Thread

1. 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. TeMPOraL · 1789734845 · focus · HN ↗

      > It's the robbery of all of our culture to sell it back to us at a mark-up.

      Except, of course, no one has actually been robbed, the culture has not been stolen - it's still there - nor are the people involved selling it back in any form. This rhetoric sounds impressive, but really looks more like "piracy is theft" line from early 2000s, similarly flawed in basic premise.

      Whether the end result threatens the form in which culture is created, at least beyond just threatening the business models of the gatekeepers, is a separate discussion, but you can't draw the heart-string-pulling "life's work got appropriated" arguments there so easily.

      And let's not forget what we got back for this: reified intelligence on a chip almost too cheap to meter, available to everyone across the world - not just rich West, inference is so dirt cheap that whole world uses it. It exploded in popularity organically, because of how many real problems of real people, including individuals and non-profits, it addresses.

      There's plenty to hate about how AI is transforming the world, but one thing it's not, is "robbery of all of our culture to sell it back to us at a mark-up".

      1. tripzilch · 1789735540 · focus · HN ↗

         What do you mean, it's already robbing me of the ability to discuss techniques with a number of my peers since they decided the mediocre output of LLMs is good enough instead of understanding what they are doing.

         In addition, a great number of people have decided to stop publishing their code publicly, and discuss techniques except in spaces they can be sure it's a one-on-one with a human being.

         Some things already got lost.

         1. TeMPOraL · 1789736551 · focus · HN ↗

            That's people problems though, namely:

            1) Lazy peers, and

            2) Spiteful peers with "dog in the manger" mentality.

            The latter case personally irks me, mostly because this often involves personal benefit (economical or moral) due to them claiming to give away knowledge for altruistic reasons, which later behavior reveals was a lie, mislabeling proprietary as open and free, to reap unfair gains.

            But that's all off-topic for this thread anyway.

            1. gwbas1c · 1789738879 · focus · HN ↗

               > Spiteful peers with "dog in the manger" mentality.

               Last night my daughter told me her friend (a boy) signed up to take the last spot of a baking class at camp just to spite his sister, who wanted it.

               Turns out he liked baking!

               ---

               I think this whole discussion shows that there's a lot of Calvinball going on with IP, where the creator keeps trying to change the rules as a way to defend their power and social order.

               1. 3ash87 · 1789739379 · focus · HN ↗

                  [dead]

                  1. shimman · 1789740299 · focus · HN ↗

                     This may blow your mind but people have different value systems than the single one where only making money matters in our incredibly short lives. Some people believe in things other than accumulating money and immiserating workers.

                     Your failure of imagination doesn't limit the actions people can take to shape society. We all have equal voices in that respect.

                     I truly feel sorry for those with your mindset. It speaks volumes on the lack of community and friends you have where you think fucking them over to make money is a worthy pursuit.

                     They use to banish greedy people from society in the before times, maybe we should start again as these people have no problem in destroying society for religious fanatical reasons. We shouldn't be accepting of them, especially when they're actively killing us all or making us miserable.

                     1. iu123 · 1789741189 · focus · HN ↗

                        You are preaching this is response to a comment that mocks the notion that creators are the evil people while OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX exploit them?

                        The comment was clearly satirical.

                        1. shimman · 1789741367 · focus · HN ↗

                           Nah, some tech people really believe this. You need to get out of your bubble and realize a nontrivial percentage of tech workers are very anti-human.
                        2. gwbas1c · 1789746633 · focus · HN ↗

                           Yes, one of the articles on HN a few days ago pointed out that a lot of the wealthy spend a lot of their time and energy preserving the social order. (It was a long article trying to predict what people will do when they don't need to work.)

                           To be quite blunt: I really don't think anyone who sells (or gives) IP to the general public has any right to control what happens to that IP after a fair period of time. That's why I say they're playing Calvinball: Changing the rules as they go for their benefit, so they can preserve the social order.

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