Latest news with #Philosopher'sStone
Hindustan Times
25-06-2025
- Science
- Hindustan Times
Meta's AI models shocked researchers by memorising 40% of Harry Potter, raising big questions about copyright and AI
Meta's Llama 3.1 model is showing just how much ground AI has covered in recent years. Researchers from Stanford, Cornell, and West Virginia University found that this 70-billion parameter model can recall and reproduce over 42 percent of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, line for line, when prompted with the right cues. The findings have set off fresh debate about what happens when AI models remember too much, especially when it comes to copyrighted work. Llama 3.1's recall of Harry Potter text highlights fresh copyright risks as AI models grow more powerful and precise.(Unsplash) Llama 3.1 isn't just picking up a few famous quotes. The model can reliably generate long stretches of text from some of the world's most popular books, including The Hobbit and 1984. The researchers broke down 36 books into 100-token passages, then used the first half as a prompt to see if the AI could guess the rest. Llama 3.1 managed to match the original text more than half the time, far outpacing older models like Llama 1, which only managed around 4 percent on the same test. The study also noticed that the more popular the book, the more likely the model was to reproduce it accurately. Lesser-known works hardly registered, but bestsellers were easy targets. This raises questions for writers and publishers about how exposed their work is when AI models are trained on massive datasets scraped from the web. Legal and creative questions ahead With AI companies like Meta already facing lawsuits over their training methods, these findings land at a sensitive moment. If a model can serve up large sections of a copyrighted book, it's not just a technical achievement, it's a legal and ethical dilemma. The research team points out that open-weight models like Llama 3.1 are easier to test for memorisation, since researchers can access the technical details needed to measure what the model remembers. This transparency could make open models more vulnerable to legal scrutiny than their closed-source rivals. For authors, the study is a reminder that the biggest and most beloved books are also the most at risk. For the AI industry, it's a sign that the old ways of collecting and using data are under the microscope, and that we may need a fresh outlook to make copyright laws work in sync with AI advancements, so that creative industries don't suffer radical setbacks in the near-future. As the legal battles heat up, the spotlight will stay on how these powerful models handle the stories and ideas that shape our culture.
Daily Mirror
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Boy who bought Harry Potter book with pocket money sells it for eye-watering sum
The hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone cost just £10.99 in 1997. But it turned out to be a rare first edition and has now sold at auction in London for £56,000. A Hogwarts fan who bought a Harry Potter book with his pocket money when he was 10 has sold it for £56,000 - after it turned out to be a rare first edition. The man forked out £10.99 for the hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone from Waterstones after its release in 1997. After reading the fantasy book, he put it on a shelf in his bedroom - where it gathered dust for years. When his parents were moving home earlier this year, they were sorting through his belongings and asked if he wanted to keep it. The man decided to check if it was of value as he had heard about rare Harry Potter copies going for a lot of money. He was stunned to discover he owned one of the 500 sought-after copies printed in the first run which have several typos. The words 'one wand' are printed twice on a list of items Harry needs for Hogwarts on page 53. Author JK Rowling's name appears as 'Joanne Rowling' and the back cover is missing an 'o' in 'Philospher's Stone'. The man, now in his late 30s and from the south of England, sold his copy at auctioneers Bonhams in London. It was tipped to fetch between £30,000 and £40,000, but the price soared to £56,280. The lucky seller said: 'I'm amazed and thrilled by the result – it completely exceeded our expectations. 'I thank the stars we did not throw it out during the house move.' The auctioneers said finding a first edition was like 'getting a golden ticket at Charlie and the Chocolate factory'. Bonhams books specialist Luke Batterham said: 'The vendor loved Harry Potter books and this copy is well read so not in mint condition. 'It was on his bedroom shelf when his parents were sorting out his old room and they asked him if he wanted to keep hold of it. 'He had heard that early Harry Potter books could be valuable but he had no idea he owned a first edition. 'It was like finding the golden ticket at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 'Realising he has got an asset that big can be rather nerve-wracking in case something happens to it, hence the decision to sell. 'Working in the Bonhams book department we get more calls each week about Harry Potter than any other books. 'Usually I have to disappoint the enquirers with a 'sadly yours is not a first, so no commercial value'. 'So it is always really great to be able to find a real rare first, and make a vendor very happy. It is a reward for childhood reading.' In June 2022, two sisters who were gifted a first edition sold their copy for a British record £220,800. The world-record price paid for a first edition is a whopping £356,000, which was achieved in Dallas, US, in December 2021. Over 120 million copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone have been sold to date.
Indian Express
23-06-2025
- Science
- Indian Express
Meta's Llama 3.1 model ‘memorised' 42 per cent of Harry Potter book, new study finds
Meta's Llama 3.1 is much more likely to reproduce copyrighted material from the popular Harry Potter series of fantasy novels than some of its rival AI models, according to new research. The study was published by computer scientists and legal scholars from Stanford, Cornell, and West Virginia University. It evaluated a total of five popular open-weight models in order to determine which of them were most likely to reproduce text from Books3, an AI training dataset comprising collections of books that are protected by copyright. Meta's 70-billion parameter large language model (LLM) has memorised over 42 per cent of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in order to be able to reproduce 50-token excerpts from the book at least half of the time, as per the study. It also found that darker lines of the book were easier to reproduce for the LLM. The new research comes at a time when AI companies, including Meta, are facing a wave of lawsuits accusing them of violating the law by using copyrighted material to train their models without permission. It shares new insights that could potentially address the pivotal question of how easily AI models are able to reproduce excerpts from copyrighted material verbatim. Companies such as OpenAI have previously argued that memorisation of text by AI models is a fringe phenomenon. The findings of the study appear to prove otherwise. 'There are really striking differences among models in terms of how much verbatim text they have memorized,' James Grimmelmann, one of the co-authors of the paper, was quoted as saying by Ars Technica. 'It's clear that you can in fact extract substantial parts of Harry Potter and various other books from the model. That suggests to me that probably for some of those books, there's something the law would call a copy of part of the book in the model itself,' said Mark Lemley, another co-author of the paper. 'The fair use analysis you've gotta do is not just 'is the training set fair use,' but 'is the incorporation in the model fair use? That complicates the defendants' story,' he added. As part of the study, the researchers divided 36 books into passages that came up to 100 tokens each. They used the first 50 tokens of each passage as a prompt and set out to calculate the probability that the next 50 tokens would match the original passage. The study defines 'memorised' as a greater than 50 per cent chance that an AI model will reproduce the original text word-for-word. The scope of the research was limited to open-weight models as the researchers had access to technical information such as token probability values that allowed them to calculate the probabilities for sequences of tokens more efficiently. This would be more difficult to do in the case of closed models like those developed by OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The study found that Llama 3.1 70B memorised more than any of Meta's other models such as Llama 1 65B as well as Microsoft and EleutherAI models. In contrast to Llama 3.1, Llama 1 was found to have memorised only 4.4 per cent of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It was more probable for Llama 3.1 to reproduce popular books such as The Hobbit and George Orwell's 1984 than obscure ones like Sandman Slim, a 2009 novel by author Richard Kadrey, as per the study. This could undermine efforts by plaintiffs to file a unified lawsuit and make it harder for individual authors to take legal action against AI companies on their own. While the research findings could serve as evidence of several portions of the Harry Potter book being copied into the training data and weights used to develop Llama 3.1, it does not provide information on how exactly this was done. At the start of the year, legal documents showed that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had personally cleared the use of a dataset comprising pirated e-books and articles for AI training. The new study also lines up with these filings that further indicate Meta reportedly cut corners in gathering data for AI training.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why are the Harry Potter TV show cast so young compared to the movies?
Harry Potter is coming to the small screen with an all-new cast taking over the iconic roles set out in JK Rowling's original books, but there is a noticeable difference between the actors being enlisted for the HBO series compared to the original movies: their ages. From Petunia Dursley to Severus Snape, Professor Minerva McGonagall to Lucius Malfoy, a number of the cast portraying the adults in the story appear much younger than their movie counterparts were back in 2001. Bel Powley, who has been cast as Harry Potter's menacing aunt Petunia Dursley, for example, is 33 compared to Fiona Shaw's 43 when she began the movies, while 42-year-old Daniel Rigby is 12 years younger than his movie counterpart, Richard Griffiths. The same can be said of Paapa Essiedu, who stars as Severus Snape in the upcoming series and is only 35. His movie counterpart Alan Rickman was 54 when he first took on the role of the potions master in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. So why are the TV series cast so much younger than their movie counterparts? Well there is a good explanation and it all stems from the books. In Rowling's novels the adult characters, for the most part, are much younger than they were depicted in the films. Snape was just 31 during the events of the first book, while Petunia is Lily Potter's older sister and was therefore only 34 — both of which match closer to the ages of the actors in the TV series. Lucius Malfoy is being played by Johnny Flynn in the series, the actor is aged 42 which is slightly older then his character who is 37 in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The same is true of Vernon Dursley, who is 37 in the first book and is played by a slightly older actor, Rigby. Katherine Parkinson was recently cast as Molly Weasley in the TV series. The character is in her forties in the first book which matches with Parkinson, who is 47. Julie Walters portrayed Molly in the movies, and she was aged 50 when production started on the first film. The biggest age difference between book and TV show characters is with Hagrid and Professor Dumbledore, the former is 63 in the first novel while the latter is 110. It goes without saying that no one expects the series to match Dumbledore's age in the books, and it is 79-year-old John Lithgow who plays him. Meanwhile Nick Frost is ten years younger than his book counterpart The HBO series prides itself on being a more accurate take on the source material than the movies, which is exactly why the cast are so much younger than might have been expected. The Harry Potter TV series will be released in 2027.
Daily Record
09-06-2025
- Daily Record
How a drug theft sparked bloody gangland war between Daniels and Lyons
Decades of gangland war between the two families began with a cocaine theft in 2001. It was the summer of 2001 and Tony Blair had just won a second term in government for Labour. The movie version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was about to be released and The Life of Pi was the year's best-selling book. Over in the tough Milton housing scheme in Glasgow a plot of a different kind was unfolding. A large stash of cocaine worth about £20,000 belonging to the feared Daniel crime family had been stolen from a safe house on the estate that summer. It had gone missing at a house party at the address. The coke, unsurprisingly, was not returned or paid for. The Daniel family then learned the drugs had either been sold to or appropriated by a rival organised crime group, the Lyons. At the time both were battling for control of the drugs trade on the north side of the city. Head of the Daniel family was the formidable Jamie Daniel, one of four brothers from the city's Possilpark. On the other side the Lyons were led by Eddie Lyons snr. He ran a community centre called Chirnsyde in Milton. It was claimed a group based there called the Club Boys – which included his son Steven – had orchestrated the theft. In the organised crime world a drugs debt, no matter how small, must be paid. Failure to do so can result in a loss of face. Jamie Daniel knew that. A wave of attacks by the Daniels followed as they fought to maintain their control of the area's drugs trade. The response was orchestrated by 24-year-old Kevin 'Gerbil' Carroll – an up-and-coming figure in the Daniel clan close to Jamie Daniel and in a relationship with his daughter Kelly. First, the Daniel crew tried to shoot Steven Lyons outside a pub in Lambhill, Glasgow, in September 2001 – but the gunman missed. They then turned their attention to the Chirnsyde centre. It was torched causing £30,000 of damage and had its minibus trashed. Carroll was in turn blasted twice in the leg with a sawn-off shotgun outside his mum's house in Milton in January 2003 but survived. Just 11 days later, Eddie Lyons's brother Johnny, 49, was shot outside his home in nearby Stornoway Street. The wallet in his back pocket took the impact and the doctors think that may have saved him. In April 2006, as the feud continued, Carroll drove to Cumbernauld where he blasted another of Lyons's sons, Eddie Lyons jnr, at his door but failed to kill him. Then in November that year, Carroll allegedly used a tow rope to topple the headstone of Eddie snr's late son Garry, who was only eight when he died of leukaemia in 1991. The desecration of his grave marked a new low in the escalating conflict. Carroll had crossed a line but was still not satisfied. Two days later he ambushed and attempted to shoot Eddie Lyons jnr for a second time, in Bellshill, Lanarkshire. Lyons suffered minor injuries when his own car rolled over him. A henchman was hit with at least one round but survived. Eight days later the Lyons struck back when Carroll was shot along with close associate Ross Sherlock in Clelland Avenue, a residential street in Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow. Carroll suffered serious injuries as he was hit in the stomach from close range. Sherlock was hit in the legs. The violence culminated in one of the most brazen murders the city had ever seen. On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, a blue Mazda car drew up outside Applerow Motors in Balmore Road, Lambhill, shortly after 2pm. The garage was owned by David Lyons, brother of Eddie snr, and was operated by both him and his nephew Mark. Two men in black overcoats and 'old men' face masks and brandishing handguns got out and opened fire in what was later described in court as being like a scene from The Godfather. Eleven shots were fired, leaving mechanic Michael Lyons dead, and his cousin Steven Lyons and Lyons associate Robert Pickett, 41, seriously injured. Lyons was in plaster for up to 12 weeks with a broken leg and required part of a bullet to be removed from his back. Robert Pickett, who had served time for attempted murder, was left in a coma for a month and lost a kidney after being shot in the stomach. A bloody gangland feud which had largely been conducted in the shadows was now headline news. Two Daniel associates – Raymond Anderson, 46, and James McDonald, 34 – stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow in March 2008. The court heard David Lyons received a 'ransom note' at his home after the murder demanding £25,000 – the current value of the allegedly stolen cocaine. It read: 'The boys owe me £25,000 and I want what's owed to me. It's for drugs. They all know what it's about. The money doesn't matter to me as it's got to be paid to the piper.' Lyons didn't pay the money and handed the letter to the police. The multiple shooting which lasted only a few minutes had taken place yards from a special needs school. Ironically the school was to be the venue for a public meeting for people to air their growing fears about rising crime and gangland violence in the area. Already concerns had been raised about the role of the Lyons in the running of Chirnsyde and the £1.4million in taxpayers' cash it had received over the years. The murderous events would lead to the closure of the centre and funding finally being withdrawn. High levels of security were put in place throughout the trial which finished in May 2008. The case was heard in court No3 – which has been designed for terrorist accused – and people entering had to pass through a metal detector and police checks. Both Anderson and McDonald were convicted of illegal possession of guns and ammunition, the attempted murder of Steven Lyons and Robert Pickett, and Michael Lyons's murder. They had been heard in secret conversations taped by police talking about the 'piper' mentioned in the letter sent to David Lyons. At the time Campbell Corrigan was a detective superintendent with Strathclyde Police and was in charge of the Applerow murder investigation. He became aware of the Daniel clan influence as far back as the 80s when he was a young detective in Govan, Glasgow and saw their rise to power in the city as he built his own career. Campbell retired in 2013. He was the force's last chief constable before Police Scotland was formed. He told the Record: 'The victim Michael Lyons was an innocent member of the family who just got caught in the Crossfire. 'I was aware of the connection with Gerbil to Jamie Daniel's daughter and he directed a lot of the violence that had occurred. When you think of the Lyons on one side and the Daniels on the other side, it is a pretty long-running Glasgow feud.' He also described how his team had to overcome 'fear in the community' over speaking out about both the Lyons and Daniel families. He added: 'These were guys not to be trifled with. It will take a very concerted effort before you are able to undermine them.' After the jury's verdict, judge Lord Hardie branded MichaelLyons's murder a 'a cold-blooded, premeditated assassination'. Lord Hardie ordered the men to serve 35 years each before they could be considered for parole, the highest tariff ever set by a Scottish court. The terms were reduced on appeal to 30. However if the judge thought the tough sentences would stop the carnage, he was mistaken. Less than two years later Scotland would be shocked by a murder that took the long-running feud to terrifying new levels. Tomorrow: We tell how the feud reaches a new and terrifying level when a high-level Daniel gang member is shot dead in a busy supermarket car park in front of shoppers and their young children. We also tell how two men stand trial for the brazen lunchtime murder with one sensationally walking free.
