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AI is a business model stress test

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Re: AI is a business model stress test

#311

Post by GlacierFox »

senko wrote: post #301
testing22321 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don’t like big corps getting ever richer by hiding behind copyright. How about my books? I’ve published a few, make maybe $500 a month from them. Is it fine for the LLMs to rip them off?

1. Will people stop buying your books if LLMs have the information from them? 2. Will people stop buying your books if they can get them from the library? Is a library ripping you off? 3. Assuming your books are non-fiction (otherwise the answer to (1) would be a clear "no"), am I ripping you off if I read your books, create a course that teaches the same things (that you tought me through your book) and earn mega-mo…

So this logic is essentially: Look at all these ways you're already getting ripped off. What's one more?! You should be grateful they're siphoning off all your work!

You've got a convert here. I don't think I'll publish my next book. I might just email it straight to Open AI.

And Cory Doctorow - I've attempted a few of his books. Felt like I was reading young adult fiction. He's pretty much the '2 prescient statements and a few average books' guy.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#312

Post by Difwif »

antihipocrat wrote: post #188
baxtr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one way to look at it. The other way is to argue that LLMs democratize access to knowledge. Anyone has access to all ever written by humanity. Crazy impressive if you ask me.

If the entities democratizing access weren't companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars with a requirement to prioritize substantial returns for their investors, I'd agree with you!

This is temporary. AI models have their own Moore's law. Yes the mega corps will have the best models but soon enough what is currently SOTA will be open source and run on your own local machine if you want.

the mega corps are getting all of us and the investors to fund the RnD.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#313

Post by uhoh-itsmaciek »

azangru wrote: post #162
troupo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably confusing something with something? CSS Modules are a JS-only third party solution re-invented/re-implemented in a dozen different ways for various JS frontend frameworks. Requires setting up, requires learning an additional library. If you mean these CSS modules: https://github.com/css-modules/css-modules?tab=readme-ov-fil... then they need to be supported by whatever build chain you use. And you lit…

I meant the CSS modules that are implemented by a build tool. And yes, mea culpa, they are probably a js-only solution, requiring a build tool to correctly interpret a css import (.module.css in the file name is a common convention; but it is tweakable), and the author to use the imported object instead of plain strings, when referring to the class names. But I don't know if having to write `class="styles.foo"` as op…

The problem is having to look in a different file for styling a component, and having to come up with a name for (at least one) CSS class per component. In traditional CSS, classes are intended to be reusable. You write a class definition once, and then use it in a bunch of different elements.

When working with a component-based UI (like in React), the components are typically the unit of reuse. Those CSS classes are used in one place: the component they're defined for. It's annoying to have to come up with a name for them, and to have to work in a separate file, especially if I just want `padding-inline: 4px` or `display: flex`.

Some argue separation of concerns, but CSS is inherently tightly coupled to the structure of your HTML: there's no getting around that. `.foo > ul` breaks if you replace that `ul` child with an `ol`.

I do agree that more intricate styling is harder to read with Tailwind, and I have some other gripes, too, but in general it's a good trade-off for component-based UIs.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#314

Post by catlifeonmars »

imiric wrote: post #257
amrocha wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contributing to human knowledge doesn’t pay the bills though

It can. The problem is the practice of using open source as a marketing funnel. There are many projects that love to brag about being open source (it's "free"!), only to lock useful features behind a paywall, or do the inevitable license rug pull after other companies start profiting from the freedoms they've provided them. This is the same tactic used by drug dealers to get you hooked on the product. Instead, the pr…

> The narrative that "AI" will bring world prosperity is a fantasy promoted by the people who will profit the most. The opposite is true: it will concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few even more than it is today. It will corrupt the last vestiges of digital freedoms we still enjoy today.

This is on point.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#315

Post by catlifeonmars »

dangus wrote: post #304
tombert wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed opinions on the "AI=theft" argument people make, and I generally lean towards "it's not theft", but I do see the argument. If I put something on Github with a GPL 3 license, it's supposed to require anyone with access to the binary to also have access to the source code. The concern is, if you think that it is theft, then someone can train an LLM on your GPL code, and then a for-profit corporation can us…

The thing is, LLMs aren’t redistributing your code. You’d have a minuscule chance of an LLM actually reproducing your code verbatim without major modifications. Copyright and copyleft only deal with source code distribution. Your last sentence is not really true from a factual perspective. I think if you really believe in the open source free software mentality that code should be available to help everyone and impro…

> You’d have a minuscule chance of an LLM actually reproducing your code verbatim without major modifications.

Wait, are you kidding? This is literally a problem we have today with tools like Copilot.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#316

Post by williamcotton »

iterateoften wrote: post #47
drivebyhooting wrote: post #4

In my opinion LLMs are intellectual property theft. Just as if I started distributing copies of books. This substantially reduces the incentive for the creation of new IP. All written text, art work, etc needs to come imbued with a GPL style license: if you train your model on this, your weights and training code must be published.

I stopped writing open source projects on github because why put a bunch of work into something for others to train off of without any regard for the original projects

I'm writing a few DSLs a year at this point and I would very much like them to be part of the training data for LLMs!

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#317

Post by Altern4tiveAcc »

testing22321 wrote: post #299
senko wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support your right to have an opinion, but in my opinion, thank God this is just your opinion. Copyright, as practiced in late 20 and this century, is a tool for big corps to extract profits from actual artists, creators, and consumers of this art[0] equally. Starving artists do not actually benefit. Look at Spotify (owned and squeezed by record labels) giving 70% of the revenue to the record labels, while artists…

So you don’t like big corps getting ever richer by hiding behind copyright. How about my books? I’ve published a few, make maybe $500 a month from them. Is it fine for the LLMs to rip them off?

> Is it fine for the LLMs to rip them off?

Yes. It is good (and IMO should be encouraged) that derivative works can are made, even if it would make you less money.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#318

Post by Altern4tiveAcc »

TrackerFF wrote: post #295
dangoodmanUT wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s not theft, because you’re not redistributing. It’s allowed, just like humans are allowed to learn from copyrighted content.

Sure. But if I see listen to some song, and copy it, and release it, I could get sued. Even if I claim that I'm merely inspired by the original content - the court doesn't care. You don't need to redistribute the original material, it's enough that you just copied it.

> But if I see listen to some song, and copy it, and release it, I could get sued.

This is what should be fixed in the first place, then. You shouldn't get sued from what you do with your copy of a song.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#319

Post by michaf »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #4

In my opinion LLMs are intellectual property theft. Just as if I started distributing copies of books. This substantially reduces the incentive for the creation of new IP. All written text, art work, etc needs to come imbued with a GPL style license: if you train your model on this, your weights and training code must be published.

Is there such a license? Or any license with special clauses for LLMs? Is it enforcable? Could someone 'poison' an LLM training run with injecting just one such licensed document? I am genuinely curious about what levers exist (or are conceivable) to protect your own IP from becoming LLM training data, if regular copyright does not qualify.

Re: AI is a business model stress test

#320

Post by catlifeonmars »

baxtr wrote: post #93
drivebyhooting wrote: post #4

In my opinion LLMs are intellectual property theft. Just as if I started distributing copies of books. This substantially reduces the incentive for the creation of new IP. All written text, art work, etc needs to come imbued with a GPL style license: if you train your model on this, your weights and training code must be published.

This is one way to look at it. The other way is to argue that LLMs democratize access to knowledge. Anyone has access to all ever written by humanity. Crazy impressive if you ask me.

The internet already democratized access to knowledge. (Hosted) LLMs put that free knowledge behind a paywall. Taken by itself this seems fine —- how you access the knowledge (via internet or chat bot) is still up to you. However, the argument is that the knowledge producers aren’t incentivized to publish in a model where everything is fetched through agents. Couple that with closed weight models and you will (eventually) have overall worse access to less knowledge and higher personal cost.
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