Molly White (@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io)

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Newsletter: The real threat isn't AI using open knowledge — it's AI companies killing the projects that make knowledge free. The future of free and open access isn't saying “wait, not like that” — it’s saying "yes, like that, but under fair terms”.

https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

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The free and open access vision is inspiring, but there are instances in which people who freely license their work go “wait, no, not like that”. People reselling their free works, tech companies profiting off their FOSS code, and AI companies training on their material.

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

The visions of the open access movement have inspired countless people to contribute their work to the commons: a world where “every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge” (Wikimedia), and where “education, culture, and science are equitably shared as a means to benefit humanity” (Creative Commonsa).

But there are scenarios that can introduce doubt for those who contribute to free and open projects like the Wikimedia projects, or who independently release their own works under free licenses. I call these “wait, no, not like that” moments.

When a passionate Wikipedian discovers their carefully researched article has been packaged into an e-book and sold on Amazon for someone else’s profit? Wait, no, not like that.

When a developer of an open source software project sees a multi-billion dollar tech company rely on their work without contributing anything back? Wait, no, not like that.

When a nature photographer discovers their freely licensed wildlife photo was used in an NFT collection minted on an environmentally destructive blockchain? Wait, no, not like that.

And perhaps most recently, when a person who publishes their work under a free license discovers that work has been used by tech mega-giants to train extractive, exploitative large language models? Wait, no, not like that.

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The impulse is often to tighten the licenses, or stop publishing under free licenses (if at all). But this threatens to destroy the very commons we set out to build.

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

These reactions are understandable. When we freely license our work, we do so in service of those goals: free and open access to knowledge and education. But when trillion dollar companies exploit that openness while giving nothing back, or when our work enables harmful or exploitative uses, it can feel like we've been naïve. The natural response is to try to regain control.

This is where many creators find themselves today, particularly in response to AI training. But the solutions they're reaching for — more restrictive licenses, paywalls, or not publishing at all — risk destroying the very commons they originally set out to build.

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The first impulse is often to try to tighten the licensing, maybe by switching away to something like the Creative Commons’ non-commercial (and thus, non-free) license. When NFTs enjoyed a moment of popularity in the early 2020s, some artists looked to Creative Commons in hopes that they might declare NFTs fundamentally incompatible with their free licenses (they didn’t1). The same thing happened again with the explosion of generative AI companies training models on CC-licensed works, and some were disappointed to see the group take the stance that, not only do CC licenses not prohibit AI training wholesale, AI training should be considered non-infringing by default from a copyright perspective.2

But the trouble with trying to continually narrow the definitions of “free” is that it is impossible to write a license that will perfectly prohibit each possibility that makes a person go “wait, no, not like that” while retaining the benefits of free and open access. If that is truly what a creator wants, then they are likely better served by a traditional, all rights reserved model in which any prospective reuser must individually negotiate terms with them; but this undermines the purpose of free, and restricts permitted reuse only to those with the time, means, and bargaining power to negotiate on a case by case basis.b

Particularly with AI, there’s also no indication that tightening the license even works. We already know that major AI companies have been training their models

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There’s also been an impulse by creators concerned about AI to dramatically limit how people can access their work. Some artists have decided it’s simply not worthwhile to maintain an online gallery of their work when that makes it easily accessible for AI training. Many have implemented restrictive content gates — paywalls, registration-walls, “are you a human”-walls, and similar — to try to fend off scrapers. This too closes off the commons, making it more challenging or expensive for those “every single human beings” described in open access manifestos to access the material that was originally intended to be common goods.

Often by trying to wall off those considered to be bad actors, people wall off the very people they intended to give access to. People who gate their work behind paywalls likely didn’t set out to create works that only the wealthy could access. People who implement registration walls probably didn’t intend for their work to only be available to those willing to put up with the risk of incessant email spam after they relinquish their personal information. People who try to stave off bots with CAPTCHAs asking “are you a human?” probably didn’t mean to limit their material only to abled people7 who are willing to abide ever more protracted and irritating riddles.8 And people using any of these strategies likely didn’t want people to struggle to even find their work in the first place after the paywalls and regwalls and anti-bot mechanisms thwarted search e

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But if we want to create a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, we should stop attempting to wall off the commons.

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

And frankly, if we want to create a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, and where education, culture, and science are equitably shared as a means to benefit humanity, we should stop attempting to erect these walls. If a kid learns that carbon dioxide traps heat in Earth's atmosphere or how to calculate compound interest thanks to an editor’s work on a Wikipedia article, does it really matter if they learned it via ChatGPT or by asking Siri or from opening a browser and visiting Wikipedia.org?

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Instead of worrying about “wait, not like that”, I think we need to reframe the conversation to “wait, not only like that” or “wait, not in ways that threaten open access itself”.

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

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Anyone at an AI company who stops to think for half a second should be able to recognize they have a vampiric relationship with the commons. By operating in this purely extractive way, they destroy the things that underpin their businesses.

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

Anyone at an AI company who stops to think for half a second should be able to recognize they have a vampiric relationship with the commons. While they rely on these repositories for their sustenance, their adversarial and disrespectful relationships with creators reduce the incentives for anyone to make their work publicly available going forward (freely licensed or otherwise). They drain resources from maintainers of those common repositories often without any compensation. They reduce the visibility of the original sources, leaving people unaware that they can or should contribute towards maintaining such valuable projects. AI companies should want a thriving open access ecosystem, ensuring that the models they trained on Wikipedia in 2020 can be continually expanded and updated. Even if AI companies don’t care about the benefit to the common good, it shouldn’t be hard for them to understand that by bleeding these projects dry, they are destroying their own food supply.

And yet many AI companies seem to give very little thought to this, seemingly looking only at the months in front of them rather than operating on years-long timescales. (Though perhaps anyone who has observed AI companies’ activities more generally will be unsurprised to see that they do not act as though they believe their businesses will be sustainable on the order of years.)

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It would be wise for these companies to begin prioritizing the ongoing health of the commons. It would also be wise for the rest of us to not rely on AI companies to come to their senses or develop a conscience en masse, and instead force them to engage on creators’ terms.

#OpenAccess #AI #Wikipedia

It would be very wise for these companies to immediately begin prioritizing the ongoing health of the commons, so that they do not wind up strangling their golden goose. It would also be very wise for the rest of us to not rely on AI companies to suddenly, miraculously come to their senses or develop a conscience en masse.

Instead, we must ensure that mechanisms are in place to force AI companies to engage with these repositories on their creators' terms.

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