[phoe-krk]

> a desperate attempt to protect a crumbling monopoly on knowledge

More like a war on the traditional, human-based knowledge, leveraged by people who believe that via coveting the world's supply of RAM, SSDs, GPUs, and what not, can achieve their own monopoly on knowledge under the pretense of liberating it. Note that running your own LLM becomes impossible if you can no longer afford the hardware to run it on.

[terminalshort]

Better that I'm forced to rent an LLM from a tech monopolist for a few dollars than be forced to hire a member of the lawyers cartel for $500 an hour.

[intended]

Come now. You mean the highly regulated, more competitive world of law? That too, as it is practiced in America? The once capital of economic competition?

That “cartel”?

Vs the leaders of an industry that built their tools through insane amounts of copyright infringement, and have forced the coining of “enshittification” to describe all pervasive business strategies?

The same industry which employs acqui-hire to find ways to cull competition?

[terminalshort]

The industry where you can be a paralegal for 20 years, but not allowed to even attempt to take the bar exam because you haven't paid your $250K and 3 years lost earnings to get your degree from the lawyer's cartel? That "competitive" industry?

[wrqvrwvq]

Yes, it's very competitive. If you were in the unfortunate position of needing a state-appointed attorney to represent you against fallacious claims, you would appreciate the scrutiny and regulation that by and large provides fair representation to all. The legal profession believes that 3 years of study is required for all lawyers to fully immerse themselves in the study of law, and without that, something could be lost. Many lawyers think the third year is probably overkill, but these are also amongst the smarter lawyers that also recognize that many people will come to the profession with no prior interest, and that overall, it's preferable to enforce high standards. You could somehow test for whatever it is law school transmits to its pupils, and offer the exam that guarantees that lawyers have been exposed to and in some sense understood all the various aspects of the degree, but then the exam just becomes more difficult and law school becomes even more of a prerequisite. Lawyers are like airline pilots in that lives are always in the balance, and even more critically, they are foundational pillars of a just society and allowing "just anyone, even a smart test taker" to become a lawyer is less favorable than trying to improve on the current system.

[hojofpodge]

The current bubble's effect on hardware is alarming but if they think they are going to create a permanent economic manipulation they are deluded. The US' hold on controls is eroding at a faster rate and China will be making good enough all the faster if its price/spec ratio is absurdly high.

Crypto currency makers can have artificial limits but no amount of limiting gpt-next access is cutting access to good enough.

[wartywhoa23]

Surely we'll all beat monopolies by running our own local LLMs, storing whole blockchains on our local storage, building our own atomic power plants, flying our own airlines and launching our own satellites via our own rocket fleets. And producing our own trillion-transistor silicon in our own fabs.

We just have to start printing our own money and buying us some pocket armies and puppet politicians first.