If I run an AI business, then people using more AI means more business. If noone uses my AI then I go out of business
Increasing shareholder value can be done in the broadest sense by just increasing business
If I fund my own business, I can control growth and _choose_ ethics over profits, in the hope that stunting growth is acceptable if my customers value ethics too, and that whomever I someday pass my company to shares these values
If I take capital investment, I now have a contractual agreement to provide returns on that investment. Yes failure to adhere can result in lawsuits or legal penalties. Or I can be fired/voted out for failing to bring high enough returns. I now _cannot_ choose ethics over profits, due to the conflict of interest of self-preservation
So you are correct - there is no legal or moral contract to behave unethically, but there is instead a strong systemic and self-preserving incentive to do so
I think we almost agree here, but you make it sound as if the exec can simply stand up and do the right thing here. I argue the exec will simply be pushed aside for another
This is what people refer to when they talk about the binds that hold modern day mega-corps
If you yourself are an exec, I personally think you can understand these truths and work with them as best you can, and still be a good human being of course, but that there are lines that should not be crossed to keep a job
It is a collective issue we need to solve that of course starts with each individual seeing the true situation with kindness and compassion
Taking the time and effort out of something is exactly what strips it of its beauty
Beauty is not just an “idea” that someone has and needs to get out onto a medium
It is a process and journey that a person undergoes to get said idea onto said medium
That journey often plays out very differently than the person expects. Things change, the art is different from the idea, and the person learns and grows
Our modern society is so obsessed with results, competition, and efficiency that we no longer see the truth: the journey is to be enjoyed, and from enjoying the journey, comes beauty
I encourage you to meditate on why our society is so sick and depressed right now, and extrapolate to how we got here, before assuming this will be a good thing for society
Replace VC with shareholders - the point is the same. Someone wants more money out than in. That same someone doesn’t have long-term incentive to care about our future, or even the customer
To achieve that, business owners do as I mentioned and more. Not out of maliciousness or spite, but out of necessity
When will people wake up and see that venture capital is driving execs to show growth, overhire, then RIFF to consolidate wealth and drive profit metrics?
When will people see that technology and AI is not the solution to save the world, but one that is actively killing it? One that is actively driving us apart and radicalizing us?
As a kid, I grew up loving sci fi, games, and tech. It is a shame these same dreams drive so us to destroy our planet and civilization. Our curiosity is going to be our end
As the zen parable says, the man is flying by on a horse and is asked “where are you going?”, to which he replies, “i dont know, ask the horse!”
I hope people can self reflect and challenge themselves on if what they believe is really right. The only way is for us to open our views
1. If scraping the entire internet is easier, but doesn’t give me as good of results as including private or licensed data, I will train my LLM on private data or lose the race. It is not about easy. Just look at some of the lawsuits against OpenAI: https://originality.ai/blog/openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-list
2. Think about this - what you are saying is that you can’t sell anything without also making it public. These are not the same thing. I sell something to get value from my labor. I make something public to get eyes on it. The whole issue is that people who want to privately sell things have their work being undercut by LLMs
3. LLMs are recreating the content
4. Take Miyazaki. He spends his whole life developing a unique art style and skill. Years. He makes his living and provides a living for others with it. The value of that _used to be_ the movies he was paid to make and the revenue they generated. Now LLMs can create his work for free, and he doesn’t see a dime whenever someone converts their profile picture into his style. This is the ethical problem - he is not compensated, let alone the ethics of upending artists years of work for the sake of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo