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Microsoft’s AI boss thinks it’s perfectly OK to steal content if it’s on the open web
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Didnt you hear? We stan draconian IP laws now because AI bad.
Is it that or is it that the laws are selectively applied on little guys and ignored once you make enough money? It certainly looks that way. Once you've achieved a level of "fuck you money" it doesn't matter how unscrupulously you got there. I'm not sure letting the big guys get away with it while little guys still get fucked over is as big of a win as you think it is?
Examples:
The Pirate Bay: Only made enough money to run the site and keep the admins living a middle class lifestyle.
VERDICT: Bad, wrong, and evil. Must be put in jail.
OpenAI: Claims to be non-profit, then spins off for-profit wing. Makes a mint in a deal with Microsoft.
VERDICT: Only the goodest of good people and we must allow them to continue doing so.
The IP laws are stupid but letting fucking rich twats get away with it while regular people will still get fucked by the same rules is kind of a fucking stupid ass hill to die on.
But sure, if we allow the giant companies to do it, SOMEHOW the same rules will "trickle down" to regular people. I think I've heard that story before... No, they only make exceptions for people who can basically print money. They'll still fuck you and me six ways to Sunday for the same.
I mean, the guys who ran Jetflicks, a pirate streaming site, are being hit with potentially 48 year sentences. Longer than a lot of way more serious fucking crimes. I've literally seen murderers get half that.
But yeah, somehow, the same rules will end up being applied to us? My ass. They're literally jailing people for it right now. If that wasn't the case, maybe this argument would have legs.
But AI companies? Totes okay, bro.
The laws are currently the same for everyone when it comes to what you can use to train an AI with. I, as an individual, can use whatever public facing data I wish to build or fine tune AI models, same as Microsoft.
If we make copyright laws even stronger, the only one getting locked out of the game are the little guys. Microsoft, google and company can afford to pay ridiculous prices for datasets. What they don't own mainly comes from aggregators like Reddit, Getty, Instagram and Stack.
Boosting copyright laws essentially kill all legal forms of open source AI. It would force the open source scene to go underground as a pirate network and lead to the scenario you mentioned.
Yes, it is a travesty that people are being hounded for sharing information, but the solution to that isn't to lock up information tighter by restricting access to the open web and saying if you download something we put up to be freely accessed and then use it in a way we don't like you owe us.
The solution to bad laws being applied unevenly isn't to apply the bad laws to everyone equally, its to get rid of the bad laws.
That's law in general...