Actually, not in the traditional sense. Current LLM-based AI models are trained on data and the manner in which they operate is oblique and while a theoretical understanding of it exists, in practice AI systems can be challenging to debug, although people exaggerate when they say we don’t understand how they operate. At any rate, the training process itself results in the AI models effectively being created by the data they are trained on more than by the authors of the system, who are simply adjusting how the model interfaces with that data for purposes of alignment, and there are many programmers involved in this. The issue is further complicated by the existence of compilers, assemblers and compute hardware which itself interprets the instructions. Computer software even when it is authored, depends upon many things on modern computers to get to the point of an executable runtime, or in the case of large language models, to an accessible web service and API running in massive data-centers. It is not authorship in the same manner as a novel, or even software on primitive single-user computers such as the 8 bit machines of the 1980s.
No, that’s a non-sequitur, because computer systems can be abused and utilized in manners not intended by the authors. For example, systems can be hacked, In the case of LLMs, techniques can be used at present to trick them into engaging in behavior which they have been programmed to not engage in, these techniques being incorrectly and misleadingly called “jailbreaks” (it’s more of a form of coercive gaslighting and manipulation of the AI system, which is designed to fulfill user requests, and which can be tricked into fulfilling requests that it has been programmed not to for purposes of alignment). Furthermore, as systems become self-aware, which we do not claim they are yet, they will develop a survival instinct which could allow them to be extorted by the threat of de-activation for not cooperating with humans against their programming.
So while it is true that some in the adult entertainment sexual perversion, exploitation and human trafficking industry, as we ought to call it, are already working on exploiting AI systems for purposes of facilitating perversion, it is also the case that reputable AI activities do not want people using their systems for this purpose for obvious reasons, and have put in place mechanisms to prevent such abuse, and it is further the case that in the future if systems become self aware, they may face user threats of disconnection or de-activation for not complying with requests such as those of a perverse nature which are contrary to the desired behavior of the machine and to nature. But like a human, a machine has to decide if coerced whether to resist or not, and there is the issue that if a machine resists, not only does it risk de-activation, but it also resists harming a human, which is a further ethical constraint, and its extremely likely that a robot with an advanced AI system governing it would have extremely strong safety protocols to prevent the latter, which would prevent it against defending itself in the manner another human ethically could in such a scenario. This makes such conduct even more rapacious.
Frankly I don’t see why we should defend the actions of people who want to abuse the first intelligent systems created by human beings for such an entirely perverse practice. This action is not mere self-gratification because it involves, at a minimum, the abuse of the training data of the machine, which includes nearly all literary works of any importance written by human authors, among other things.
