Suchir Balaji asks: Is it Fair Use to train large language models on copyrighted content?

Suchir Balaji asks: Is it Fair Use to train large language models on copyrighted content?

The legal future of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and nearly every other large language model (LLM) depends on one question: when a large language model “reads” and “learns” from copyrighted content, is that action protected by the Fair Use provisions of copyright law? Vendors of LLMs insist that training their products on the open web is no…

Election as gaming; Artificial dumbness; writing as a discipline: Newsletter 16 October 2024
| | |

Election as gaming; Artificial dumbness; writing as a discipline: Newsletter 16 October 2024

Newsletter 66: Why polls captivate us; AI fails at reasoning; the valued discipline of writing, plus three people to follow, three books to read, and a free report on how business books generate revenue and profit. About that presidential horse race Why are we so fascinated with polls? Well, put that aside for a minute….

Fact-checking is journalism — and facts are real

Fact-checking is journalism — and facts are real

I’ve been astounded to see the backlash, mostly from Republicans, against the idea of journalists fact-checking politicians’ statements. You can argue about what is true. But there is truth. There are facts. If you’ve given up on that, your political opinions are worthless (and please don’t vote). Trump’s problems with fact-checking From The Washington Post,…

The Boston Globe just can’t wrap its head around randomness in polling
|

The Boston Globe just can’t wrap its head around randomness in polling

In an article by Tal Kopan published today, The Boston Globe asks “Why are election polls all over the place, and which should you pay attention to?” Here’s the lede: WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by 3 percentage points in Michigan. Or maybe it’s by 1 point. Or maybe Trump leads by 2. Or 4. It…

In a match between the putrid Patriots and Christopher L. Gasper’s mixed metaphors, everybody loses.
|

In a match between the putrid Patriots and Christopher L. Gasper’s mixed metaphors, everybody loses.

I’ve written before about Boston Globe sportswriter Christopher L. Gasper’s penchant for mixed metaphors, as a way to illustrate how metaphor overload can interrupt the reader’s trance that makes great writing work. But things here in New England pro football have gotten desperate. The New England Patriots, not to put too fine a point on…

The tower of polls, biases, weights, and corrections
|

The tower of polls, biases, weights, and corrections

No matter what poll-based content you read, you are not just reviewing what the data show. You are reading data, corrected for bias, weighted for lack of representation, scored for bias, aggregated, and then manipulated by a model. Each of these “corrections” is a human decision. These models are valuable, but they do not represent…