All the Big AI APIs handle a million tokens of context. That's enough for 750,000 words or, several entire novels.
Context isn't an issue. It's style.
The argument the author is making is that if you use an LLM to write for you, you end up with a homogeneous work that's just like everything else.
In journalism, that's sort of what you want.
In novels/function, that's the opposite of what you want.
However, there's degrees to these things. If you're looking at a sentence you wrote, thinking there's something "off" it can be helpful to have the LLM rewrite it just to see how it thinks it could be better worded.
I've done this a few times and I do find it helpful. Just like the author, I never just accept what it gives me. I simply use it as an OK-ish copyeditor that's good at spotting issues and suggesting solutions.
Are we talking about turning everyone into philosophers and somehow ascending to a higher plane of existence? Yeah, AI isn't going to help with that (probably).
Or are we talking about useful, positive benefits to every day people like better speech recognition, tools for the visually impaired, disease research, physics research, science in general, and loads of other areas where AI is improving things?
That's what this boils down to: What are our rights?
Everyone has a right to scrape the Internet. That includes corporations who scrape the Internet to train AI models.
If we take away that right, how would the Internet even work? It wouldn't.
Example: I could tell curl right now to download this techcrunch article and all the comments about it on HN and I'd be violating no law. I'd be infringing on no one's rights.
If I then distributed these downloaded files without permission then I'd be violating copyright law. The thing it certainly would not be is theft!
People claim AI companies are "stealing" human labor but that's not true. They're saving (in their databases) the fruits of human labor and other bots/software. Then they're using that data to train AI models.
The only conclusion I can make whenever someone says "AI is theft!" is that they have no idea what they're talking about.
My assumption is that what they really mean is, "AI is bad for labor!" and possibly, "cheap AI is incompatible with capitalism." Which very well could be true.
But if AI really undermines the value of labor that much, the problem isn't the AI, it's capitalism.
> People claim AI companies are "stealing" human labor but that's not true. They're saving (in their databases) the fruits of human labor and other bots/software. Then they're using that data to train AI models.
And profiting on it on a scale that’s hard to fathom. Someone who spent effort creating a great resource or doing some research and maybe got some income via donations, ads, whatever. Now that information from their resource is distilled into a big model. The original author is screwed, the model provider makes money through the effort of everyone else. It worked well for everyone before, because there was recognition, prestige, a sense of doing good for people, even a chance for some income. That’s completely eliminated with AI.
Are you kidding me? It costs a fraction of the competition and you can use just about any pin for anything you want! It makes designing boards for the RP series so simple and easy!
Contrast that with STM32 where you have to constantly reference the data sheet to make sure you're using the correct pins for say, I2C when you're running in a particular mode. And since you're running in that mode, you now can't use other pins for certain things. Ugh! I hate it!
Then there's the issues with picking the right-size part number and making sure the pins you want are 5V tolerant, checking that you're using the correct ADC, and... Ugh! It's a pain in the ass!
Other chips aren't much better as they all have those same problems.
ESP32 is nice because of the zillions of built-in peripherals but configuring the damned thing can get really complicated really fast. It's so complicated, in fact, that they had to make a Makefile (as in `make menuconfig`) that rivals the Linux kernel in the sheer number of options/submenus.
nRF5x also has completely configurable pins, and if you're worrying about awkward pinouts making PCB design slightly more annoying then you're definitely not in a cost sensitive project.
Good luck convincing the current DOJ to do anything useful at all though! It is currently intentionally stacked with incompetent cronies who have been told that their job is to attack the President's enemies and ignore the misdeeds of his allies.
It will remain like that until he's gone (and not replaced with another Republican wannabe dictator).
It will remain this way in slightly differnt shades of colors until there is a systemic change. IM sorry this isn't a one party problem. There are people across the isle that are allowing this to continue.
Im not in support of any party btw. Im only in support of humanity doing humane things.
The grandparent comment said "liable". That's civil court, not criminal, and doesn't need the DOJ to be involved. HuggingFace and/or RubyGems could sue OpenAI.
States also have their own laws against unauthorized computer use (hacking). A state Attorney General could bring a suit under those laws, regardless of who is in the white house.
"Better to die in fire than let some dark-skinned person sneak into your home, rape your daughters, murder you, and steal your stuff." -The classic American right-wing rage machine
I mean, it's true that these issues are used as right-wing fear fodder a lot, but parent commenter is talking about his country in particular, and there are numerous countries in which crime of that sort is extremely prevalent. It might not be just propaganda. The point is that with our safety we give up some of our freedom, and it's hard to find a balance. All the safety means none of the freedom.
Big AI bro wants to regulate AI industry so that only Big AI can exist in that space. Seeks to surreptitiously ban open weights models and similar competition from Western markets via complicated regulations and fines that only rich businesses could ever afford to fight or pay.
It's because they view the LLM's output as "their thoughts." They told the LLM (via the prompt) what to do—often with loads of run-on sentences and long trains-of-thought. From their perspective, the LLM is just acting as a translation tool, saving them the trouble of having to think (about grammar, ideal wording, or even the order in which their thoughts should be presented).
They treat it as "just another tool" to improve efficiency. Like using a drill instead of a screwdriver.
Then there's people who are so lazy they give LLMs instructions like, "write a LinkedIn post about how AI is changing the future of work for thumbnail consultants." That's when it moves from "translating your thoughts" to "writing for you."
I think the issue is that it can be hard to tell the difference. We need better terms for these things so we can differentiate use cases.
Yes. If someone tells an author to write a novel based on a vague stream-of-consciousness premise or rough plot idea, that doesn’t make them even a co-author.
Context isn't an issue. It's style.
The argument the author is making is that if you use an LLM to write for you, you end up with a homogeneous work that's just like everything else.
In journalism, that's sort of what you want.
In novels/function, that's the opposite of what you want.
However, there's degrees to these things. If you're looking at a sentence you wrote, thinking there's something "off" it can be helpful to have the LLM rewrite it just to see how it thinks it could be better worded.
I've done this a few times and I do find it helpful. Just like the author, I never just accept what it gives me. I simply use it as an OK-ish copyeditor that's good at spotting issues and suggesting solutions.
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