Item — HN Reader

> Then nobody will have free shit to absorb. Not young aspiring authors, and not AI models.

Difference being, of course, the fact that the young aspiring authors are fully capable of coming up with novel ideas without having to copy the contents of 90 billion textbooks cover-to-cover.

And I actually asked about a situation in which the content is no longer allowed for the AI specifically to absorb. What happens then, when these noble warriors of progress that are AI sycophants lose access to their as-of-now treasure trove of free shit that other people worked hard on?

> It's not theft when a human author reads the work of another author. And it's not theft when a model reads the work of another author. It's exactly the same.

Will this disingenuous line of "reasoning" ever die? A computer != A human, no amount of anthropomorphizing will ever make them equivalent.

Edit: Also, if we do take this argument at face value, then humans already have to get proper access to the works of other authors.

2 comments

>Difference being, of course, the fact that the young aspiring authors are fully capable of coming up with novel ideas without having to copy the contents of 90 billion textbooks cover-to-cover.

So only scale matters? The fact is individuals almost never come up with novel ideas. Can you imagine having to pay someone for that smiling sun you drew in kindergarten?

> then humans already have to get proper access to the works of other authors.

What the hell does that even mean? I mean, please go read "The Right to Read" by RMS. In your mind if I go to my friends house and read a book, I've committed a crime. If I let someone borrow that book, I've too committed another crime.

You've embraced the right to make a profit and put it far above the needed idealism of sharing information as what makes societies grow. But in your desire to profit you are going to create the framework of greed that will allow massive corporations to crush us just as effectively.

> Difference being, of course, the fact that the young aspiring authors are fully capable of coming up with novel ideas without having to copy the contents of 90 billion textbooks cover-to-cover.

Every human was taught their language from other humans. It would be interesting to see how creative an inspiring author would be with zero literary exposure ever in their life. And that's all AI is asking, to have the same access to reading material as anyone else. To not be starved arbitrarily from having the same access to the world as a human.

> Will this disingenuous line of "reasoning" ever die? A computer != A human

Who cares? Stop being so compuphobic. Artificial intelligences should have as much access to reading material as any human.

> ... humans already have to get proper access to the works of other authors.

Of course. On this we agree. AI should have no extra access to written material and should have to respect the same laws as any human.

> ... And that's all AI is asking ...

No, the AI itself isn't asking anything because it's not a sentient being capable of rational, independent thought. The people making the AIs are asking everyone else to blindly believe that using the word "learning" a bunch makes a computer and a human equivalent entities.

> Who cares?

Quite a lot of people, as can be shown in literally any discussion where AI comes up.

> Artificial intelligences should have as much access to reading material as any human.

Why? Other than AI creators wanting to make infinite money by generating spam en-masse, of course.

> No, the AI itself isn't asking anything because it's not a sentient being capable

That is really just your human ego and sense of superiority speaking. Lesser beings might not have the cognitive capabilities you do, but they still should not be discriminated against.

> Quite a lot of people.

A lot of people are racist too. Doesn't make it right.

> Why? Other than AI creators wanting to make infinite money

That's just cynical. There are a lot of people working on AI that have no such motivation.