He's downplaying the "social change" aspect. For many, open source/free software has a political element, at least implicitly. That element is strongly opposed to aggressive centralization of capital and surveillance power. You can point out how different licenses were always written in a way that permitted monetization/for-profit use, but that's beside the point -- the people who chose those licenses never imagined that their code would be used at this scale for this kind of purpose.
John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
311–320 of 515 posts
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#312This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a license ("a gift"). That's of course great and awesome and super nice, but he's not been painstakingly and thanklessly maintaining some key linux component for the last 20 years or something like that. It's an entirely different thing; he made a thing, sold it, and then when he couldn't sell more of it, gave it away. That's nice! Bu…
Though I agree that a healthy, vibrant, open source software project requires community and merge maintainer(s), open source "code dumps" (contributions of one's work for others to share) are open source.
There's no need to shame or diminish people into a different open source contribution pattern.
We can be grateful for open source code dumps with no express or implied commitment to future performance. We aren't entitled to ongoing support or ongoing development.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#313Has anyone else noticed a cultural shift around monetization of output? I think there wasn't as much back when I first started using open-source programs, both as a user, and a small-time contributor for decades now. And I've noticed this on other things too. A short while ago, someone on Reddit pointed out that something on Google Maps was wrong and so I went and submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a…
> A short while ago, someone on Reddit pointed out that something on Google Maps was wrong and so I went and submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me. Did you respond by asking them how Reddit makes money? The anti-corporate mentality isn't new, but it does surface in different ways and communities over time. The Redd…
Avoiding every corporation that does stuff you disagree with just isn't feasible. All we can do is weigh their business model and other practices with the value we get out of it. People on Reddit who also have a problem with Reddit are obviously on Reddit. That is tautological. It doesn't mean they aren't avoiding other companies for similar reasons, which wouldn't make them a hypocrite either.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
The view LLMs should respect open source software licenses is not for replication alone. Models and generated code are derived from training data.
Developers are permitted to learn from open source code with restrictive copyrights, and apply those lessons to developing other software which does not comply with the copyright of their 'example'. As an aside, I do believe that LLM trainers are ignoring and violating many licenses, but open-source software is not a clear example of a violation.
> Sure, but developers are permitted to learn from open source code with restrictive copyrights, and apply those lessons to developing other software which does not comply with the copyright of their 'example'.
This was a different argument. And there is no contradiction to separate LLMs and people.
> As an aside, I do believe that LLM trainers are ignoring and violating many licenses, but open-source software is not a clear example of a violation.
How?
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#315In my mind, AI is making a lot of engineers, including Carmack, seem fairly thoughtless. At the other moments in recent history where technology has displaced workers, labor has either had to fight some very bloody battles or had stronger labor organization. Tech workers are highly atomized now, and if you have to work to live, you're negotiating on your own. It seems like Carmack, like a lot of tech people, have for…
I'm not aware of any labor efforts that have successfully fought automation long term. There's been plenty of temporary victories, but even the unions often acknowledge it's temporary.
The point is not to fight automation. The point is to fight for a better distribution model.
Well you are still right though. There were only temporary wins.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#316I have a secret fear about AI - that at one point when AI models get good enough, AI companies will no longer give you the source these tools generate - you'll get the artifacts (perhaps hosted on a subscription website), but you won't get the code. Tools like CC already push a workflow where you're separated from the code and treat the model as a 'wishing well'. I think the fact that we get the source is just admins…
That highlights the importance of open models keeping up with the state of the art.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#317I find it pretty simple: - OSS is valuable for decentralizing power and influence - AI as it is being developed is likely to centralize it
> - OSS is valuable for decentralizing power and influence
That was the intention and hope, but I think the past twenty years has shown that it largely had the opposite effect.
Let's say I write some useful library and open source it.
Joe Small Business Owner uses it in his application. It makes his app more useful and he makes an extra $100,000 from his 1,000 users.
Meanwhile Alice Giant Corporate CEO uses it in her application. It makes her app more useful by exactly the same amount, but because she has a million users, now she's a billion dollars richer.
If you assume that open source provides additive value, then giving it to everyone freely will generally have an equalizing effect. Those with the least existing wealth will find that additive value more impactful than someone who is already rich. Giving a poor person $10,000 can change their life. Give it to Jeff Bezos and it won't even change his dinner plans.
But if you consider that open source provides multiplicative value, then giving it to everyone is effectively a force multiplier for their existing power.
In practice, it's probably somewhere between the two. But when you consider how highly iterative systems are, even a slight multiplicative effect means that over time it's mostly enriching the rich.
Seven of the ten richest people in the world got there from tech [1]. If the goal of open source was to lead to less inequality, it's clearly not working, or at least not working well enough to counter other forces trending towards inequality.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#318This is because Carmack doesn't really do OSS, he just does code dumps and tacks on a license ("a gift"). That's of course great and awesome and super nice, but he's not been painstakingly and thanklessly maintaining some key linux component for the last 20 years or something like that. It's an entirely different thing; he made a thing, sold it, and then when he couldn't sell more of it, gave it away. That's nice! Bu…
Though I agree that a healthy, vibrant, open source software project requires community and merge maintainer(s), open source "code dumps" (contributions of one's work for others to share) are open source. There's no need to shame or diminish people into a different open source contribution pattern. We can be grateful for open source code dumps with no express or implied commitment to future performance. We aren't ent…
Furthermore, there are different types of contributors.
So often the people with divergent thinking and creative problem solving abilities aren't apt to stay focused on one thing for so long.
It's normal for more operations-focused folks to handle the day-to-day on things designed by sometimes flighty, absent-minded, distracted, and unreliable chief engineers such as the aforementioned.
Unless they want to stick with a project, you probably don't want to force those types to do the normal operations daily grind that's so normal to most people.
"We'll take it from here"
"Actually I can code, but on that one [...]"
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#319All due respect to Carmack but I think his take is probably influenced by his investment in his own AI company. There doesn’t seem to be many on this space who have any ethical or moral problems with profiting from the work of others and not contributing anything back to the commons. If we all intended our work in OSS the way he did maybe we’d all see it his way too. Copy left licenses are generally intended, afaict,…
I think it’s more than that. He is always pro performance, pro technology, and maybe libertarian, too.
Re: John Carmack about open source and anti-AI activists
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
See https://opensource.org/about/history-of-the-open-source-init... under ‘Coining “Open Source”’: The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that i…
The 'bazaar' system is a wonderful methodology, but there is a place for the 'cathedral', and it is no less open source.
I was arguing against this statement: "Open source does not mean, and has never meant, ongoing development nor development with the community." It is simply false that it has never meant that.
While you can have a cathedral-like development and publish it under an open-source license, that's not what RMS was talking about in his essay.
I'm also not arguing about what is good or bad, but about what was meant by the term "open source" when it was introduced, and how it is still understood by many people since then.