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That article is from 2019. The OP is 2022. US spending has increased.


Chinese spending has increased too.


It dismantled the most sophisticated network that that know about.


How does it help humanity as a whole if nobody is able to capture any value for their work?


What kind of "value" are they capturing?

In my viewpoint, something one makes which can be built upon by another freely and without limit is what helps humanity. I don't want anyone necessarily trying to capture rent-seeking "value" out of their work that cannot be extended by others. That is one reason why I abhor copyright, patents, and intellectual property in general.


Is an LLM that slurps up all data created ever, without compensating the creators of that data, and then charges for that access not the definition of "rent seeking"?

Next question, does this share similarities with academic journals that most folks do consider rent seeking organization?


I never said that was okay either. LLMs should be open source and open data. Yes, this viewpoint shares similarities with academic journals that also rent seek.


Thank you for the interesting discussion!

> I never said that was okay either. LLMs should be open source and open data.

> That is one reason why I abhor copyright, patents, and intellectual property in general.

If it turns out that closed-source LLMs become the most valuable companies in the world, any thoughts on how to align / reconcile your ideals around the reality of how the technology has developed in my hypothetical example?


There are multiple gradations of value. Linux exists even as Windows and macOS does also. They each have different strengths and weaknesses. It could be the case that only closed source LLMs are the most prevalent, but we have open source LLMs already available today that run on device and for free essentially. I don't necessarily see the world only moving towards closed source LLMs.


How do you propose that LLMs are paid for?


Through government funds, as other public works projects are. Or if people want to privately create their own, they can do so, as long as the results are open.


Why should just LLMs be funded that way and not all software?


You're right, all software should be funded that way.


Who would decide what to fund?


How are public works projects funded now? Same way. And if corporations want to fund certain projects too, they can. It's simple, extrapolate how we fund current projects and do the same with software, it's not that complicated.


Earlier you said:

> In my viewpoint, something one makes which can be built upon by another freely and without limit is what helps humanity.

Now you are saying that LLMs, and maybe even all software, should only be funded by the approval of appointed government committees.

Do you not see the contradiction in your viewpoint?


Did you miss the parts where I mentioned that private individuals and corporations can also fund their own software, as we do today? My point is that as long as code, models, and data are open source, we will be free to mix and match and improve upon them, instead of only having rich corporations hold them. One way to do so is to have the government fund projects and open source them, as an alternative to corporate closed source control.


> Did you miss the parts where I mentioned that private individuals and corporations can also fund their own software, as we do today?

You aren’t being honest.

Today we’re allowed to fund our own software and use it as we please for private purposes or to license it to others. Today there is no law forcing us to give it away.

This isn’t what you are proposing.


How am I not being honest? If you misunderstand or don't read my words as they are written, that's not really my problem.

How do you know what I'm proposing? Perhaps we should have a law forcing software to be open source.


You cannot extend anyone’s work if you have no food or resources.


That is an economic argument for something like UBI, not an argument to artificially keep jobs and limit technological progress just so people can make money.


All jobs are artificially kept, as would UBI be. They are all artifacts of the law.

Money is a way to allocate resources, and technological progress depends on people having incentives to contribute.

Do you think LLMs are a natural phenomenon?


> technological progress depends on people having incentives to contribute

Does it? That stands in stark contrast to open source in general, where people contribute without any monetary incentives.


> where people contribute without any monetary incentives.

First of all you added in the word ‘monetary’, to straw-man the position.

Secondly, even if we run with your straw-man, I see little evidence this is true. Most successful projects are either corporately funded or begging for corporate funding. You see article after article here bemoaning the lack of funding for open source.


Okay, if we take any incentives in general, that means anything we do is incentivized. Me eating food is incentivized by me not starving to death. It's not a particularly enlightening argument, hence why I preemptively added "monetary," as we were already talking about economic incentives and UBI, but if you want to explain what other incentives you are talking about, please do so, I would want to hear.

In today's world with no UBI, it's no wonder people bemoan the lack of funding, since it's an issue of actually living to produce the OSS one wants to make. If we have something akin to UBI, where we don't force people to stall technological progress in order to satisfy having a job, then this issue would disappear.

And to be clear, I'm also not against corporate funding for OSS, so long as it does remain OSS at the end of the day. Linux has corporate funding yet maintains its OSS status.


Earlier you said “people contribute without any monetary incentives”, and now you are admitting that they do need monetary incentives because there is no UBI.

Which is the truth?


People contribute already without any monetary incentives, but it sure would help to have UBI. I'm not sure what part you're confused about, as it's not an "either/or" proposition.


Does "work" here mean buying rights to books? And since Pearson aren't paying their fair share, why should the public do the work of holding a trial?


What do you mean they aren’t paying their fair share? You just said they bought the rights.

Also it seems like you are saying we should just pre-judge cases without using the courts. Basically just end the rule of law. Not sure that’s a good plan.


Why won’t the police be supplied with countermeasures and drones of their own?


Short of a ubiquitous gorgon stare[0] level of surveillance, how do you stop someone from deploying an autonomous drone with facial recognition that hunts down a particular individual?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare


Don’t drones require registration in the US? So any event like this will become a cyber investigation. And for the first one likely even considered domestic terrorism so it would use the NSA’s gorgon stare to trace back the purchaser and operator.


As the article says anyone can buy a drone from aliexpress or build their own.


But then it should be pretty easy to detect unregistered drones when they hit the air.

And again, I think if someone built their own drone from parts, the surveillance drag net would be able to trace down purchases.


Below 100 feet it is remarkably difficult to detect and stop a drone in time to defend an attack. Especially since they can be fully automated, have onboard inertial measuring units and computer vision. Your best defense would be hunter killer drones over high value targets or trained birds. But defense always lags offense.

Guided missiles used to be an expensive proposition. Now they are off the shelf parts for a couple thousand on digikey.


Not necessarily. There are health disadvantages that come from being taller, and also from having higher caloric intake. It could be that we’re adapted to less food, and when we have more we get both taller and less healthy on average.


If this were true, people would have died of scurvy at random as opposed to only when forced into a restricted diet at sea.


Dunno - touch devices are already very popular for music editing and production. No reason they shouldn’t be for video too.


The same argument could be made about platforms that allow alternative app stores, and those that don’t.

Both are available for people to choose from.

Why does DHH consider choice to be good in once instance and bad ad in the other?


Benevolence isn’t enough. They also have to be really smart, competent, and motivated.


Every democracy has this.


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