Comments In Response to the US Copyright Office's Artificial Intelligence Study

Unfortunately, I do not know the details of the law that bears on this subject. Instead, I offer some general remarks on the technology which I hope will be useful contributions.

When a painter creates a work, the brush does not hold the copyright, the painter holds the copyright. It is not different with "artificial intelligence." If a painter copies someone else's style, that's a copyright violation. It doesn't matter what tool the painter uses. If someone uses an AI model to copy an artist's writing or drawing style and publishes the result, if this does not fall under fair use, that's a copyright violation - it doesn't matter what tool is used.

Because "artificial intelligence" is such an efficient violator of copyright, because there is no way to identify an AI model's sources, and because it is impossible to delete a work from an AI model it is both appropriate to insist on an opt-in model for works used to train an AI model and insist that model builders keep records of what works are used to train their AI models.

Because AI models are statistical models, their output is not reliably accurate; like a human simply making up writing for its sound and persuasiveness, they can be wrong but persuasive. AI models can also "hallucinate" - produce content that is similar to that of a delusional or brain-damaged person. It is therefore important that AI output be flagged, lest people trust it and endanger themselves.

I hope the Copyright Office takes some of this to heart!