Of course, it isn't all bad or good, and I was just writing down my train of thought. Corporations also contribute to maintaining that information: by grouping together individuals skilled in the same domain, they can foster the exchange of ideas, and by training new employees, they perpetuate those skills. Patents are another mechanism that forces them to contribute back to society.

Once you start training algorithms instead of people, though, you attach that knowledge to the company, and it may not leave. In my experience, open source software and standards are the exception rather than the norm.

Fair point, I didn't think that deeply about trade secrets. I guess it could be even more hidden with various forms of machine learning, even the engineers themselves possibly couldn't explain how or why it worked when they left the building.