John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
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Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#2I've been wondering, Stallman was driven to create free software after an incident trying to get the code for firmware on his office printer. I'm wondering if today, would he have just reverse engineered it with AI?
Edit: I'm also thinking of what he did rewriting all of Symbolics code for LISP machines
(similar to the person that accidentally hacked all vacuum of a certain manufacturer trying to gain access to his robot vacuum? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/feb/24/acciden...)
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#3Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#4I think one of the more prominent issues folks take with mass training on OSS is that the companies doing it are now profiting for having done it.
In his follow-up post he talks about him open sourcing old games as a gift, and he doesn't much care how people receive that gift, just that they do.
He doesn't acknowledge that Anthropic, OpenAI, etc, are profiting while the original authors are not.
The original authors most of the time didn't write the software to profit. But that doesn't mean they don't care if other people profit from their work.
It's odd to me that he doesn't acknowledge this.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#5As I understand it, the anti-AI stance of open source software people in particular has nothing to do with AI learning from code bases, and everything to do with AI slop clogging all unrestricted community feedback channels.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#6https://xcancel.com/id_aa_carmack/status/2032460578669691171
Added above. Thanks!
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#7I think one of the more prominent issues folks take with mass training on OSS is that the companies doing it are now profiting for having done it. In his follow-up post he talks about him open sourcing old games as a gift, and he doesn't much care how people receive that gift, just that they do. He doesn't acknowledge that Anthropic, OpenAI, etc, are profiting while the original authors are not. The original authors…
It's not even the profit, but that there is often no new code being contributed.
AI provides an offramp for people to disengage from social coding. People don't see the point because they still don't understand the difference between barely getting something to work and meaningfully improving that thing with new ideas.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#8I think one of the more prominent issues folks take with mass training on OSS is that the companies doing it are now profiting for having done it. In his follow-up post he talks about him open sourcing old games as a gift, and he doesn't much care how people receive that gift, just that they do. He doesn't acknowledge that Anthropic, OpenAI, etc, are profiting while the original authors are not. The original authors…
There is a major difference between open-sourcing a completed product versus being an open source maintainer, and I'm disappointed that Carmack is drawing a false equivalence here.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#9I think one of the more prominent issues folks take with mass training on OSS is that the companies doing it are now profiting for having done it. In his follow-up post he talks about him open sourcing old games as a gift, and he doesn't much care how people receive that gift, just that they do. He doesn't acknowledge that Anthropic, OpenAI, etc, are profiting while the original authors are not. The original authors…
>I think one of the more prominent issues folks take with mass training on OSS is that the companies doing it are now profiting for having done it.
What makes this more objectionable than profiting off open source projects by using it directly? eg. tech giants using linux as a server OS, rather than having to pay microsoft thousands per server for a windows server license? With the original GPL, they don't even have to contribute back any patches.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#10This fellow Shawnee Mission East alum gets it.