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Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact tha
by jrm4 1y ago
Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.
- Tepix 1y agoDo we know if Meta will stick to its strategy of making weights available (which isn't open source to be clear) now that they have a new "superintelligence" subdivision?
- burroisolator 1y agoAI only got big, especially for coding, because they were able to train on a massive corpus of open source code. I don't think it is a coincidence.
- hardwaresofton 1y agoAnother funny possibly sad coincidence is that the licenses that made open source what it is will probably be absolutely useless going forward, because as recent precedent has shown, companies can train on what they have legally gained access to. On the other hand, AGPL continues to be the future of F/OSS.
- haiku2077 1y agoMIT is also still useful; it lets me release code where I don't really care what other people do with it as long as they don't sue me (an actual possibility in some countries)
- LtWorf 1y agoWhich countries would these be?
- haiku2077 1y agoThe US, for one. You can sue nearly anyone for nearly anything, even something you obviously won't win in court, as long as you find a lawyer willing to do it; you don't need any actual legal standing to waste the target's time and money. Even the most unscrupulous lawyer is going to look at the MIT license, realize the target can defend it for a trivial amount of money (a single form letter from their lawyer) and move on.
- Jensson 1y agoYou can sue for damages if they have malware in the code, there is no license that protects you from distributing harmful products even if you do it for free.
- haiku2077 1y agoIf I commit fraud, sure. But the code I release is extremely honest about what it does :)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thih9 1y agoThere are other ways to litigate that the malicious/greedy can use, where MIT offers no protection; e.g. patent trolling.
- jorvi 1y agoYup. The book torrenting case is pretty nuts. If I can reproduce the entirety of most books off the top of my head and sell that to people as a service, it's a copyright violation. If AI does it, it's fair use. Pants-on-head idiotic judge.
- hardwaresofton 1y agoThis was immediately my reaction as well, but I'm not a judge so what do I know. In my own mind I mark it as a "spice must flow" moment -- it will seem inevitable in retrospect but my simple (almost surely incorrect) take is that there just wasn't a way this was going to stop AI's progress. AI as a trend has incredible plot armor at this point in time. Is the hinge that the tools can recall a huge portion (not perfectly of course) but usually don't? What seems even more straight forward is the substitute good idea, it seems reasonable to assume people will buy less copies of book X when they start generating books heavily inspired by book X. But, this is probably just a case of a layman wandering into a complex topic, maybe it's the case that AI has just nestled into the absolute perfect spot in current copyright law, just like other things that seem like they should be illegal now but aren't.
- fragmede 1y agoI didn't see the part of the trial where they got the "entirety of most books" out of Llama. What did you see that I didn't?
- derektank 1y ago>If I can reproduce the entirety of most books off the top of my head and sell that to people as a service, it's a copyright violation. If AI does it, it's fair use. Assuming you're referring to Bartz v. Anthropic, that is explicitly not what the ruling said, in fact it's almost the inverse. The judge said that output from an AI model which is a straight up reproduction of copyrighted material would likely be an explicit violation of copyright. This is on page 12/32 of the judgement[1]. But the vast majority of output from an LLM like Claude is not a word for word reproduction; it's a transformative use of the original work. In fact, the authors bringing the suit didn't even claim that it had reproduced their work. From page 7, "Authors do not allege that any infringing copy of their works was or would ever be provided to users by the Claude service." That's because Anthropic is already explicitly filtering out results that might contain copyrighted material. (I've run into this myself while trying to translate foreign language song lyrics to English. Claude will simply refuse to do this)[2] [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69058235/231/bartz-v-anthropic-pbc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69058235/231/bartz-v-an... [2] https://claude.ai/share/d0586248-8d00-4d50-8e45-f9c5ef09ec81 https://claude.ai/share/d0586248-8d00-4d50-8e45-f9c5ef09ec81
- surfingdino 1y agoAnd if they AI companies don't like the license, they will ignore it or pay to be given a waver. Long may they rot in hell for doing that.
- smokel 1y agoThe people running AI companies have figured out that there is no such thing as hell. We have to come up with new reasons for people to behave in a friendly way.
- _heimdall 1y agoThe people running AI companies aren't magic, they can't be certain about what comes after death.
- fennecbutt 1y agoWe already have such reasons. Besides, all religious "kindness" was never kindness without strings attached, even though they'd like you to think that was the case.
- yard2010 1y agoHell is, by design, a consequence for poor people. (People could literally pay the church to not go to hell[0]). Rich people have no consequences whatsoever, let alone poor people consequences. [0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/preaching-the-crusades/friars-and-the-redemption-of-crusade-vows/E99937168054BCDA711FCE823633EAEC https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/preaching-the-crusa...
- GTP 1y agoNot "by design", as historically the hell came first. It was only much later that they catholic church started talking about the purgatory and the possibility of reducing your punishment by paying money.
- malfist 1y agoLegally or illegally gained access too. Lest we forget Meta pirating books
- coffeefirst 1y agoAnd the legality of this may vary by jurisdiction. There’s a nonzero chance that they pay a few million in the US for stealing books but the EU or Canada decide the training itself was illegal.
- andy99 1y agoThen the EU and canada just won't have any sovereign LLMs. They'll have to decide if they'd rather prop up some artificial monopoly or support (by not actively undermining) innovation.
- foobiekr 1y agoIt’s not going to happen. The EU is desperate to stop being in fourth place in technology and will do absolutely nothing to put a damper on this. It’s their only hope to get out of the rut.
- EGreg 1y agoExplain how AGPL would prevent AI from being trained on it or AI-generated code competing with it. I have used AGPL for a decade and still not sure.
- hardwaresofton 1y agoIt wouldn't -- AGPL code that is picked up would also just get "fair used" into new software. That said, AGPL as a trend was a huge closing of the spigot of free F/OSS code for companies to use and not contribute back to.
- EGreg 1y agoYes, I hope it was a trend. People were judging me when I first started using it over 10 years ago.
- tom_m 1y agoAnd illegally too. Anthropic didn't pay for those books they used. It's too late at this point. The damage is done. These companies trained on illegally obtained data and they will never be held accountable for that. The training is done and they got what they needed. So even if they can't train on it in the future, it doesn't matter. They already have those base models.
- ddq 1y agoThen punitive measures are in order. Add it to the pile of illegal, immoral, and unethical behavior of the feudal tech oligarchs already long overdue for justice. The harm they have done and are doing to humanity should not remain unpunished.
- sneak 1y agoThe AGPL is a nonfree license that is virtually impossible to comply with. It’s an EULA trying to pretend it’s a license. You can’t have it both ways.
- hardwaresofton 1y agoThis is a strong claim, given it is listed as a free, copyleft license: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html Could you expand on why you think it's nonfree? Also, it's not that hard to comply with either...
- px43 1y agoFor some people "free" means "autonomy", and copyleft licences do a lot to restrict autonomy.
- hardwaresofton 1y agoYeah if it's a problem of definition, then I definitely agree that it could not match there, it certainly isn't a do anything you want license.
- waffletower 1y ago"Free" decidedly means autonomy; "I have been freed from prison". Use of the word "free" in many OSS licenses is a jarring euphemism.
- tedheath123 1y agocf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty
- jrochkind1 1y agoSo interestingly, free meant autonomy for Stallman and the original proponents of "copyleft" style licenses too. But autonomy for end-users, not developers. But Stallman et al believed the copyleft style licenses maximized autonomy for end-users, rightly or wrongly, that was the intent.
- pizzafeelsright 1y agoIf I can have AI retype all code per my desire how exactly is source code special? I like open source. I also don't think that is where the magic is anymore. It was scale for 20 years. Now it is speed.
- bravesoul2 1y agoOpen source may be necessary but it is not sufficient. You also needed the compute power and architecture discoveries and the realisation that lots of data > clever feature mapping for this kind of work. A world without open source may have given birth to 2020s AI but probably at a slower pace.
- MaxPock 1y ago[flagged]
- sebmellen 1y agoMeta's open source AI strategy really did predate the frontier Chinese model wave.
- gsky 1y agoOfcourse CCP is the genuine one and never lies and does propoganda /s
- chvid 1y agoYep. A “are we the baddies” moment for us in tech. Though it still doesn’t seem to have clicked for most …
- imjonse 1y agoWish it was only true in tech...
- lynx97 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago> This is hopelessly naive When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- eleveriven 1y agoIt's not ideal, but having major players accidentally propping up an open ecosystem is probably the best-case outcome we could've hoped for
- saubeidl 1y agoWhat's even crazier is that China are the good guys when it comes to open source AI.
- _heimdall 1y agoWe would have to know their intent to really know if they fit a general understanding "the good guys." Its very possible that China is open sourcing LLMs because its currently in their best interest to do so, not because of some moral or principled stance.
- saubeidl 1y agoI don't think the intent really matters once the thing is out in the open. I want open source AI i can run myself without any creepy surveillance capitalist or state agency using it to slurp up my data. Chinese companies are giving me that - I don't really care about what their grand plan is. Grand plans have a habit of not working out, but open source software is open source software nonetheless.
- andsoitis 1y ago> I want open source AI i can run myself What are you running? > Chinese companies are giving me that I have not become aware of anything other than DeepSeek. Can you recommend a few others that are worth looking into?
- saubeidl 1y agoAlibaba's Qwen is pretty good, and it looks like Baidu just open sourced Ernie!
- wraptile 1y agoThe country ruled by "people's party" has almost no open source culture while capitalism is leading the entire free software movement. I'm not sure what that says about our society and politics but the absurdist in me is having a good laugh every time I think about this :D
- pydry 1y agoDont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg. He didnt open source anything because he's a "good guy", he's just commoditizing the complement. The "good guy" is a competitive environment that would render Meta's AI offerings to be irrelevant right now if it didnt open source.
- moralestapia 1y ago>he's just commoditizing the complement That's a cool smaht phrase but help me understand, for which Meta products are LLMs a complement?
- ethbr1 1y agoA continuous stream of monetizable live user data? The entire point of Meta owning everything is that it wants as much of your data stream as it can get, so it can then sell more ad products derived from that. If much of that data begins going off-Meta, because someone else has better LLMs and builds them into products, that's a huge loss to Meta.
- moralestapia 1y agoSorry, I don't follow. >because someone else has better LLMs and builds them into products If that were true they wouldn't be trying to create the best LLM and give it for free. (Disclaimer: I don't think Zuck is doing this out of the good of his heart, obv. but I don't see the connection with the complements and whatnot)
- mu53 1y agoI think its about sapping as much user data from competitors. A company seeking to use an LLM has a choice between OpenAI, LLaMA, and others. If they choose LLaMA because it's free and host it themselves, OpenAI misses out on training data and other data like that
- 1y ago
- echelon 1y agoMost of Meta's models have not been released as open source. Llama was a fluke, and it helps to commoditize your compliment when you're not the market leader. There is no good or open AI company of scale yet, and there may never be. A few that contribute to the commons are Deep Seek and Black Forest Labs. But they don't have the same breadth and budget as the hyperscalers.
- _aavaa_ 1y agoLlama is not open source. It is at best weights available. The license explicitly limits what kind of things you are allowed to use the outputs of the models for.
- jacquesm 1y agoWhich, given what it was trained on, is utterly ridiculous.
- Grimblewald 1y agoYup, but that being said, Llama is GPLv3 weather Meta likes it or not. Same as ChatGPT and all the others. ALL of them can perfectly reproduce GPLv3 licensed works and data, making them derivative work, and the license is quite clear on that matter. In fact up until recently you could get chatGPT to info dump all sorts of things with that argument, but now when you try you will hit a network error, and afterwards it seems something breaks and it goes back to parroting a script on how it's under a proprietary license.
- Iolaum 1y agoThis is interesting but it has not been proven in court, right?
- Grimblewald 1y agorelated stuff has, the core part being that if your model reproduces parts or all of a licensed work, it needs to comply with the license / copyright. Otherwise why aren't pirates just making 'models' that generate protected material, or music, and completely bypass all laws? I know because I wanted to, as a form of protest/performance art, train a model to a few Disney movies and publicly distribute, but legal advice was this would put me directly into hot water not just because of who im pissing off (which i knew and was comfortable with) but also the fact there was precedent (i.e. news papers suing LLM providers). It would be an open and shut case that would leave me in financial ruin. The reason openAI hasn't been struck with this yet is, who has the time? and there isn't much to learn from all that either. Most open source tooling out competes openAI's offering as is, so the community wouldn't really win beyond punishing someone.
- casebash 1y agoOh, they're actually the bad guys, just folks haven't thought far enough ahead to realise it yet.
- lawn 1y agoThis is an instance of bad guys fighting bad guys.
- robocat 1y ago> bad guys You imply there are some good guys. What company?
- saubeidl 1y agoSignal, Proton, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Mastodon, Deepseek.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 1y agoDepends. Does your definition of “good” mean “perfect”? If so, cynical remarks like “no one is good” would be totally correct.
- bigiain 1y agoGoogle circa 2005? Twitter circa 2012? In 2025? Nobody, I don't think. Even Mozilla is turning into the bad guys these days.
- HSO 1y agoDeepSeek et al. Obv
- jsrozner 1y agoGoogle was bad the moment it chose its business model. See The Age of Surveillance Capitalism for details. Admittedly there was a nice period after it chose its model when it seemed good because it was building useful tools and hadn't yet accrued sufficient power / market share for its badness to manifest overtly as harm in the world.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoYour ability to use a lesser version of this AI on your own hardware will not save you from the myriad ways it will be used to prey on you.
- simianwords 1y agoWhy not? Current open models are more capable than the best models from 6 months back. You have a choice to use a model that is 6 months old - if you still choose to use the closed version that’s on you.
- jayd16 1y agoAnd an inability to do so would not have saved you either.