brauneis, “Generative model training transcends the human limitations that underlie the structure of the exclusive rights.”[0]
I disagree with the Copyright Office here, but ofc they're the Copyright Office and I could be wrong. More broadly I'm struggling with how to permit and incentivize creation of powerful generative models while not screwing creators in the process. There are startups and other efforts trying to address this through novel licensing, etc., but AFAIK there's no great solution. I'm also cautiously optimistic that there will be some decentralized and/or federated options. It's complicated indeed.
The headline misses the nuance that there will be a trial on Anthropic's gathering "pirated copies to create Anthropic's central library and the resulting damages." But the court got it right IMO that "the use of the [copyrighted] books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use..."
PBS Spacetime did an interesting video on DCQE, but it tripped me up trying to fully understand what was happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ORLN_KwAgs&t=601s ... Later Sabine Hossenfelder did a video debunking the proposition that DCQE somehow showed that the past was being rewritten. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQv5CVELG3U And Matt from PBS Spacetime acknowledged she was right in this respectful comment:
> Sabine, this is amazing. You are, as usual, 100% right. The delayed choice quantum eraser is a prime example of over-mystification of quantum mechanics, even WITHIN the field of quantum mechanics! I (Matt) was guilty of embracing the quantum woo in that episode 5 years ago. Since then I've obsessed over this family of experiments and my thinking shifted quite a bit.
I’m an IP lawyer & AI dev: my first reaction was, “hmm there are trademark issues here.” From a US perspective: “Perplexity” certainly CAN be a trademark, and the company has applied for one—to my knowledge it’s still pending. If the term was merely “descriptive” of the service provided, like “American Airlines”, then the company would need to show that the term has acquired distinctiveness: ie, that purchasers associate the term with that specific company. But perplexity is probably more than merely descriptive here.
Assuming that they have a valid trademark, the issue becomes whether there is a likelihood of confusion between Perplexity and Perplexica. That is a fact-specific, multifactor test, which I’ll spare you. But there could be arguments both ways IMO
HN is so incredible. The topic can be just about anything and there’s someone here with just the right expertise and/or set of skills to share their two pennies. The current topic is AI and IP law and here comes someone who’s an IP lawyer and AI engineer. I truly love this place.
Sorry to hear this, but congrats to Bob for a life well lived and building a brand that made quality products. We have their muesli multiple times a week, their farro as well, and this morning our kids loved Valentine's Day pancakes made from their mix. Thanks Bob
I'm also skeptical of anything that claims to reliably detect AI writing. FWIW, I plugged the comment into Pangram Labs, which claims to be the most reliably and seems to have worked well before. It categorized the comment as 100% human written with medium confidence.