this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
361 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
58143 readers
5643 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's not the same issue at all.
Piracy distributes power. It allows disenfranchised or marginalized people to access information and participate in culture, no matter where they live or how much money they have. It subverts a top-down read-only culture by enabling read-write access for anyone.
Large-scale computing services like these so-called AIs consolidate power. They displace access to the original information and the headwaters of culture. They are for-profit services, tuned to the interests of specific American companies. They suppress read-write channels between author and audience.
One gives power to the people. One gives power to 5 massive corporations.
Extremely well-said.
Also, it's important to point out that the one that empowers people is the one that is consistently punished far more egregiously.
We have governments blocking the likes of Sci-Hub, Libgen, and Annas-Archive, but nobody is blocking Meta's LLMs for the same.
If they were treated similarly, I would be far less upset about Meta's arguments. However it's clear that governments prioritize the success of business over the success of humanity.
I wish we could be talking about the power imbalances of corporate bodies exercised through the use of capital ownership, instead of squabbling about how that differential is manifested through a specific act of piracy.
The reason we view acts of piracy different when they are committed by corporate bodies is because of the power of their capital, not because the act itself is any different. The issue with Meta and OpenAI using pirated data in the production of LMM's is that they maintain ownership of the final product to be profited from, not that the LMM comes to exist in the first place (even if it is through questionable means). Had they come to create these models from data that they already owned (I need not remind you that they have already claimed their right to a truly sickening amount of it, without having paid a cent), their profiting from it wouldn't be any less problematic - LLM's will still undermine the security of the working class and consolidate wealth into fewer and fewer hands. If we were to apply copyright here as it's being advocated, nothing fundamental will change in that dynamic; in fact, it will only reinforce the basis of that power imbalance (ownership over capital being the primary vehicle) and delay the inevitable (continued consolidation).
If you're really concerned with these corporations growing larger and their influence spreading further, then you should be directing your efforts at disrupting that vehicle of influence, not legitimizing it. I understand there's an enraging double-standard at play here, but the solution isn't to double down on private ownership, it should be to undermine and seize it for common ownership so that everyone benefits from the advancement.