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Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

den.dev

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Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#81

Post by AnthonyMouse »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #57
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. So? What do I care? If some stuff I posted to my website (with no requirement for attribution or remuneration, and also no guarantee that the information is true or valid) can improve the AI services that I use, great.

I think the source of the contrary sentiment goes something like this: AI stuff (especially image generation) is competition for artists. They don't much like competition that can easily undercut them on price, so they want to veto it somehow and lean on their go-to of accusing anybody who competes with them of theft.

The problem in this case is that it doesn't matter. The AI stuff is going to exist, and compete with them, whether the AI companies have to pay some pittance for training data or not.

But the chorus is made worse by two major factors.

First, many of the AI companies themselves are closed-source profiteers. "OpenAI" stepping all over themselves to be the opposite of their own name etc. If all the models got trained and then published, people would be much more inclined to say "oh, this is neat, I can use this myself and it knows my own work". But when you have companies hoovering everything up for free and then trying to keep the result proprietary, they look like scumbags and that pisses people off.

Second, then you get other opportunistic scumbags who try to turn that legitimate ire into their own profit by claiming that training for free should be prohibited so that only proprietary models can be created.

Whereas the solution you actually want is that anybody can train a model on public data but then they have to publish the model/weights. Which is probably not going to happen because in practice the law is likely to end up being what favors one of the scumbags.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#82

Post by dehrmann »

rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

> used/exploited by things like AI training bots

How is this worse than a human reading your blog/code, remembering the key parts of it, and creating something transformative from it?

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#83

Post by w4 »

Terr_ wrote: post #67
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

IANAL, but lately I've had this quixotic daydream of a combination accept-cookies / agree-to-TOS page that comes up, and the Terms of Service says by proceeding they agree to give the site-owner an perpetual, irrevocable, and royalty-free to use and re-license any future content that they create using any generative AI that was trained using the website contents. Then you carefully log what LLM user-agents/IPs go pas…

This idea is reminiscent of the opening scene of Accelerando by Charlie Stross:

Are you saying you taught yourself the language just so you could talk to me?"

"Da, was easy: Spawn billion-node neural network, and download Teletubbies and Sesame Street at maximum speed. Pardon excuse entropy overlay of bad grammar: Am afraid of digital fingerprints steganographically masked into my-our tutorials."

…

"Uh, I'm not sure I got that. Let me get this straight, you claim to be some kind of AI, working for KGB dot RU, and you're afraid of a copyright infringement lawsuit over your translator semiotics?"

"Am have been badly burned by viral end-user license agreements. Have no desire to experiment with patent shell companies held by Chechen infoterrorists. You are human, you must not worry cereal company repossess your small intestine because digest unlicensed food with it, right?”

- https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...

Amusing to also note that this excerpt predicted the current LLM training methodology quite well, in 2005.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#84

Post by moron4hire »

dehrmann wrote: post #82
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

> used/exploited by things like AI training bots How is this worse than a human reading your blog/code, remembering the key parts of it, and creating something transformative from it?

Seriously? How is rule utilitarianism different from act utilitarianism?

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#85

Post by hackernewds »

dend wrote: post #21
pcloadletter_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also just kind of cool and fun to hack together a personal website

Totally. If I would tell 10-year-old me that I have my own website on my own domain, it would be seen as a shocking development. I find it really cool to be able to have a corner of the internet that is just mine.

This is practically everyone's Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Airbnb anything at all profile already

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#86

Post by dend »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #81
CamperBob2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. So? What do I care? If some stuff I posted to my website (with no requirement for attribution or remuneration, and also no guarantee that the information is true or valid) can improve the AI services that I use, great.

I think the source of the contrary sentiment goes something like this: AI stuff (especially image generation) is competition for artists. They don't much like competition that can easily undercut them on price, so they want to veto it somehow and lean on their go-to of accusing anybody who competes with them of theft. The problem in this case is that it doesn't matter. The AI stuff is going to exist, and compete with…

I think that's an overly reductive way of looking at it. Artists, are by their definition, creators of art. AI-generated "art" (it's not art at all in my eyes) is effectively a machine-based reproduction of actual art, but doesn't take the same skill level, time, and passion for the craft for a user to be able to generate an output, and certainly generates large profits for those that created the models.

So, imagine the scenario where you, an artist, trained for years to develop a specific technique and style, only for a massively funded company to swoop in, train a model on your art, make bank off of your skill while you get nothing, and now some rando can also create look-alikes (and also potentially profit from them - I've seen AI-generated images for sale at physical print stores and Etsy that mimic art styles of modern artists), potentially destroying your livelihood. Very little to be happy about here, to be frank.

It's less about competition and more about the ethical way to do it. If another artist would learn the same techniques and then managed to produce similar art, do you think there would be just as visceral of a reaction to them publishing their art? Likely not, because it still required skill to achieve what they did. Someone with a model and a prompt is nowhere near that same skill level, yet they now get to reap the benefits of the artist's developed craft. Is this "gatekeeping what's art"? I don't think so. Is this fair in any capacity? I don't think so either. Because we're comparing apples to pinecones.

All that being said, I do agree that the ship has sailed - the models are there, the trend of training on art AND written content shared openly will continue, and we're yet to see what the consequences of that will be. Their presence certainly won't stop me from continuously writing, perfecting my craft, and sharing it with the world. My job is to help others with it.

My hunch is that in the near-term we'll see a major devaluing of both written and image material, while a premium will be put on exceptional human skill. That is, would you pay to read a blog post written and thoroughly researched by Molly White (https://mastodon.social/@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io) or Cory Doctorow (https://pluralistic.net/), or some AI slop generated by an automated aggregator? My hunch is you'd pick the former. I know I would. As an anecdotal data point, and speaking just for myself, if I see now that someone uses AI-generated images in their blog post or site, I almost instantly close the tab. Same applies to videos on YouTube that have an AI-generated thumbnail or static art. It somehow carries a very negative connotation to me.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#87

Post by richardw »

paxys wrote: post #80
richardw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second you have a domain you can move it where you want. Change the software, look and feel. You keep subscribers. You don’t need to own every atom, just enough to give you options. You can’t move your X or FB account. They can block you anytime, or reduce traffic. Way fewer options.

Having control over a domain name doesn't mean all that much when the data hosted on it can be hijacked or held hostage at any point.

“Just enough to give you options” means you choose how much you need to own, and once you have the domain you can choose the rest. Back your data up, choose tech you can move. The point is that you don’t need to buy every single piece of infrastructure. Compare any of this to ruling your business purely on any platform whose domain you don’t own.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#88

Post by arminiusreturns »

dend wrote: post #21
pcloadletter_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also just kind of cool and fun to hack together a personal website

Totally. If I would tell 10-year-old me that I have my own website on my own domain, it would be seen as a shocking development. I find it really cool to be able to have a corner of the internet that is just mine.

I still get a rush with a new server on the internet!!! (especially my latest host: 12 core new gen epyc instances with 48G RAM.)

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#89

Post by dend »

dehrmann wrote: post #82
rpcope1 wrote: post #44

> Exploiting user-generated content. You know, if I've noticed anything in the past couple years, it's that even if you self-host your own site, it's still going to get hoovered up and used/exploited by things like AI training bots. I think between everyone's code getting trained on, even if it's AGPLv3 or something similarly restrictive, and generally everything public on the internet getting "trained" and "transfor…

> used/exploited by things like AI training bots How is this worse than a human reading your blog/code, remembering the key parts of it, and creating something transformative from it?

In the grand scheme of things and at this point, it probably doesn't matter. I know for me it certainly is not in any shape a discouragement to continue writing on my blog and contributing code to open source communities (my own and others).

But if we're going to dig into this a bit, one person reading my code, internalizing it, processing it themselves, tweaking it and experimenting with it, and then shipping something transformative means that I've enhanced the knowledge of some individual with my work. It's a win. They got my content for free, as I intended it to be, and their life got a tiny bit better because of it (I hope).

The opposite of that is some massively funded company taking my content, training a model off of it, and then reaping profits while the authors don't even get as much as an acknowledgement. You could theoretically argue that in the long-run, a LLM would likely help other people through my content that it trained on, but ethically this is most definitely a more-than-gray area.

The (good/bad) news is that this ship has sailed and we now need to adjust to this new mode of operation.

Re: Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet

#90

Post by richardw »

jasonjayr wrote: post #54
richardw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second you have a domain you can move it where you want. Change the software, look and feel. You keep subscribers. You don’t need to own every atom, just enough to give you options. You can’t move your X or FB account. They can block you anytime, or reduce traffic. Way fewer options.

Recent story regarding itch.io: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42363727 Just owning your own domain, minding your own business, doesn't guarantee that it won't be taken down on a whim.

One of the top comments on BSky shows they got it back up fairly quickly. Try that when running on Google, say. If your business is on YouTube and they decide you’re dead, you’re dead.

“But also, as someone who relies on your site, thank you so much for handling this in such a quick and effective way. Waking up and seeing that the site is already back up despite this all makes me proud and grateful to be on itchio.”

Point is that you can choose your own adventure in a way that eclipses fully relying on another company. Beyond that, you can choose to own as many layers as you want and stop long before building your own hardware and fiber network.

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