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I said a glimpse. I didn't say it's here now or it would be easy. It is however, achievable. Certainly more so than engaging in the fantasy that we can crimina

I said a glimpse. I didn't say it's here now or it would be easy. It is however, achievable. Certainly more so than engaging in the fantasy that we can criminalize LLMs out of existence. And it is likely more desirable than such an effort anyway.

bayindirh 8d ago
Like trickle down economics? We all experience the substance which is trickling down.
jaybeavers 8d ago
Or, perhaps, the companies forming the for profit LLMs could be made to pay a license fee for the copyrighted data they lifted from behind the paywall and then used to form a for profit entity with. Nothing about banning technology. How about enforcing DMCA and then applying a penalty for the knowing theft rather than negotiating a license?
- bdangubic 8d ago
  This is solid but how many people you reckon would benefit if they paid every single penny for any copyrighted data? I am in my 50's with 30 years in the industry and I know maybe 2 people that might benefit from this... certainly not something general public would benefit from
  - jaybeavers 8d ago
    We’re likely looking at a new world where physical and mental work from humans holds much less value. So if the world still generates value ( think AI inventing new drugs, robots planting and harvesting fields of corn ), who is able to make income? The people who have the capital to purchase and run the systems. So our future world probably looks like a system where effort/knowledge/skill has little to no reward and capital (e.g. inheritance, passive income) has all the reward. So, we can have a world where you are born rich or you live in abject poverty, or we can figure out something else.
    - bayindirh 8d ago
      Why more and more stories from "Pump Six and Other Stories" are becoming real step by step?
    - godwinson__4-8 8d ago
      You are missing the obvious answer. The state runs the system. Or really at a certain point, the state runs itself. In 100 years or so, the CEO becomes a barbaric relic of the past age, like our ancestors who beat each other over the head with clubs. Nevertheless, such a future will necessarily owe a debt to both. Wealth and states are often connected. In this case if the state is properly aligned (this is what the coming battles are to be about - as they always have been) to be egalitarian, then redistribution can occur unblocked by human enclaves of greed.
    - brookst 8d ago
      > We’re likely looking at a new world where physical and mental work from humans holds much less value. Or, perhaps, we're regressing to the mean after a century where this work was over-valued, because companies like Disney succeeded in regulatory capture and created artificial protections to maximize their own revenue. How much money did Bach earn from royalties (ok, there's a pun there, but I mean payment for reproduction of his work)? How much power did Melville have over who published Moby Dick, and where, and how it was used (hint: very little in the US, none at all overseas). We are seeing a weakening of control and revenue extraction from copyrighted works. But on the chart of history, the 1900's were a very anamolous spike in that area. And it saddens me that so much of HN is unhappy about more of a return to the commons. > So if the world still generates value ( think AI inventing new drugs, robots planting and harvesting fields of corn ), who is able to make income? The people who have the capital to purchase and run the systems. On the bright side, I think you're wrong here. Or (as Claude likes to tell me), you're half-wrong. If this were true, it would already be the norm and only big companies could bring new products to market. Yet startups are a thing, and many succeed (more fail, but still. The trick in entrepreneurship and creative work has always been knowing what to ask the system to do. You might as well say that music is dead because the synthesizer and music software companies can produce as much as they want at zero cost. It turns out that owning the means of production only loosely correlates to producing things people want. > So, we can have a world where you are born rich or you live in abject poverty, or we can figure out something else. Already done. There are kids in Africa studying with AI tutors today, getting insight that they would likely never have had access to before. One-person shops are releasing board games and business services that they would never have had the capital to do before. Where you see centralization of capital and control, and the masses reduced to abject poverty... I see the complete collapse of barriers to entry and switching costs in many fields. But who am I? Some random guy. But I've heard very senior execs, at Microsoft and other companies, in absolute panic that the IP and systems they've spent billions of dollars to build over decades of work are suddenly subject to disruption by teenagers who are great at using AI. Seriously, panic. It's a complex subject, and sorry for writing a book, but your prompt apparently got me. None of us know for sure what will happen but I think yours is a needlessly pessimistic view, ironically informed by the exact abuses of th past century that you're worried might not continue.
yoz-y 8d ago
It is achievable in theory yes. But it was also achievable without LLMs and yet, here we are.

bayindirh 8d ago

Like trickle down economics? We all experience the substance which is trickling down.

jaybeavers 8d ago

Or, perhaps, the companies forming the for profit LLMs could be made to pay a license fee for the copyrighted data they lifted from behind the paywall and then used to form a for profit entity with. Nothing about banning technology. How about enforcing DMCA and then applying a penalty for the knowing theft rather than negotiating a license?

bdangubic 8d ago
This is solid but how many people you reckon would benefit if they paid every single penny for any copyrighted data? I am in my 50's with 30 years in the industry and I know maybe 2 people that might benefit from this... certainly not something general public would benefit from
- jaybeavers 8d ago
  We’re likely looking at a new world where physical and mental work from humans holds much less value. So if the world still generates value ( think AI inventing new drugs, robots planting and harvesting fields of corn ), who is able to make income? The people who have the capital to purchase and run the systems. So our future world probably looks like a system where effort/knowledge/skill has little to no reward and capital (e.g. inheritance, passive income) has all the reward. So, we can have a world where you are born rich or you live in abject poverty, or we can figure out something else.
  - bayindirh 8d ago
    Why more and more stories from "Pump Six and Other Stories" are becoming real step by step?
  - godwinson__4-8 8d ago
    You are missing the obvious answer. The state runs the system. Or really at a certain point, the state runs itself. In 100 years or so, the CEO becomes a barbaric relic of the past age, like our ancestors who beat each other over the head with clubs. Nevertheless, such a future will necessarily owe a debt to both. Wealth and states are often connected. In this case if the state is properly aligned (this is what the coming battles are to be about - as they always have been) to be egalitarian, then redistribution can occur unblocked by human enclaves of greed.
  - brookst 8d ago
    > We’re likely looking at a new world where physical and mental work from humans holds much less value. Or, perhaps, we're regressing to the mean after a century where this work was over-valued, because companies like Disney succeeded in regulatory capture and created artificial protections to maximize their own revenue. How much money did Bach earn from royalties (ok, there's a pun there, but I mean payment for reproduction of his work)? How much power did Melville have over who published Moby Dick, and where, and how it was used (hint: very little in the US, none at all overseas). We are seeing a weakening of control and revenue extraction from copyrighted works. But on the chart of history, the 1900's were a very anamolous spike in that area. And it saddens me that so much of HN is unhappy about more of a return to the commons. > So if the world still generates value ( think AI inventing new drugs, robots planting and harvesting fields of corn ), who is able to make income? The people who have the capital to purchase and run the systems. On the bright side, I think you're wrong here. Or (as Claude likes to tell me), you're half-wrong. If this were true, it would already be the norm and only big companies could bring new products to market. Yet startups are a thing, and many succeed (more fail, but still. The trick in entrepreneurship and creative work has always been knowing what to ask the system to do. You might as well say that music is dead because the synthesizer and music software companies can produce as much as they want at zero cost. It turns out that owning the means of production only loosely correlates to producing things people want. > So, we can have a world where you are born rich or you live in abject poverty, or we can figure out something else. Already done. There are kids in Africa studying with AI tutors today, getting insight that they would likely never have had access to before. One-person shops are releasing board games and business services that they would never have had the capital to do before. Where you see centralization of capital and control, and the masses reduced to abject poverty... I see the complete collapse of barriers to entry and switching costs in many fields. But who am I? Some random guy. But I've heard very senior execs, at Microsoft and other companies, in absolute panic that the IP and systems they've spent billions of dollars to build over decades of work are suddenly subject to disruption by teenagers who are great at using AI. Seriously, panic. It's a complex subject, and sorry for writing a book, but your prompt apparently got me. None of us know for sure what will happen but I think yours is a needlessly pessimistic view, ironically informed by the exact abuses of th past century that you're worried might not continue.

yoz-y 8d ago

It is achievable in theory yes. But it was also achievable without LLMs and yet, here we are.