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OpenStars@startrek.website ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

This goes beyond riders. “Bought” politicians are SO bought that when lobbyists ask politicians to do stuff, they do it unquestioningly. And I mean: THE WHOLE BILL - not just one sentence within it.

But, you may ask, aren’t they also incredibly lazy too? And the answer is yes! So the lobbyists have to do all the work to write out the bills… and then the congressperson simply signs it, easy peasy. “I, insert name here, from state, insert state name here, do solemnly swear that…” - AND I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING, the bill was passed while STILL saying both “insert name here” and also “insert state name here”!!!

So while I am shocked and sickened afresh to hear of plagiarism within academic circles, which I had hoped would be one of the last hold-outs, literal beacons and bastions of Freedom and Truth and all that rizz, politics was the opposite of that and has allowed plagiarism for a LONG time.

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FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
For the record, LLMs cannot hold a copyright, and material produced by them has no copyright.

using them to generate summaries or introductions isn’t plagiarism, though the lack of copyright is probably significant to the organization.

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- OpenStars@startrek.website ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I am not seeing where copyrights came into this discussion, but fwiw the bills I mentioned were passed many years ago, before any LLMs existed.
  
  I don’t think congressional bills even need to be copyrighted.
  
  Academic papers do not either, although plagiarism still exists, yet has nothing to do with copyrights.
  
  Summaries are fine for like a Google search, but for a scientific paper using other words without proper attribution is enough to lose not only a job but to have one’s degree revoked, even decades after being awarded.
  
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  - FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    simply using a LLM to condense an introduction from whatever data you feed it isn’t plagiarism. Now, using unsourced material definitely is.
    
    As for academic or whatever else- all works are copy protected automatically when they’re created. This even includes that horrible crayon drawing you made in kindergarten of your family and dog.
    
    Material generated by LLMs are an exception and automatically in the public domain.
    
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    OpenStars@startrek.website ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    simply using a LLM to condense an introduction from whatever data you feed it isn’t plagiarism.
    
    Agreed. Though as you are saying, it is what you DO with it after that, which may make it plagiarism. A student using an LLM to personally learn? Not plagiarism. A student turning in that summary as evidence that they “understand” the subject matter? Especially without bothering to read it first? Now that is plagiarism!:-P
    
    LLMs are tools like any other. Using a gun to kill someone? Well… is it self-defense? Then not murder. Are you a court-appointed executioner, in a state that offers the death penalty? Then not murder. Was it an accident? Then not… exactly murder. B/c you are Russia/Israel and you want the land next to you? Somehow also not “murder”, depending on who you ask, but c’mon… really?!
    
    Tools, by lowering the barrier to performing a task beyond what can be done naturally and unaided, mostly just enact the will of the user, though somewhat also act to “tempt” the user to do things that they might not have otherwise been able to do - e.g. murder, or plagiarize.
    
    But congress-people did not need LLMs to pass bills written by lobbyists - the only thing changing there is how easy the latter process is, though to the congress-person it is the same level of ease as before, zero effort required:-P.
    
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