I can see 3 ways that you can guarantee that the output of a model never violates copyright
1. Models are trained with 100% uncopyrighted or properly licensed input data
2. Every output of the ML model is evaluated to make sure it's not too close to training data
3. Copyright law is changed to have a specific cutout for AI
#1 is the approach taken by Adobe, although it generally is harder or more expensive to do.
#2 destroys most AI business models
#3 has been done in some countries, but seems likely that if done in the US it would still have some limits.
For example, I could train a model on a single image, song, or piece of written text/code. Then I run inference, and get out an exact copy of that image, song, or text. If there are no limits around AI and copyright, then we've got a loophole around all of copyright law. I don't think that the US would be up for devaluing intellectual property like that.
4. A ruling comes down that enshrines what all the big companies have been doing (with the blessings of their armies of expensive, talented, and conservative legal teams) as legitimate fair use
The much more likely scenario is that there is a precedent-setting court case. This is how it happened with practically every other instance of copyright bumping into technology.
1. Models are trained with 100% uncopyrighted or properly licensed input data
2. Every output of the ML model is evaluated to make sure it's not too close to training data
3. Copyright law is changed to have a specific cutout for AI
#1 is the approach taken by Adobe, although it generally is harder or more expensive to do.
#2 destroys most AI business models
#3 has been done in some countries, but seems likely that if done in the US it would still have some limits.
For example, I could train a model on a single image, song, or piece of written text/code. Then I run inference, and get out an exact copy of that image, song, or text. If there are no limits around AI and copyright, then we've got a loophole around all of copyright law. I don't think that the US would be up for devaluing intellectual property like that.