baranul

> As long as I benefit too, I'm pretty much OK with that.

There's a good argument that as long as these things are trained by swallowing up everyone's IP, the output being freely available to everyone, creates a kind of balance.

> Don't want to pay to serve it to everyone? Fine, release the weights as well.

On this argument for AI, I agree. If AI has arguably become an IP theft machine that converts its content into open-source freeware, then AI itself should become open-source freeware too. No more subscriptions, no more hiding weights, and no more hiding training data. Make AI truly beneficial for everyone, with very clear legal constraints that it and companies must follow.

It's not just about duplicating code or a public API. It's also about the look and the way things are done in a product too.

There are trademarks and patents, in addition to copyright and contract law (any license agreements for usage of the software). Violations of any of these, can be possible reasons to be pulled into court, if that's what is decided.

Fair use is also not a blanket shield or exemption from copyright or various licenses, but rather has specific requirements and limitations, that can be what's fought over. Among these areas that are covered are how transformative something is, to what extent its a copy, and how adversely has it affected the commercial value of the product it was copied from.

These are all complex issues, that often lawyers and courts have to figure out. Have no idea as to what will be decided, but do think we are at the beginning and not the end, on what will be decided about using AI for the reverse engineering of commercial products and their IP.

> Isn't the real great filter the speed of light?

Surprisingly, no, the speed of light is supposedly not that great of a filter. Various types of nuclear propulsion systems can get humans to about 10% or so of the speed of light. Combined with various advances in hibernation and increases in life span, colonizing the outer solar system and our nearest solar system becomes doable. Though it might be that our AI enabled robots end up doing the colonizing instead of us, if we or they think it worth it.

Anyway, be it human or our AI enabled robot descendants, we or they could then keep leap frogging to nearby solar systems. You have to also factor in the steady advances in technology and life spans. Unless we wipe ourselves out or decide expansionism is not worth it, after thousands to possibly millions of years, we could be all over the galaxy and even going for the next (likely Andromeda).

Though in the case of artificial life taking over, it gets quite tricky. They might decide on creating virtual worlds and universes. Instead of exploring outwards, they might decide to look inwards and break dimensional barriers, using nuclear fusion reactors and our sun as fuel to sustain their efforts. Kind of advancing towards godhood, in place, then doing whatever they feel like it after achieving that or creating new universes. At exponential levels of self-improvement and knowledge, it might take just hundreds of years to achieve.

Law applies to software too. Contract law (EULA) and copyright are applicable. Many EULAs have statements on reverse engineering. Another aspect of this is unfair competition or competing directly against the product the offending software was copied from.

Violations of the EULA or copyright can result in having to fight it out in court. It's a matter of if it will be taken to court (as little guys may not have the time or lawyers) or can be that both parties have decided on some type of agreement.

Interestingly, this was touched on in the Battlestar Galactica reboot and Caprica Sci-Fi series. Organic life always giving rise to artificial life, which attempted to destroy its creators.

It could be that nearby aliens are various forms of artificial life, who know how the human story is going to end, and couldn’t care less about the organic.

What the music and movie industry did and does, in regards to IP, is the counter-example.

> quit his job, saying that his conscience would not allow him to work on a project that could potentially annihilate the human race.

> No apologies were offered, because no one did it. Machine-planned murders come guilt-free.

> needs to strip-mine and stockpile everything that human civilisation has ever achieved.

> humanity may have to die

Hit the nail on the head. It's like knowingly walking into the gas chamber, as if oblivious or uncaring of what was planned and what's about to come next.

> Such a dishonest law

Exactly! For the sake of the children (by their logic), it follows to make play-acting of any such kind in movies and plays illegal too. Clearly such violations are happening all the time in other kinds of movies and plays.

There's a huge difference between actually doing such a thing and actually being related, versus pretending, which should be common sense.

Oh, think it will/can be worse than that. The collapse of the present system can mean all out genocidal wars, either by eugenic and deranged humans doing it to themselves or true AGI and its robots removing human interference with its goals and Earth's resources.

As for the AGI and robot part, various oligarchs are talking about manufacturing millions to even billions of robots. Combine that with billions of AI agents in massive data centers all over the world. Bringing forth a new self-sustaining artificial life form that can do what humans do (if not vastly better) and at comparable numbers or mass.

This has been debated about for quite a while, where people give donations in support or the "pay what you can" model.

Unfortunately, many have argued that it (donations or PWYC) doesn't work and people usually pay only when forced to. There is also the claimed psychological issue, where when something is made free or people can pay minimum amounts, that it is devalued or thought as near worthless. On the flip, various people and organizations have claimed that it's possible to use alternate models, depending on how it's done.

Any company that's of the US or from other friendly countries, will not stop courts from going after those hosting certain IP (if it goes down like that) they say should be taken down.

Yes, the counter would be to decentralize, but that doesn't stop going after the AI companies too. From the looks of it, the court cases are coming. Have no idea how things will turn out, other than this looks far from over.

The problem with that, is acting and pretending are not real life. You can take that line of thinking to mean any movie displaying choking or pretending to show incest should be banned.

Why stop there? They can make new laws where any display of violence or reenactments of crimes in a movie or play should be banned, then say it's about protecting the children, for the win. From there, they can move on to "thought-crime".

Wait, who owns GitHub again?

True, at the moment, they can't stop the AIs or who is already in possession of the code. But, they can go after anybody hosting that code (as they have done similarly before).

And the AI companies themselves are also a target, to disallow asking or performing the reverse engineering of designated IP.

The Empire (can) Strike(s) Back (unfortunately).

People should be aware that whatever they are doing with AI, the company they are paying subscription fees to and who owns the AI will usually know too. Your secrets are now theirs too, to sell to others.

After the Singularity (possibly): build good products, get reverse engineered and copycats offered, nobody wants to buy what they can get for free or have AI make for them, rather ask AI those support questions, forced into different kind of business.

How that's all going to go down remains to be seen, because it's not clear how Adobe and Microsoft (who have very deep pockets) view the situation or what their response is going to be.

While it is true that money could possibly be made indirectly and around the product (e.g. training, support, ads), the questions surrounding doing the equivalent of turning their IP into open-source remains. Usually, dominant companies don't like change or having to figure out new ways to obtain revenue, other than what's direct and obvious to them.

As for customization and plugins, that looks to be an AI versus IP problem too: (1) that companies would turn to Adobe or Microsoft, versus using their own AI (2) 3rd parties reverse engineering their plugins with AI.

Most likely way that it appears possible, is some type of licensing deal between the AI company and the original IP owner. Would be surprised if they do that smoothly, prior to lots of court fights, because corporate types usually don't like to share.

That is possible, crowdfund the money up front based on reputation or the buzz surrounding the idea. The more popular something is, however, the more likely it will become a target for copycats.

Part of the issue is that people can feed the idea, descriptions, and pictures into the AI. Thus create knockoffs, for their crowdfund or as the basis for their similar software.

If the original person ever actually releases software, they can buy a copy and feed to the AI, to then beef up the features in the previously created similar software. The difference between the original and copycats can be few to just about none.

Unless the original creator is willing to fight it out in court, there is little they can do about the situation. Updates made in the original, can be "transferred" to the copycats. AI makes the speed and quality orders of magnitude higher.

Actually, there are also protections against reverse engineering in many software licenses, so that goes to court under various contract laws.

No matter which laws are used in the attempt to protect IP, it requires lawyers and going to court, and the little guys will usually have neither the money or time to fight.

Speaking of the custom programming language (Jai), thought it was supposed to be released (beta goes public) with the game.

Basically, AI has turned everything into open-source. People are likely to not buy your product because: (1) they can get it for free (2) ask AI to reverse engineer whatever you put out (3) they have no money (as out of work or AI putting them out of work soon).

The only winner (kind of), is the AI companies, with "token addicts" and subscription fees. But even that is in doubt, because of the data center debt[1][2] many are in and artificially low prices (to create addicts).

Unless laws are put up quickly to protect IP, which is doubtful (as courts and politicians are mostly clueless about technology), this has become the new weird reality.

[1] https://archive.ph/wWY2g (Investors dump data centre bonds as AI borrowers face ‘Darwin moment’)

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KChHY1kDOFQ (AI Bubble | Ed Zitron)

Exactly! It's called malware. Whether it's AI or not, it is still performing illegal acts and violating laws, in which the creators of should still be held accountable.

Right now, the copyright laws and courts are way behind, so it has become an "IP theft" party (depending on point of view). Which interestingly, that is what many copyright holders (e.g. authors, artists, creators) had accused AI companies of doing and being about in the first place.

Seems like a lot of Tesla or electric car fans would prefer faster charging and more charging stations.

Like with gambling, money used for the stock market, should be money you can afford to lose. Otherwise, put the money elsewhere.

The parties and sex will just move elsewhere. Not going to successfully suppress human nature.