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Google Declaring War on the Web

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Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#271

Post by Forgeties79 »

metrognome wrote: post #142
analogpixel wrote: post #29

I feel like AI has gotten to the point where the message is: If you want to make something (art/code/music/writing) you can do it for your own enjoyment, but you aren't allowed to make money from it anymore; only the large corporations can make money from content. If you do release something creative, it'll just be fed back into the machine to be copied over and over.

The rhetoric of this comment seems to imply that this is a bad thing, but is it really? If it becomes more difficult to make money through creative endeavors, then that leaves us with fewer reasons to be creative other than for the sake of self-expression... which is what we want, right?

That only works in a society that doesn’t put such a high premium on productivity as it is defined by how much revenue it generates and vague notions of class (“this is a real job, that is not a real job). We shit on people who work jobs we need/utilize the services of despite the fact that they work as hard as any of us do because we’re too good for that work. The defining factors? We pay them poorly, they get no PTO or parental leave, etc. Because we don’t value them. It’s a vicious feedback loop.

We saw this in the 80’s through 2000’s. All parents told their kids was “go to college or you’ll become a mechanic.” Then everyone went to college at all costs and then they were told “well that’s what you get for taking on loans for college. Should’ve been sensible and gone to trade school to become a mechanic.”

Of course this is never their kid. Their kid was supposed to college. Everyone else was supposed to go to trade school.

I highly recommend everyone read the comic Godshaper. It’s 2 trades (10 or 12 issues can’t remember) and it highlights this dynamic in a way that is impossible to overstate.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#272

Post by notabotiswear »

JohnBooty wrote: post #198
marcus_holmes wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make my own furniture. I am absolutely not a carpenter. But I hate Ikea furniture - it's made of shitty, flimsy, materials, and its design priorities are all based on cost and ease of transport, not on being great furniture that will last years and be an actual asset to the home. This is an analogy, obviously. Ikea has been innovative, and it does provide a useful service for people; if you just moved into a new pl…

Do you think that AI could actually free up time in your life in other areas, so that you could spend more time doing the things you love like making furniture? Or maybe help you directly in your furniture-making, by perhaps helping you to research things? Please don't misunderstand: my point is not "AI is good." It is problematic in many ways. My point is that I think the "AI versus actually doing cool human-crafted…

> Do you think that AI could actually free up time in your life in other areas, so that you could spend more time doing the things you love.

Personally, I don’t believe that would be the case. Jevon’s paradox mixed with the natural tendency to exploit others. One could argue that technology -in general- didn’t really save people time by itself, it’s regulation - a social construct, and I am counting both cultural and legal enforcement of them as well- that did. Just look at how workers in countries without your European-style protections fare. Wikipedia’s article on the Chinese 996 [1] has a nice map for deaths due to long working hours by country, notice the dominant colours for each quadrant of this (projected) globe.

Pre industrialised societies’ labourers were limited by daylight and travel distance. The modern availability and abundance of artificial lighting, mechanised transportation, and telecommunication means their grand kids are expected to -and often do- toil every waking moment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#273

Post by edg5000 »

Max-Ganz-II wrote: post #264

To stop this, I a month or two ago put most of my Amazon Redshift research web-site behind a basic auth username/password wall. It all remains free, but you need to email me for a username and password. If I put in time and effort to make content and OpenAI et al copy it and sell it through their LLM such that no one comes to me any more, then plainly it makes no sense for me to create that content; and then it would…

True. It's a massive shift of power, all being centralized.

As you mentioned, they know they need good data though, so they might actually try to find some equilibrium.

If not, it's possible that the creation of new valuable content, to feed the LLMs, will be produced in-house by the AI labs. Sounds insane, but Netflix also makes their own content.

I think the AI labs will become so big that they'll take on more roles than just offering LLM inference. I think they'll become as or more powerful than many current nation state governments.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#274

Post by luqtas »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #257
smoe wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My worry is that, at least among the artists I know, many kept themselves afloat early career by doing commercial freelance jobs like illustrations for local events or companies. Those kinds of jobs might largely vanish. On the other hand, with the internet inevitably becoming swamped by AI generated content, I can definitely see a de-digitalization of art moving into offline spaces. At least for independent work, yo…

I suppose with those same artists, at least for the smarter members of the group, might start using AI for basic commercial freelance jobs and just act as the human review, perhaps doing some final adjustments to the finished artwork. So instead of being paid a small amount of money for something that they spend hours on, they create 10 artworks in that same number of hours and earn 10x what they did previously.

innocent. like demand won't lower prices?

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#275

Post by Forgeties79 »

WarmWash wrote: post #154

Google made an egalitarian web, where money doesn't matter and attention does. A currency that everyone on Earth richest to poorest has a roughly equal amount of. I think almost everyone takes that for granted, and focuses purely on the negatives (you're not paying, therefore you are the product, kept in place by bait we call services) On the flip side, and I'm all for it, we can go to everything paywalled. The downs…

> and attention does

This is an understatement. They weaponized human psychology against us. It’s not remotely an even playing field.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#276

Post by grogenaut »

ratio53 wrote: post #75
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> downskill the world I feel this. I asked a developer today a question about how our product is programmed to handle something, and he just sent me a summary from the internal AI assistant they've started using. He used to provide really good, thoughtful answers, but now it's just copy/paste from the AI.

> He used to provide really good, thoughtful answers This hits hard. There’s a senior engineer at my job who is known for well written proposals. Today he shared a doc that had the typical AI formatting, was hard to read, and clearly not his style. On the other hand, if others use AI to summerize stuff, does it matter anymore?

it does, if that's all they're doing then why do you need them, you can do bad ai summaries of things yourself.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#277

Post by nunez »

acdha wrote: post #267
nunez wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost certain there is biblical-level astroturfing happening to make camp (1) much bigger than it really is. Otherwise, Schmidt wouldn't have drowned in a sea of boos at his commencement speech at UA.

I think there’s also a lot of people who haven’t quite realized what side they’re on. A ton of techies confused better than average pay with being part of the upper class and didn’t realize that the average CEO/VC views us roughly the same as the janitors except more expensive and less reliable. If you’re currently working at a stable tech job, it’s easy to focus on the cool things you can do and ignore how hungry th…

> New graduates haven’t known anything else and don’t have the money to be nostalgic about a party they missed.

Respectfully disagree. New grads entering the workforce now started college in 2022. This was during the post-COVID "Great Resignation" when offers and employee leverage were at their peak and AI wasn't that useful.

Very different from the "use AI or your fired/blackballed" age we live in now.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#278

Post by chronogamous »

crote wrote: post #243
px43 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not art though, and while it might have paid a small amount of money, it can also be incredibly degrading and soul crushing. That's the kind of work that AI tools are doing now. Those jobs should vanish. People shouldn't need to degrade themselves for money, we can have a system where people are generally taken care of, and the people who build extra cool shit can live even better.

> That's not art though Why not? Would you also argue that most of the works by painters like Rembrandt, such as The Night Watch aren't art - just because they were contracted to make it? Does book cover art stop being art the second a book's title gets placed on it? And sure, plenty of corporate work is boring and soulless. But the worst of that switched to spending 10 minutes with clipart and PowerPoint decades ago…

Rembrandt would argue that he was a craftsman, although some of the liberties he took in stuffing his paintings with hidden innuendo and symbolic jokes at the expense of some of his clients, definitely makes many of his paintings works of art.

Alas, only when taking a shirt at MacDonald's becomes equaly obsolete, and it has been made apparent that any task or job humans do could also be done by technology, only then will it help the artist in your example with their artistic career.

It is remarkable, when you think about it, that artists seem to be the first people that are made to feel obsolete. There are plenty of jobs that could have been fully automated, steampunk-style, from the moment the industrial revolution took hold.

Maybe it becomes slightly less remarkable if you take into consideration that collecting/investing in art has always been an integral part of people of considerable wealth. Even if they did not care much for it, didn't understand any of it, or were only motivated for the money,... regardless of your field, being very wealthy forced you into developing at least some connection with art. The billionaires in tech all seem to be an exception to this rule, and their lack of any connection with art, may have made them feel that art is easiest of all to replace using generative software. And for them, this was probably true - and they lack the connection to have developed any taste or eye for quality in art, so they're easily pleased with something a computer makes for them.

If only the artists are actively excluded though, people in other jobs will never fully appreciate that given the effort, their job is just as easily automated. Once people in every possible job have been made to feel just as obsolete, the world may be ready to order itself based on individual preference and mutual appreciation of whatever it is you choose to do 'for a living'.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#279

Post by jonfromsf »

gammarator wrote: post #261
valicord wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My IKEA furniture has lasted 12 years so far, including 3 moves, with only minor cosmetic damage.

I have a 20 year old Malm dresser that made four moves and is doing just fine. (I do have it screwed into the wall as it’s been recalled for tipovers.)

I think the Malm has the highest body count of any individual piece of furniture on the planet.

Re: Google Declaring War on the Web

#280

Post by rickcarlino »

Part of that war is a war on URLs. URLs are bad if your goal is to keep people in app. Reddit, a site built for link sharing, favors self posts more in recent years. Sites like HN, Lobste.rs are a rarity and feel dated against the backdrop of everything trying to be a walled garden. I am grateful such places still exist.
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