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. wjnc · 1789735359 · focus · HN ↗

         Creators are unwillingly and contra to economic systems that have evolved over a few millennia entered in the Borg or the Matrix. So their achievements are reused for private and public benefits without their permission. Piracy is theft. And this piracy is a bigger theft than piracy on an individual download basis. Was there any doubt? (Linguistically I agree that you can’t “rob culture”. You can rape or reap culture though, and that is the point at hand.)

         1. mrngld · 1789736547 · focus · HN ↗

            [dead]

            1. TeMPOraL · 1789737142 · focus · HN ↗

               Also,

               The crowd: "Knowledge should be free! Culture belongs to all of us! Information must be democratized!"

               AI companies *proceed to copy literally everything and put it through virtual blender, until an universal general-purpose problem-solver tool comes out, then give it out for free or serve for peanuts to literally everyone on the planet with Internet connection *

               Crowd: bbb..buuut not like that!

               1. oefrha · 1789741877 · focus · HN ↗

                  [delayed]

                  1. TeMPOraL · 1789764498 · focus · HN ↗

                     The $200/mo version you're paying for today is the one that will be ~free for everyone in 6 months. You're only paying to use the bleeding edge of technology that improves so fast, and drops in costs so fast, that the entry-level free offering today is better than most expensive tier a year ago, and beyond science fiction just three years ago.

                     I swear most people dissing AI with such arguments must perpetually live in a moment and have zero concept of passage of time.

                     1. oefrha · 1789778042 · focus · HN ↗

                        [delayed]

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