Meta says nobody “decided” to pirate books to train AI

Meta said it was not common practice for executives to make formal decisions when acquiring datasets for the early training of models such as Llama 1 and 2. The company said an informal approach was only later replaced by more structured review and approval processes; it also argued that approvals to download files via torrents came from collaborative discussions, with no single decision-maker, and proposed providing only employees’ names rather than details about their roles or involvement.

Hixon considered the response insufficient. He said the authors were not asking only about formal decisions or a single decision-maker, but about everyone who made, authorized, directed, permitted or approved the acquisition or downloading of the so-called shadow libraries. Meta must also answer what happened to pirated works that were not used for training, Hixon said. Meta and Entrepreneur Media’s lawyer did not immediately respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment.