In this episode of the Plutopia podcast, Jaye Robinson, a multifaceted professional with experience as an attorney, navy diver, and AI specialist, joins Jon and Scoop to explore the societal and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence. The conversation considers the challenges of copyright law in the age of Large Language Models, the mechanics and limitations of AI systems, and the broader implications of generative AI on labor, privacy, and propaganda. Robinson also shares his unique career journey from law to AI, offering insights into how AI tools are reshaping various industries, including healthcare and transportation. The discussion is peppered with philosophical musings, anecdotes about technology’s evolution, and humor, making for an engaging exploration of AI’s place in our increasingly interconnected world.

Jaye Robinson:

You collect a lot of text that is relevant to what you want this large language model to understand and these general purpose large language models basically just want a lot of things that people have written. Ideally things that people have written well and ideally things that are – yeah copyright is spun there. Ideally every original work of authorship is covered by copyright as soon as it’s committed to a tangible medium. But what those copyrights are varies from work to work and how long they last. It depends on whether you’re Disney in which case they last forever or just a person in which case they last until Disney can steal it. So copyright applies to everything people have written. Copyright is untested waters as compared to what machines have written.