I'd like to stake out the position, which I hope remains within the overton window, as tenable, that "information wants to be free". There was a pretty strong contingent of people in the tech world that believed that at one point, though tech has grown to the point that "adults" have stepped in, and lawyers, and big money, etc, etc.
I remember using Napster for the first time back in the day. Amazing! All this free music at my fingertips, sharing P2P, so cool. And I thought Aaron Swartz was a hero. More recently, SciHub is one of the greatest things to happen to knowledge sharing ever. Software patents are stupid and cause more harm than they're worth, and everyone hates patent trolls, right? Copyright is just a tool to be abused by Disney's lobbyists.
I think the latest tools like Copilot and the stuff Stability AI is releasing fits right in here as amazing tools heralding a new future of exploration and leveling up the power of creators to create. Remixing existing data, maybe copying it, whatever.
Obviously, I'm an adult now, and when working for my corporation I have to be diligent about respecting software licenses and getting lawyer clearance for using tools like Copilot and such, but at some level I've got the Mr Anderson vs Neo thing going on in my head and it feels a little bit like we've lost something from the freewheeling days of early tech.
I remember using Napster for the first time back in the day. Amazing! All this free music at my fingertips, sharing P2P, so cool. And I thought Aaron Swartz was a hero. More recently, SciHub is one of the greatest things to happen to knowledge sharing ever. Software patents are stupid and cause more harm than they're worth, and everyone hates patent trolls, right? Copyright is just a tool to be abused by Disney's lobbyists.
I think the latest tools like Copilot and the stuff Stability AI is releasing fits right in here as amazing tools heralding a new future of exploration and leveling up the power of creators to create. Remixing existing data, maybe copying it, whatever.
Obviously, I'm an adult now, and when working for my corporation I have to be diligent about respecting software licenses and getting lawyer clearance for using tools like Copilot and such, but at some level I've got the Mr Anderson vs Neo thing going on in my head and it feels a little bit like we've lost something from the freewheeling days of early tech.