civet_java

> I don’t particularly like the ‘stolen’ word here

Except that's the standard that we've measured everyone with up until the LLM/generative tech boom. I don't see why the benchmarks should change now. I realise my argument doesn't move reality but that doesn't mean we shouldn't call a spade a spade. Said companies carried out theft (or copyright infringement if you prefer) at industrial scale which is far more reprehensible crime against humanity than anything the individuals we think of as "digital pirates" have committed.

> open Chinese models are not even hiding the fact that they distill from the frontier US labs

The difference is they return to the same system that they feed from (indirectly); people get access to model weights even if the entire model isn't open source. The same can't be said for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google etc (who also benefit from Chinese models and train on them).

Sure, the alternatives aren't a panacea of fairness but I'd much rather advocate for and support the thieves who give me a better deal if my choice is limited to thieves. Especially if thieves aren't hostile to their customers like Anthropic is (which is why I replied to you in the first place).

I'm not sure I understand what you're arguing for? There are massive companies that collectively profiting off of stolen IP and are now gatekeeping even their paid offerings - surely consumers will rail against this? Personally, I feel very bad and can't wait for Chinese models to continue improving as much as they can prior OpenAI's and Anthropic's IPOs.

I'm curious - what's the point of this comment? Did you think the commentor was unaware of their own capacity for philanthropy?

I think the point that above commentor was making is that mitchellh is likely more than a 1000 times as rich as most commentors here and that being able to out-influence over a 1000 people can be quite personally satisfying.

I for one am glad that "let's just all follow bluecalm's hackernews comments" isn't how we select people who make "the choice".

> Boiling down AI to faster emails and listing out those horrible things and trying to side step it as not equivocating are both really disingenuous arguments.

I agree with your statement in isolation but it doesn't describe why I wrote what I did. The point of listing out the horrible things is that there are many things most people agree are horrible and won't entertain conversation about them in interest of giving room to dissenting voices. So, complaining about how a "gang of commentors" wouldn't let you express your opinions without them pushing back isn't a meaningful complaint.

> AI can and has already shown to be really helpful in emerging medicines and medical break throughs.

That's great! I'm not opposed to this and I think you'll find that most other commentors "ganging up" against you aren't either. But I think you'll also find that tools such as coding harnesses and image generation systems don't quite qualify as medicine. Nor does the use of AI in medicine have major social repurcussions.

> opinions online formed in echo chambers don't represent the majority.

Right back at ya buddy :)

It's interesting that you prop up benefits but fail to address the harms of AI. Is it that you think there are none? Or do you not care because they don't affect you?

Or could it be because hecklers might call them "un-American" if they did list Yandex? The two aren't the same.

I think you'll find that even spaces most open to discussion and dissent will push back on certain topics such genocide, murder, rape, etc. These are things most people would agree are bad.

I'm not saying that AI is like those things but that as society tallies the cost-to-benefit ratio public opinion on AI trends closer and closer to negative; most people are realising that ripping a big old hole in our social fabric isn't quite worth faster emails. I agree the productivity gains are huge but aren't equaly distributed across industries (or even employees even within the same industry).

Of course you're open to your opinion but as with most things whether not people share it will continue to change over time. I personally hope expressing thoughts like you did becomes unacceptable in the short to medium term, no offence.

> Ranting about consent or privacy or copyright won't somehow untrain these models.

On the other hand pointed, organised, public dissatisfaction and upheaval could lead to legislation requiring companies caught in the act of theft to fork over their profits to the state to be used for public good. Think about it :)

There is something about your comment that is deeply off-putting which is odds with your actual tone itself. My hunch is that while what you're saying is couched in all the traditional markers of polite and civil discourse the content seems to lack its spirit. While I don't think you want society to degenerate in the ways that it is I can't help but feel it also isn't something that is a priority for you because you get to continue "creating".

The thrust of your argument seems to rest resigning yourself to the impossibility of unhitching the global economy from the AI bandwagon and being unwilling to want to do it because it works for you; this part I don't personally care about very much about. The annoyance, I think, stems from you then suggesting the same resignation others as well while skirting around what I thought were pointed questions with unhelpful responses:

i) You don't bother actually stacking up the harms of generative systems against their benefits. ii) You don't actually bother backing up your own position of resignment to the status quo. iii) You forget that your opinion is your's alone while ignoring that the vast majority of humanity had no say in society being upended in this particular way. This assymetry has largely held through history, but is least defensible today. iv) Finally you forget that people aren't bound by laws in the way we like to believe they are.

A more cynical person might infer vested interest from the state of your argument.

I hope for your sake you continue getting the same joy from "creating" as society continues it ride down to the bottom.

> economic growth is essentially tied to the free proliferation of information.

Isn't this a good argument for models produced by proliferation of said information to also be open-weight then?

Or perhaps your line of thinking is more that AI companies shouldn't have legal recourse should the weights for a model get leaked because this too would clearly contribute to economic growth.

I've finally caved in and made an HN account because I realised you're someone I completely entirely agree with. Never have I been more passively enraged over something I also feel like I have so little control over. Radical rejection is the once choice left to me and I am happy rejecting people over this too.

I guess I'm saying you're not alone, and there's likely dozens of us.