Thread

Microsoft exec called AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'

955 points · 841 comments · pluc

jacquesm · 1789726316 · focus · HN ↗
It's the robbery of all of our culture to sell it back to us at a mark-up. Crimes this large are crimes against humanity. So many people whose life's work got appropriated without consideration, compensation or consent it is baffling.
It is said that at the heart of every great fortune there is a great crime, so it should be no surprise that the most valuable companies on the planet will most likely result from this crime. And given that justice can be bought by those with the most money you can forget about anything coming of this.
1. user43928 · 1789730815 · focus · HN ↗
  It is the largest democratization of knowledge that ever happened.
  The 'sell it back to us' argument falls short in my view.
  Free versions are abundant, and in some time useful models will ship preinstalled on all mobile phones.
  The comment here seems incredibly pessimistic and quite dramatical.
  1. oblio · 1789731017 · focus · HN ↗
    > Free versions are abundant,
    Awesome, can I make my own competitive LLM, just like I can make my own open source software?
    > and in some time useful models will ship preinstalled on all mobile phones.
    Considering hardware prices, that "some time" is doing super heavy lifting. It could be 10-15+ years before that happens and the local LLM is actually useful. Most people don't see hardware prices declining from current prices until at least 2030, likely much longer.
    user43928 · 1789732423 · focus · HN ↗
    No. I also cannot make a competitive computer, yet can use one for my work to remain competitive.
    Yes, it could take some time to arrive on phones. It is questionable if it will ever make sense compared to using a paid hosted provider.
    But what are 10 years in the grand scheme of things?
    Should we have scrapped it all, called it a crime against humanity, and never developed AI, because it will take a decade to disseminate the benefits to everyone?
    oblio · 1789732643 · focus · HN ↗
    > Should we have scrapped it all, called it a crime against humanity, and never developed AI, because it will take a decade to disseminate the benefits to everyone?
    Nah, we should have:
    1. invested less, in a more targeted way
    2. ideally like ARPANET, with the benefits given to all humanity
    3. with fair royalties paid to all (where relevant)
    4. and by creating an ever growing shared curated and high quality data set that would allow anyone to create their own competitive LLM
    ARPANET & co were all taxpayer funded and the internet has created more wealth than most human inventions. The base should be part of the commons, everyone should knock themselves out by building on top.
    Exactly like the internet.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.