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Why Open Source AI won't win --- because "Big Tech" is working hard to convince technical incompetents in government that AI is dangerous and needs to be "regul

Why Open Source AI won't win --- because "Big Tech" is working hard to convince technical incompetents in government that AI is dangerous and needs to be "regulated" and "licensed".

dragonwriter 3y ago
No, that's why it will take open source AI longer to win than it should.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  Money talks. And Open Source has none.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Where do you think open source AI models and frameworks come from, magical moneyless communist computing fairies? They come from big businesses who see open source as the most effective way of reaching their goals, and as more of the tech filters out around the world, that will continue to be the case even if regulation makes that less useful in some juriadictions, making both open source in those jurisidctions and the firms that see their benefit in it less competitive.
    - wokwokwok 3y ago
      > They come from big businesses who see open source as the most effective way of reaching their goals I think people need to think really hard about what those goals are. Is it to defeat regulation? To destroy their competitors? Retain talent? Sell their non-free-and-better models? People don’t just hand millions of dollars out on the street corner. There’s always a catch. …and the people using llama and falcon, etc. and enjoying how great it is are being blinded by the shiny toys and not really, imo, thinking about what it means, or how they’re playing someone else’s game. It’s extremely naive.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        There's a nice and terrible thing about grand ambitions. It's that they generally don't come to pass. When people do awful things, motivated by great grand ambitions - we have a horrible society. When people do great things, motivated by awful grand ambitions - we have a great society. So in general I couldn't really care less what somebody's ambitions are when they are any meaningful length of time beyond the present.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      > Where do you think open source AI models and frameworks come from, magical moneyless communist computing fairies? Stolen/leaked weights? :). > big businesses who see open source as the most effective way of reaching their goals That is the opposite of open source winning, though. Especially with everything becoming a service - SaaS is the ultimate killer of all that open source was supposed to bring to people. That SaaS is thoroughly built on open source - that's just adding an insult to injury.
  - BudaDude 3y ago
    Maybe your git repo with 2 stars doesn’t get money but Open Source projects that thousands of people use do get money. Many countries around the world fund developers to work on open source projects
circuit10 3y ago
I think it can be dangerous if it gets too powerful, but licensing won't help because no one knows how you'd keep it under control yet and stopping open source AI would just hurt attempts to understand and research it
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  > licensing won't help because no one knows how you'd keep it under control yet That's a very good argument for not making it more powerful until we can reliably align it.
  - circuit10 3y ago
    Yes, what I mean is that allowing some companies to do it but not others won’t help
    - jqpabc123 3y ago
      But it will likely help those specially anointed with a license to larger profits --- at least until the nit wits catch on to the ruse.
forgetfreeman 3y ago
While technical incompetents may be overrepresented in government they aren't the only ones who think AI needs to be aggressively regulated.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  If you read carefully, I never said they were the only ones. https://news.yahoo.com/ai-tech-leaders-make-all-the-right-noises-at-cozy-closed-door-senate-meeting-194505318.html https://news.yahoo.com/ai-tech-leaders-make-all-the-right-no... The CEOs of leading AI companies — including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Tesla's Elon Musk and Open AI's Sam Altman — appeared before Congress once again on Wednesday. These guys would love to see AI regulated and licensed --- a move that would likely stifle competition --- for the safety of the world --- and their profits.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    And after 25 years in the tech industry I'm certain that the "AI revolution" ends the same way the last several tech revolutions have: a faceless horde of dumb separated from money, gross misallocations of resources (financial and intellectual), supercharged income inequality, and even more homeless. With the possible exception of a handful of niche models trained to assist pharma research this tech doesn't solve any problems that people have. It does, however, potentially solve problems employers have with labor costs. This doesn't end well.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  They are the only ones with enough guns to do it.
zarzavat 3y ago
Open source doesn’t have to obey the laws of any particular jurisdiction. Corporations do. VLC is illegal in the US. But it’s legal in France and that’s all that matters.
- jfim 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, why is it illegal in the US? Is it the decss stuff?
  - Willish42 3y ago
    Not sure if above had France and the US flipped or not, but this is all I could find for US: https://www.howtogeek.com/138969/why-watching-dvds-on-linux-is-illegal-in-the-usa/ https://www.howtogeek.com/138969/why-watching-dvds-on-linux-... (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player#References > [17]) TL;DR yes, presumably decss stuff
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  Corporations don't care about Open Source as long as they have control and influence over the usage and "licensing" and "regulation" of the technology. BTW, I think your statement regarding VLC is reversed, it's illegal in France but not in the USA.
  - anticensor 3y ago
    No, right way round; in France, interoperability trumps anti-circumvention, in the USA, other way around due to the trafficking clause.
JoshTriplett 3y ago
Suppose, despite your clear belief to the contrary, that it were factually correct that AI is incredibly dangerous. Embody that viewpoint for a moment. What action would you propose in that circumstance that would be more effective?
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  What action would you propose in that circumstance that would be more effective? Nothing would be effective. The singularity would have already occurred. No amount of legal and market manipulation would likely be effective at preventing despots and dictators from using AI to achieve world domination. Fortunately for the world, the idea that a binary logic playback device (aka a computer as we know it) is capable of this is pure fantasy without any basis in fact.

Why Open Source AI won't win --- because "Big Tech" is working hard to convince technical incompetents in government that AI is dangerous and needs to be "regulated" and "licensed".

dragonwriter 3y ago

No, that's why it will take open source AI longer to win than it should.

jqpabc123 3y ago
Money talks. And Open Source has none.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Where do you think open source AI models and frameworks come from, magical moneyless communist computing fairies? They come from big businesses who see open source as the most effective way of reaching their goals, and as more of the tech filters out around the world, that will continue to be the case even if regulation makes that less useful in some juriadictions, making both open source in those jurisidctions and the firms that see their benefit in it less competitive.
  - wokwokwok 3y ago
    > They come from big businesses who see open source as the most effective way of reaching their goals I think people need to think really hard about what those goals are. Is it to defeat regulation? To destroy their competitors? Retain talent? Sell their non-free-and-better models? People don’t just hand millions of dollars out on the street corner. There’s always a catch. …and the people using llama and falcon, etc. and enjoying how great it is are being blinded by the shiny toys and not really, imo, thinking about what it means, or how they’re playing someone else’s game. It’s extremely naive.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      There's a nice and terrible thing about grand ambitions. It's that they generally don't come to pass. When people do awful things, motivated by great grand ambitions - we have a horrible society. When people do great things, motivated by awful grand ambitions - we have a great society. So in general I couldn't really care less what somebody's ambitions are when they are any meaningful length of time beyond the present.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Where do you think open source AI models and frameworks come from, magical moneyless communist computing fairies? Stolen/leaked weights? :). > big businesses who see open source as the most effective way of reaching their goals That is the opposite of open source winning, though. Especially with everything becoming a service - SaaS is the ultimate killer of all that open source was supposed to bring to people. That SaaS is thoroughly built on open source - that's just adding an insult to injury.
- BudaDude 3y ago
  Maybe your git repo with 2 stars doesn’t get money but Open Source projects that thousands of people use do get money. Many countries around the world fund developers to work on open source projects

circuit10 3y ago

I think it can be dangerous if it gets too powerful, but licensing won't help because no one knows how you'd keep it under control yet and stopping open source AI would just hurt attempts to understand and research it

JoshTriplett 3y ago
> licensing won't help because no one knows how you'd keep it under control yet That's a very good argument for not making it more powerful until we can reliably align it.
- circuit10 3y ago
  Yes, what I mean is that allowing some companies to do it but not others won’t help
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    But it will likely help those specially anointed with a license to larger profits --- at least until the nit wits catch on to the ruse.

forgetfreeman 3y ago

While technical incompetents may be overrepresented in government they aren't the only ones who think AI needs to be aggressively regulated.

jqpabc123 3y ago
If you read carefully, I never said they were the only ones. https://news.yahoo.com/ai-tech-leaders-make-all-the-right-noises-at-cozy-closed-door-senate-meeting-194505318.html https://news.yahoo.com/ai-tech-leaders-make-all-the-right-no... The CEOs of leading AI companies — including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Tesla's Elon Musk and Open AI's Sam Altman — appeared before Congress once again on Wednesday. These guys would love to see AI regulated and licensed --- a move that would likely stifle competition --- for the safety of the world --- and their profits.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  And after 25 years in the tech industry I'm certain that the "AI revolution" ends the same way the last several tech revolutions have: a faceless horde of dumb separated from money, gross misallocations of resources (financial and intellectual), supercharged income inequality, and even more homeless. With the possible exception of a handful of niche models trained to assist pharma research this tech doesn't solve any problems that people have. It does, however, potentially solve problems employers have with labor costs. This doesn't end well.
CamperBob2 3y ago
They are the only ones with enough guns to do it.

zarzavat 3y ago

Open source doesn’t have to obey the laws of any particular jurisdiction. Corporations do. VLC is illegal in the US. But it’s legal in France and that’s all that matters.

jfim 3y ago
Out of curiosity, why is it illegal in the US? Is it the decss stuff?
- Willish42 3y ago
  Not sure if above had France and the US flipped or not, but this is all I could find for US: https://www.howtogeek.com/138969/why-watching-dvds-on-linux-is-illegal-in-the-usa/ https://www.howtogeek.com/138969/why-watching-dvds-on-linux-... (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player#References > [17]) TL;DR yes, presumably decss stuff
jqpabc123 3y ago
Corporations don't care about Open Source as long as they have control and influence over the usage and "licensing" and "regulation" of the technology. BTW, I think your statement regarding VLC is reversed, it's illegal in France but not in the USA.
- anticensor 3y ago
  No, right way round; in France, interoperability trumps anti-circumvention, in the USA, other way around due to the trafficking clause.

JoshTriplett 3y ago

Suppose, despite your clear belief to the contrary, that it were factually correct that AI is incredibly dangerous. Embody that viewpoint for a moment. What action would you propose in that circumstance that would be more effective?

jqpabc123 3y ago
What action would you propose in that circumstance that would be more effective? Nothing would be effective. The singularity would have already occurred. No amount of legal and market manipulation would likely be effective at preventing despots and dictators from using AI to achieve world domination. Fortunately for the world, the idea that a binary logic playback device (aka a computer as we know it) is capable of this is pure fantasy without any basis in fact.