[asjdflakjsdf]

I am seeing this sentiment so often online at the minute that it seems as though nobody has learned anything about DRM over the past 20 years. So many threads on reddit calling Italy "backwards" for protecting citizens data, and now people on HN expecting companies to give everything away for free because of the outcome is "inevitable"!

There are a bunch of for-profit American AI companies. Why on Earth would another for-profit company, especially one based in another country, be ok with other people making money from their content. They can either look at developing their own AI platform, or build deals with the existing AI companies. It would be just plain stupid to give it all away for free, or any price that isn't determined by themselves.

[matheusmoreira]

Companies don't have to give away everything for free. It's already free. Public domain is the natural state of information. They're the ones who insist on copyright so they can maintain the artificial scarcity delusion well into 2023 where AI is literally on its way to automating intellectual work. These irrelevant industries need to stop holding us all back and just disappear already.

[falcolas]

> These irrelevant industries need to stop holding us all back and just disappear already.

Like artists, sculptors, writers, photographers, narrators, musicians, composers, and so forth? The very same industries AI requires to exist for training?

They will disappear. And we will be poorer for that.

[matheusmoreira]

Nope. People with the impulse to create will do it regardless. Sellouts without intrinsic motivation to create who are just looking to make money by creating products instead of real art? I won't mourn their disappearance at all.

[falcolas]

That's an assumption that has not been tested in modern times. At least in the past, an artist could sell their painting.

And even if the assumption proves to be true, the volume will decrease dramatically as people are no longer allowed to make a living to create their art.

And no, Patreon and its ilk is not a sufficient replacement, not for full time jobs. It mostly doesn't even replace a job for the (comparatively few) people on it today.

EDIT: I for one will miss movies like "Everything Everwhere All At Once", which could not have been made as an "impulse" project.

[matheusmoreira]

> That's an assumption that has not been tested in modern times.

It's a fact as old as humanity itself. People will create because that's what people do. What isn't guaranteed is the existence of the billion dollar copyright industry.

> an artist could sell their painting.

Still perfectly possible to sell the physical canvas you applied paint to.

> the volume will decrease dramatically as people are no longer allowed to make a living to create their art

So what? That's a good thing. The market is filled with cheap art that's made just to sell copies, stuff that wouldn't even exist at all if not for the profit. I don't consider that a big loss at all.

[JohnFen]

> I don't consider that a big loss at all.

And yet you're cheering on AI that will dramatically increase the amount of cheap art that's made just to sell copies.

[CuriouslyC]

Um, people are still blacksmithing and riding old tymie bikes, so I'm pretty sure it has been tested.

[falcolas]

Yes. A tiny fraction of a percent of people (compared to the volume of smiths in the past) do continue traditional blacksmithing.

The results of their work is not IP though, which makes the comparison too weak to serve as proof that artistic works that create only IP will continue unabated.

[JohnFen]

> People with the impulse to create will do it regardless.

But they may not publicly release it. I've already removed my works from the public web, and I've heard from several others that have done the same.

[matheusmoreira]

That's OK. I don't publish everything I make either. Just stuff I actually want people to see and have access to.

[JohnFen]

No, you misunderstand. The stuff is still published, because these are works that people want to share. They're just not on the open web anymore, they're invite-only web spaces, or internet spaces that aren't web-based at all, because there appears to be no other way to avoid having them used to train AIs.

[hammyhavoc]

Why shouldn't people be able to earn a living with their originality and skill? Sounds like envy to me.

[matheusmoreira]

Go ahead and earn your living. Just don't expect me to take absurdities like delusional people thinking they own numbers seriously.

[falcolas]

> Just don't expect me to take absurdities like delusional people thinking they own numbers seriously.

The same governments that let you 'own' physical items are the ones who say you can 'own' IP as well.

If they didn't - and didn't back it up with force - you wouldn't 'own' anything at all. Cherry picking which version of ownership is 'absurd' is an exercise in futility, since it's not up to you.

[hammyhavoc]

Do people own property? Do they even have money? Do you own a license to your software? If it is all just on paper or on a screen, it's just numbers. The entire system is make-believe. If you choose not to believe in intellectual property, you must also acknowledge that other aspects of capitalism also do not actually exist and is a shared delusion.

However, the shared delusion makes the world go round as-is.

OK, "copyright bad", "intellectual property rights bad", so what's the alternative?

[OkGoDoIt]

But those artists with a true impulse to create still need to eat, pay for a place to live, etc. How exactly does that work?

[matheusmoreira]

Dunno. They'll probably get another job and use that to sustain their real interests. Or maybe AI will automate everything and we'll finally enter the age of post scarcity. I'm an optimist. What'll probably happen is we'll descend even further into cyberpunk hell.

[krono]

A work that is protected by copyright - which most works are by default in the majority of cases - is by definition not in the public domain.

To offset that nitpicky line above a genuine question: if I were to produce a work and share it with you directly, in private, and perhaps for good measure clarify to you that I am only sharing it with you personally to hopefully get your feedback on whatever it is that I made, and that I do not want you to do anything else with it than the minimum that would be required to fulfil that purpose.

Wouldn't you then see any natural wrong in sharing my work with others or even the broader public, regardless?

[matheusmoreira]

> A work that is protected by copyright - which most works are by default in the majority of cases - is by definition not in the public domain.

Every single piece of idea is public domain from their inception. Actually, all ideas already exist, we humans just discover them. Ideas are information, information is bits and bits are numbers. All numbers already exist, and all "creation" is merely discovering those numbers.

Any assignment of ownership obviously happens after the fact and are completely ineffectual, especially in the 21st century, the age of information and networked computers with infinite ability to copy bits at negligible costs. The technology really exposes that sham for what it really is and it's a shame how everyone reacts by trying to destroy the perfectly good technology instead of fixing the fraud that is "intellectual property".

> Wouldn't you then see any natural wrong in sharing my work with others or even the broader public, regardless?

I'd see it as a very rude thing to do to you personally. Simply because you asked me not to do it and I generally try to be nice and respect people.

A natural universal ideological wrong though? No. Plenty of people publish the private communications they receive. It's just information. Publishing it might hurt my social standing with you buf I personally don't believe in anyone ever going to jail over it.

[krono]

Now that you've written it out for me here (thanks for which btw, and for your thoroughness in particular), I see that I should have been able to infer your angle from your previous comment. For the record, not that I was meaning to imply anything with my hypothetical question, but now I know where you were coming from I see that it's not very relevant at all and I wouldn't have asked it.

It would require an unthinkable near unanimous societal willingness and cooperation, such comprehensive planning to the likes of which I believe humanity is practically incapable of today with currently available tools and mindsets, an ultra-careful and yet pertinacious iterative implementation process that will probably need to take place over a multi-generational timeframe.

If, however, we would somehow pull all that off and manage to rework our world into one that is entirely formed around the philosophy you describe above, then I am fully convinced that not only humanity, but also our planet and in fact the rest of the universe too would be better off for it.

[blibble]

> They're the ones who insist on copyright so they can maintain the artificial scarcity delusion well into 2023 where AI is literally on its way to automating intellectual work.

AI won't be able to automate anything if we use the legal system to forcefully reduce the size of its training set by 99.999%

[matheusmoreira]

I have no doubt that at some point this technology will make it to our actual computers instead of being sioled away in some corporation's servers. That way there's nothing they can do about it unless they up the tyranny 1000x and destroy our freedom to execute any software we want on our own machines.

[blibble]

> I have no doubt that at some point this technology will make it to our actual computers instead of being sioled away in some corporation's servers.

thankfully Moore's law is dead

> That way there's nothing they can do about it unless they up the tyranny 1000x and destroy our freedom to execute any software we want on our own machines.

I'd probably prefer this to a world where all knowledge workers become permanently destitute

and I suspect the vast majority of the world's electorates will agree

(do people prefer being able to eat over some ability to run software on their computer? I suspect so)

[Analemma_]

Because (at least in America) generative AI is an obvious transformative case allowable under Fair Use, and even if courts rule otherwise, like Sci-Hub it's such an obvious net positive for humanity that it's ethical to use even in the face of IP cops demanding you stop.

[JohnFen]

> it's such an obvious net positive for humanity

I think that's nowhere near obvious. But we will see. At this point, everyone is just guessing.