Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

For this particular example, the tool doesn't seem like it's a big deal. It just analyzes works for data. I'm not sure how this would be any different from a literary critic doing the same thing manually.

In general, though, I think artists would be less hostile to technological innovations if the people imploring them to "figure out how to embrace the technology rather than fear it" weren't actively trying to destroy their livelihoods, almost always without the slightest interest in helping them figure out the new economic situation. The attitude is, "It's the reality now, deal with it," all while enjoying the job security and high salaries of tech jobs. You can see the same attitude displayed when it comes to piracy: "too bad, deal with it, I have a good job, I don't care if you don't anymore."

This stuff would be received far better by the creative community if AI companies were to say, establish an artist sponsorship program, push for UBI, or otherwise show that they care even a tiny bit about the people they're making redundant.

I agree with you. There’s a pattern that I see a lot, of having:

1. large powerful players doing something not entirely helpful;

2. victims of that protesting that change vehemently; all that in vain because the players are powerful and have sheltered themselves from criticism, usually via lobbying;

3. regulatory capture or protests go after a smaller player, which is widely advertised to accuse 2. of going too far — even when the problem in 1. is still entirely there, and now ignored.

It’s definitely the case with globalization (large conglomerate benefit, people protest, and a small artisan who started selling abroad is featured being victimized by tariffs), fossil fuel (large oil extractor, climate advocate, farmer seeing fertilizer prize go up), immigration, American cultural hegemony, car dominance over cities, etc.

That pattern allows larger players still doing harm to wash their morals. I feel like we need better antibodies to say: No, this does not absolve them.

> if AI companies were to say, establish an artist sponsorship program, push for UBI

Sam Altman, for all his faults, is actually a massive proponent of UBI. I mean, that was one of the claimed objectives of Worldcoin (though he advocates for UBI in general: https://thewalrus.ca/will-universal-basic-income-save-us-fro... )

I am defining "push for UBI" as "actually do something to pressure the government" and not just state that a for profit business you've established is trying to accomplish that goal.

I will admit that I am mildly confused by this outrage, but it is X/twitter so the standards are different.

All that said, I remember doing basic text analysis in college and then sentiment analysis in my MBA class.. is the concern out there, because of how source material was acquired?

Fully agree.

Not an artist myself, but this basic assumption in tech that you can just take somebody's shit without informing them, without permission, without compensation, without basic due diligence, and then go do whatever the hell you want with it needs to stop.

For the artists' sake but also for tech's sake. This model can't work, it's a complete dead-end that will wipe out livelihoods and culture.

But I can ensure you artists can/will be equally hypocritical themselves. Surely they've pirated themselves, removed paywalls from articles, blocked ads, borrowed the neighbor's Netflix account.

I think it applies to many technologies other than generative AI. How many devs actually think about ethics nowadays? I think it's all lost in the big companies they work for, behind the excuse that "it is not their job to figure out how their work is being used".

Interestingly, I think most devs would think twice before being paid for designing a missile. But somehow they don't really seem to think about the impact of work that is not obviously a weapon. Social network, Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, SpaceX... everything disruptive has the potential to be very bad (I see a lot more harmful use-cases for ChatGPT than legit ones, but maybe that's just me). But somehow engineers seem to believe that it is not their problem.

Absolutely, and I think the recent Oppenheimer movie was an excellent take on this exact subject. At some point, you don't get to throw up your hands and say, "technology is just neutral” and absolve yourself of any responsibility for what you’ve put into the world.

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