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Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

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Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#21

Post by woeirua »

I think a disclosure and a way to limit the total cost would be appropriate. If agents are capable of making contributions back to GasTown independently then I think it makes sense that users of GasTown should have to contribute some tokens to maintaining and improving the library. This is actually the most sustainable approach to maintaining open-source software that we've seen so far, and might be a pattern for other libraries in the future.

That said... someone could also have their agents rip out this code or disable the functionality, so I doubt this is a serious inconvenience.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#23

Post by skybrian »

dminik wrote: post #9
simonw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am giving every cent of that crypto money to charity" - https://twitter.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

I don't see how that is relevant? If he really did steal that money, it's not his to give. You can't take someone's money and then not only not give it back, but also give it away.

It’s more like some cryptocurrency scammers tried to bribe him to promote their coin and he took the money and refused to stay bribed so the coin tanked. As it would have eventually, because it was a pump and dump.

Why should the scammers who gave him the money get it back? They knew what they were doing, even if Yegge seemed a bit naive about it.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#24

Post by taurath »

juped wrote: post #16
moab wrote: post #7

Is anyone surprised? I'm reminded of how I felt during the NFT craze. LLMs are extremely powerful when used with deliberate care. Gas Town is the exact opposite of what is needed to actually do useful things in prod. I guess good on Steve for doing what he does so well, and getting so much hype around a vibe coded mess.

Just like with NFTs, this is all going to discredit the actually sensible use cases for years.

Which sensible use cases?

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#26

Post by sdfwg »

woeirua wrote: post #21

I think a disclosure and a way to limit the total cost would be appropriate. If agents are capable of making contributions back to GasTown independently then I think it makes sense that users of GasTown should have to contribute some tokens to maintaining and improving the library. This is actually the most sustainable approach to maintaining open-source software that we've seen so far, and might be a pattern for oth…

Except that this money does not go to the original open source developers whose work was stolen and plagiarized, but to the corporate fat cats who stole it.

You want to fatten the oligarchs by pretending this is open source and steal money from users?

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#28

Post by MisterTea »

mmastrac wrote: post #11

In one of my previous comments ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47770124 ) I asked if Gas Town has shipped anything of value. I did not expect it to be an Ouroborous. (Edit, thanks MisterTea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47770805 )

The link you posted appears to be erroneous as it links to the article, not your comment.

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#29

Post by Quarrelsome »

dminik wrote: post #9
simonw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am giving every cent of that crypto money to charity" - https://twitter.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

I don't see how that is relevant? If he really did steal that money, it's not his to give. You can't take someone's money and then not only not give it back, but also give it away.

from my admittedly brief research into it, $GAS was sending him transaction fees, as it desired the association. So it wasn't him selling a tangible number of coins to a particular person. So I figure to pay it back, he'd have to trace down the owners of every tx and pay them back the tx fee. Perhaps that's easy, perhaps its non-trivial. According to the tweet[0] he made yesterday, in order to donate the combined funds to charity he has to submit 230 separate transactions on his phone.

[0] https://x.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

Re: Does Gas Town 'steal' usage from users' LLM credits to improve itself?

#30

Post by throw-93 »

dminik wrote: post #9
simonw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am giving every cent of that crypto money to charity" - https://twitter.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

I don't see how that is relevant? If he really did steal that money, it's not his to give. You can't take someone's money and then not only not give it back, but also give it away.

Cult 101: Building a massive reality distortion field as a kind of team sport always means forgiving any/all crimes from thought-leaders. Bonus points if you make the crimes look like a virtue
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