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. cowanon77 · 1789739565 · focus · HN ↗

         I only see 2 consistent world views: either intellectual property is real, or it is a false concept and all information should be free.

         If IP is real, then the AI companies have performed flagrant theft.

         If IP is not real, then the algorithms and weights the AI companies have developed should also be free as they are just more information.

         The status quo of "your knowledge has no protection, but our knowledge is sacred" is the worst of all possible worlds.

         1. verelo · 1789745158 · focus · HN ↗

            I think the blend of the two is that value added to any information, such as the first time its distilled or positioned in a certain way, that's IP and should be real.

            When an AI company takes that type of value, and doesnt provide value back to the person who made it, thats theft.

            Information / facts are real and free. But those who helped us get here should choose how to license their work, and an AI company picking it up and re-selling it is clearly unethical.

            1. joquarky · 1789772536 · focus · HN ↗

               > But those who helped us get here should choose how to license their work

               I can reasonably wrap my head around the idea that an author should be compensated for their work, but where in the social contract does this power to control how that work is used come from?

               It's so destructive and tangles up courts and makes contracts complicated and we lose the original versions of the work because e.g., they have to change a background song due to complicated licensing.

               I can respect protecting copy rights, but it should never be conditional; if you choose to make a work available to the world, you have a legal right to defend the unauthorized copy of it but you should not have a right to say how it gets used.

               It reminds me of manufacturers like John Deer.

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