Comment by munificent
4 hours ago
> I'm from the "information wants to be free" sort of persuasion, and now that largely makes me feel kinda old.
Me too, 100%. But that was during a moment in time when that information was more likely to be enabling a person who otherwise didn't have as many resources than enabling a billionaire to make their torment nexus 0.1% more powerful.
> I kinda had to accept that stuff I make was going to be used towards ends I didn't approve of. Something about that is in here too, I think.
Yeah, I've mostly made peace with that too.
The way I think about it is that when I make some digital thing and share it with the world, I'm (hopefully!) adding value to a bunch of people. I'm happiest if the distribution of that value lifts up people on the bottom end more than people on the top. I think inequality is one of the biggest problems in the world today and I aspire to have the web and the stuff I make chip away at it.
If my stuff ends up helping the rich and poor equally and doesn't really effect inequality one way or the other, I guess it's fine.
But in a world with AI, I worry that anything I put out there increases inequality and that gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe that's just the way things are now and I have to accept it.
> But in a world with AI, I worry that anything I put out there increases inequality and that gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe that's just the way things are now and I have to accept it.
This observation doesn't really clash with "information wants to be free." You just have to include LLMs in the category or "information," like Free Software types already do for all software. You don't need to abandon your principles, you should shift your demands. A handful of companies can't be allowed to benefit from free information and then put what they make behind a wall.