I really don't get those takes. AI is the best thing that ever happened to the Free Software world, it is basically turning any software into Free Software. You can just throw file formats, protocols or even plain binaries at the AI and it'll reverse engineer everything in a pinch. Users can finally modify software themselves, which was always the goal of the Free Software world, but very rarely happened in actuality, since it was just so damn complicated. AI lowered the barrier of entry tremendously, not just in terms of required knowledge, but especially time. Same with Creative Commons, sharing art and stuff, was a nice gesture, but rarely useful, since the level of work to modify a work to fit your project was pretty close to just doing it from scratch anyway. With AI everybody can toy around with image generators and get what they want.
Is a social contract being broken? Yeah, kind of, but the problems that that contract existed to solve are no longer a thing. Creation is now easy and commodified. We finally have computer we can interact with in natural language, something people tried to do for at least 70 years and never made any significant progress on until LLM arrived.
If you want to gatekeep or only create stuff to boost your own ego or portfolio, then AI might be an issue, if you actually want to build stuff, AI is godsend. We are essentially living in the StarTrek future with Holodecks and replicators and people still find reason to complain.
> If you want to gatekeep or only create stuff to boost your own ego or portfolio, then AI might be an issue, if you actually want to build stuff, AI is godsend.
Exactly this. I've been very confused by the free software advocates that seemed to hate AI until I realized their reasons for releasing software under an open source license were very different than what I assumed they were.
I release my code as free software for two reasons:
1. The credits for my code are protected (with the GPL you have to tell where your code originates from). That's the ego part. It's important to me because I'm not paid for my software. So credits are an important reward.
2. I want people to think twice about reusing my code. I use the GPL license because I think sharing software is the ultimate goal. So I force people to share my software by using the GPL. That may sound "extreme" (that's the whole open source vs free software debate) but, not being a full time politician, I can't change laws to push society in the direction I want. At my level, that "push" is the GPL choice. Maybe it's not noble enough, maybe it's cowardice, but it's my way (compare that with those who simply don't care).
AI severely weakens both of these. And for people like me, this forces us to reconsider our position. For my part, I accept the legal point of view that A.I. doesn't steal code, and just reproduces the ideas in the code. So, as far as ideas can flow in society, I'm OK with that (that's the principle behind copyright laws).
If AI has its way, one day one will not need to write software, we'll just ask the AI. In that case, software will be dead and free software will die with it too. By then I'll do my "local politics" another way and follow the next RMS.
You say that sharing the software is the ultimate goal, but you're using that argument to justify not sharing your software. That's hard for me to understand.
I also don't think that just because you have to ask AI to write the software, free software will die. Because people don't understand their own requirements, I don't think we're going to get to a place where AI can one-shot, even moderately complex software, and so creating software will continue to be some effort. I fully expect that the norm will become that we give away free software and expect other people to pick it up and tune it to their own needs with their AI. But that doesn't mean that free software is dead. It means it evolves.
Something where the person that is going to be using it can't easily define the full set of requirements in one go because they're going to need to interact with it first, and subsequent requirements will emerge after use. The limitation in this case will not be the AI's ability to implement what was requested. It will be the human's ability to articulate what success looks like.
Well yes, if you can’t articulate what you need then it’s hard for anyone to build it right on the first try.
Otoh I’d say the current models are better at predicting expectations than average programmers. Average programmers don’t know ux or business, LLMs do.
grumbel · · focus · HN ↗
Is a social contract being broken? Yeah, kind of, but the problems that that contract existed to solve are no longer a thing. Creation is now easy and commodified. We finally have computer we can interact with in natural language, something people tried to do for at least 70 years and never made any significant progress on until LLM arrived.
If you want to gatekeep or only create stuff to boost your own ego or portfolio, then AI might be an issue, if you actually want to build stuff, AI is godsend. We are essentially living in the StarTrek future with Holodecks and replicators and people still find reason to complain.
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
Exactly this. I've been very confused by the free software advocates that seemed to hate AI until I realized their reasons for releasing software under an open source license were very different than what I assumed they were.
wiz21c · · focus · HN ↗
1. The credits for my code are protected (with the GPL you have to tell where your code originates from). That's the ego part. It's important to me because I'm not paid for my software. So credits are an important reward.
2. I want people to think twice about reusing my code. I use the GPL license because I think sharing software is the ultimate goal. So I force people to share my software by using the GPL. That may sound "extreme" (that's the whole open source vs free software debate) but, not being a full time politician, I can't change laws to push society in the direction I want. At my level, that "push" is the GPL choice. Maybe it's not noble enough, maybe it's cowardice, but it's my way (compare that with those who simply don't care).
AI severely weakens both of these. And for people like me, this forces us to reconsider our position. For my part, I accept the legal point of view that A.I. doesn't steal code, and just reproduces the ideas in the code. So, as far as ideas can flow in society, I'm OK with that (that's the principle behind copyright laws).
If AI has its way, one day one will not need to write software, we'll just ask the AI. In that case, software will be dead and free software will die with it too. By then I'll do my "local politics" another way and follow the next RMS.
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
I also don't think that just because you have to ask AI to write the software, free software will die. Because people don't understand their own requirements, I don't think we're going to get to a place where AI can one-shot, even moderately complex software, and so creating software will continue to be some effort. I fully expect that the norm will become that we give away free software and expect other people to pick it up and tune it to their own needs with their AI. But that doesn't mean that free software is dead. It means it evolves.
kolinko · · focus · HN ↗
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
kolinko · · focus · HN ↗
Otoh I’d say the current models are better at predicting expectations than average programmers. Average programmers don’t know ux or business, LLMs do.