I'm pretty sure any of the eras of slavery throughout human history is more of an actual theft of labor.
> A huge chunk of the content that was scraped was most likely provided voluntarily rather than being waged labour.
People committing work get rewards in different ways, waged labour could be one, attributions, acknowledgements, future job opportunities and more. Stripping those from the rightful owners can hardly be justified in the name of progress.
the choice was stolen as well.
the agency was stolen as well.
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%207%3A5
Whether religious or not, the verse applies to anyone and everyone making such statements from the position of companies like Microsoft. I'll quite the KJV version 'cause that one lends itself well to situations like these. Read it with a booming thunder-loaded voice:
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Of course that accusation sounds outrageous as it should. All human knowledge and progress has come by building on the works of those who came before us, as it should. Turning this on its head and calling it "theft of labor" is insane, as is asking others not to build on today's knowledge.
Or to steal some more human labor: "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
> The brief cited an internal memo dated January 2023 by Microsoft director of Applied Science Brent Hecht, where he allegedly said, “Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” and also called it “the largest theft of labor in human history.”
No need to add religion into this. Let MS employees write their emails. If anything, what he said a month after ChatGPT's release was prophetic.
Culture has always had a kind of violence to it, but not FROM the THIEF: you HAVE to speak the language that was already made; you have to understand and participate in their song-structures, their plot devices, their ways of attesting.
The "IP owners" should be paying ME!!!
fxtentacle•2h ago
... yeah, sure.