Opus Nullius
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3 min read
Your work belongs to no one. Well, except our Large Language Model.
In 1835 NSW Governor Richard Bourke proclaimed that Australia was terra nullius. That’s a latin phrase that means “nobody’s land” or “land belonging to no one”.
It was used as unjust justification for the British settlement of Australia. Why unjust? Well, Australian Aboriginals had lived there for tens of thousands of years.
Through a simple latin phrase their history, sovereignty and existence was dismissed. Land taken by the equivalent of someone sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!”
Terra nullius was eventually overturned in Australia in 1992. (Mabo v Queensland, No 2)
These days it’s very common to hear/see what’s called an Acknolwedgemnt of Country. In workplaces, at schools, during events, and as written statements on buildings, websites.
Something like this:
“We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the Elders past and present.”
I’ve always found it it to be a strange and conflicting practice. On one hand, it is very important - and the right thing to do - to acknowledge the history and injustice. On the other hand, it feels like we’re saying “Yeah, it’s stolen and it sucks but hey, what can we do??”
This has happened throughout the world. Dismissing entire cultures, their history and the work they have done seeing them as less-than or non-existent.
You and everything you have doesn’t matter because we want it. Too bad.
Cut to today and something similar has happened with our creative and knowledge work.
AI companies have been training their LLMs on existing work before most of us even knew what an LLM was. And they still do.
Digital books and publications pirated, physical books scanned and destroyed, art scraped from the internet, articles copied, music and lyrics, even the people’s identities used as “experts” witout consent.
No compensation, not acknowledgement.
A complete disregard for the hard work, creativity, experiences and thinking of the people who have created the “data” they’ve used to build their businesses.
“All you have to do is just use those scraped datasets and the (sic) conveniently forget what you used to train the model. Boom legal problems solved forever.”
Opus nullius.
Work that belongs to no one.
Copyright is ignored. Credit is not given. Compensation is not paid.
Of course, it’s not just the companies who benefit. A lot of us are using AI for fun and profit. Building businesses on stolen IP. Coding with other people’s code. Working with chatbots that are regurgitating amalgamations of other people’s ideas. Creating images that would not be possible without the stolen artowrk of designers and artists.
Will we be giving acknowledgements of work one day?
“We acknowledge the creators, artists, writers, and thinkers whose work, imagination, and labour form the foundation of what we build. We recognise their creativity as their own and we acknowledge that this work was taken without consent, without credit, and without compensation.”
Yeah, it’s stolen and it sucks but hey, what can we do??