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Terribly written article full of bluster and arrogance. Falls into the typical European cognitive trap of thinking that what is most important is to follow pro

by tticvs 3y ago

Terribly written article full of bluster and arrogance. Falls into the typical European cognitive trap of thinking that what is most important is to follow procedure regardless of where the it leads, and completely ignores the fact that the AI tools that are about to be regulated out of the EU are wildly useful. These companies are not trying to take something from you but are in fact trying to give something to you. > This means that, yes, GitHub and other code repositories are still allowed to host AI model code. Hosting providers don’t have any additional liability under the AI Act, only the providers of the models themselves and those who deploy them. This is technically correct but ignores that overnight an unknown set of existing github repositories will become illegal in the EU, meaning that github will have to provide tools for users to block their repository from being pulled by EU users in order to prevent the users from accidentally committing crimes. This is wildly disruptive and will be an absolute negative for European technology. All in the name of nebulous "safety" concerns, "data protection", and protecting copyright.

randunel 3y ago
> overnight an unknown set of existing github repositories will become illegal in the EU Overnight? Is this proposal not known ahead of time? Is it being kept a secret until enters into force suddenly, at midnight? > These companies are not trying to take something from you but are in fact trying to give something to you. Copyrighted materials have been stolen, and that's exactly why the creators are keeping secrets, and exactly why they're trying to influence people like you into lobbying on their behalf.
- tticvs 3y ago
  > Copyrighted materials have been stole This is far from clear, it's obvious to me that training is fair use. But even so, if copyright prevents these tools from existing it needs to be abolished. Also not possible to steal a digital good, that's industry propaganda that they lobbied corrupt governments (US included) into codifying into law to the detriment of all humanity. > Overnight? Is this proposal not known ahead of time? Is it being kept a secret until enters into force suddenly, at midnight? "Sorry I haven't been closely playing attention to the minutiae of politics on a continent I don't live on, what do you mean I am being fined for my GPT-2 clone I trained years ago for fun and uploaded?"
imiric 3y ago
> These companies are not trying to take something from you but are in fact trying to give something to you. That's incredibly shortsighted. These companies are only concerned with hyper growth and pleasing their investors, and have zero regards about the user, their privacy, and the harms their products unleash on the public. The benefits they offer to the user are tangential to their goals. This has been the MO of every tech corporation in the past 2 decades, and by all means has grown out of control. The oncoming AI disruption will exacerbate this even further. The tech industry needs much more regulation, not less. If anything, the EU is being conservative in the scope and lagging behind on the timing of these laws.
- tticvs 3y ago
  If you think this then you really misunderstand the world around you. Do you really think they're only motivated by profits? If so they must be very dumb since trying to invent a novel artificial intelligence and releasing it as open source is about the worst way I can think of to try to make a buck. Do you really think they aren't worried about the "harms" (1 year in and still no harm has occurred; weirdly large amount of people using this word online as an excuse to regulate though...) their product could unleash? Then why is for example OpenAI lobotmizing their flagship product to try to avoid any possible controversial text from being generated. Isn't it possible that these are good and decent people trying to provide something to the world, doing so in a safe and reasonable way, diligently trying to comply with the law and regulations? Seems to fit their actions a lot better than your caricature of "greedy American capitalists bulldozing the world".
  - imiric 3y ago
    We must live in alternate realities then. In the world I live in, Big Tech has unleashed products and services that exploit user data and privacy for profit, enable proliferation of mis/disinformation and propaganda that undermines democracies, enable hostile advertising that manipulates user psychology for more profit, with thinly veiled claims of connecting the world, making the world a better place, and whatever other empty platitude is more marketable at any given moment. All the while, in general, most services themselves are hardly revolutionizing as their authors claim them to be, and are designed to deliver dopamine hits and keep their users glued to their screens. We have to stop equating the value of a service to humanity based on its popularity, or the value it generates for its investors. In most cases, the actual disruption technology causes is harmful in ways we have yet to comprehend. We have seen some of it on short-term time scales, but long-term impacts are unknown to even the authors themselves. This is why it's of utmost importance to be conservative with a technology like AI, which unrestrained can send us on the wrong path with no return.

by tticvs 3y ago

randunel 3y ago

> overnight an unknown set of existing github repositories will become illegal in the EU Overnight? Is this proposal not known ahead of time? Is it being kept a secret until enters into force suddenly, at midnight? > These companies are not trying to take something from you but are in fact trying to give something to you. Copyrighted materials have been stolen, and that's exactly why the creators are keeping secrets, and exactly why they're trying to influence people like you into lobbying on their behalf.

tticvs 3y ago
> Copyrighted materials have been stole This is far from clear, it's obvious to me that training is fair use. But even so, if copyright prevents these tools from existing it needs to be abolished. Also not possible to steal a digital good, that's industry propaganda that they lobbied corrupt governments (US included) into codifying into law to the detriment of all humanity. > Overnight? Is this proposal not known ahead of time? Is it being kept a secret until enters into force suddenly, at midnight? "Sorry I haven't been closely playing attention to the minutiae of politics on a continent I don't live on, what do you mean I am being fined for my GPT-2 clone I trained years ago for fun and uploaded?"

imiric 3y ago

> These companies are not trying to take something from you but are in fact trying to give something to you. That's incredibly shortsighted. These companies are only concerned with hyper growth and pleasing their investors, and have zero regards about the user, their privacy, and the harms their products unleash on the public. The benefits they offer to the user are tangential to their goals. This has been the MO of every tech corporation in the past 2 decades, and by all means has grown out of control. The oncoming AI disruption will exacerbate this even further. The tech industry needs much more regulation, not less. If anything, the EU is being conservative in the scope and lagging behind on the timing of these laws.

tticvs 3y ago
If you think this then you really misunderstand the world around you. Do you really think they're only motivated by profits? If so they must be very dumb since trying to invent a novel artificial intelligence and releasing it as open source is about the worst way I can think of to try to make a buck. Do you really think they aren't worried about the "harms" (1 year in and still no harm has occurred; weirdly large amount of people using this word online as an excuse to regulate though...) their product could unleash? Then why is for example OpenAI lobotmizing their flagship product to try to avoid any possible controversial text from being generated. Isn't it possible that these are good and decent people trying to provide something to the world, doing so in a safe and reasonable way, diligently trying to comply with the law and regulations? Seems to fit their actions a lot better than your caricature of "greedy American capitalists bulldozing the world".
- imiric 3y ago
  We must live in alternate realities then. In the world I live in, Big Tech has unleashed products and services that exploit user data and privacy for profit, enable proliferation of mis/disinformation and propaganda that undermines democracies, enable hostile advertising that manipulates user psychology for more profit, with thinly veiled claims of connecting the world, making the world a better place, and whatever other empty platitude is more marketable at any given moment. All the while, in general, most services themselves are hardly revolutionizing as their authors claim them to be, and are designed to deliver dopamine hits and keep their users glued to their screens. We have to stop equating the value of a service to humanity based on its popularity, or the value it generates for its investors. In most cases, the actual disruption technology causes is harmful in ways we have yet to comprehend. We have seen some of it on short-term time scales, but long-term impacts are unknown to even the authors themselves. This is why it's of utmost importance to be conservative with a technology like AI, which unrestrained can send us on the wrong path with no return.