AI Companies Are Parasites

https://www.coryd.dev/posts/2026/ai-companies-are-parasites

52•cdrnsf•1h ago

Comments

aogaili•42m ago

Parasite takes and gives nothing back, but clearly a lot of people are using those models, which the author ignored, so the entire premise is false.

bigwheels•42m ago

The use of the models completes a self-improving feedback loop which keeps feeding the parasite and helps it grow even stronger.

aogaili•40m ago

But that's not the definition of parasite. People are using it because they are gaining value.

dudebro69420•37m ago

ah so symbiosis

4MOAisgoodenuf•36m ago

drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,

gridspy•36m ago

The models might benefit you, but they do not benefit the Host websites that were scraped to feed you a result.

brainwad•31m ago

University graduates might benefit you, but they do not benefit the authors of the textbooks that were borrowed during their education.

Enough with the IP maximalism, it's perfectly fine to extract non-copyrightable ideas from copyrighted works.

someonebaggy•30m ago

Yes they do, they pay the authors excessively, up to $200 per semester per author.

brainwad•26m ago

Right, but AI companies are also buying copies of books (and then destroying them, because stupid copyright law). So what's the problem?

someonebaggy•24m ago

I didn't get paid for a copy of my content published on the internet for free for non-commercial use.

aogaili•16m ago

You work is not relevant on its own. It's the aggregate of billions that shaped those models.

Society/governments need to figure out another way to take back from those companies and give to the public.

otreblatercero•36m ago

> At least we get stilted prose, images that look like Pixar rehashes, and code nobody understands.

Parasites are mostly bad for health.

1298-12236•35m ago

Oh, so they are Robin Hood stealing from poor OSS developers and website authors and giving to the rich owners and their $200-per-month users.

aogaili•34m ago

So they are either parasites or Robin Hood?

someonebaggy•31m ago

parasites or reverse robin hood, which is the same thing

sailingparrot•33m ago

There are many documented cases of parasites being beneficial to the host in some particular situation while being harmful overall.

So your entire premise is false.

simianwords•32m ago

This is a fallacy and it is known as non-central fallacy.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...

aogaili•27m ago

But who said it's harmful overall? That's a statement you are making not the people deriving value from it. The fact is many are benefiting otherwise they wouldn't pay that subscription.

sailingparrot•21m ago

Where did I make that statement?

Your point was that parasites give nothing back, thus AI companies can’t be seen as parasites because we get some usefulness out of them.

My only point is that argument is false, since a host can get benefits out of a parasite.

aogaili•10m ago

In number 4 of the author's definition of parasite, the parasite kills the host not benefit it.

I guess that analogy would be people stop sharing their thoughts publicly, which is as likely as people stop sharing on social media, very unlikely for many reasons.

gridspy•34m ago

Bear in mind that like many toxic blooms, once the investment hysteria feeding them dies out they will die also.

- Companies using investment funds to play the Ai Agent lottery will run out of funds

- Less tokens will be demanded, causing AI companies to raise prices to pay for overheads

- Bubble pops.

10xDev•31m ago

Cool, bet on it: https://polymarket.com/event/ai-bubble-burst-by

Meanwhile NVDA go brrrrr.

inknight•25m ago

NVDA is hardware. https://isaiprofitable.com/

MengerSponge•23m ago

A fool's errand. "the market can remain irrational a lot longer than you can remain solvent."

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/

simianwords•30m ago

I'm willing to have a public bet that the number of tokens (or whatever the equivalent is) would increase by more than 10x in the next 3 years.

(for equivalency of tokens I'd use something like "tasks done by AI")

simianwords•33m ago

I find it sad that people don't generally think about non zero sum possibilities.

I think it comes from a misreading of Marx because Marx considers value coming from Labor which is purely zero sum.

In my bubble within friends and family, practically everyone uses AI and has fun using it and gets value out of it.

SoftTalker•24m ago

Among your friends and family, who use AI for fun, do they pay for it? Would they?

My non-tech friends use AI to make funny meme images that they send around on group chats, but would they pay for those? I doubt it.

I can't think of anything in my personal life that I would pay for an AI to do. Businesses, sure... as long as they are getting real value.

robotpepi•20m ago

> I think it comes from a misreading of Marx because Marx considers value coming from Labor which is purely zero sum.

Don't you think it's a bit overconfident to dismiss Marx just on such a simplistic interpretation (as he had simply failed to consider that economic activity can be non-zero-sum?)

simianwords•17m ago

He's not that stupid but value according to Labor theory of value is zero-sum. He knows that wealth is positive sum but his followers don't..

senko•29m ago

The post is a zero-information personal rant (good for him/her!), impossible to comment on without violating at least half of the HN guidelines[0].

[0] literally; even this comment violates a few

altmanaltman•22m ago

I mean, if you really extend that line of thinking, human beings are parasites in general. We are just sucking up all the resources to make more Walmarts and McDonald's. It would then be fair to say that humans should be dislodged from the earth and should never have attached to it in the first place. However, that would be a simplistic and rather naive view of how society works and does not have a solid moral standing behind the argument other than an emotional appeal: "THE ROBOTS ARE STEALING OUR HUMANITY!!!"

Rather, why not go deeper? Why not look at the world around you and see what incentives we've built up that allow us to plow trillions of dollars into this without a second thought. We've seen the bust cycles happen and yet here we are: going all-in on a potential technology that might/might not work out as we are hoping it will. If it truly works out as these companies are hoping then it'll be an economic disaster. If it doesn't work as these companies are hoping then it'll be an economic disaster.

Yet the Darios and Altmans of the world always find a way.

Beam: Reflection's 501B open-weight model

Why Plain Text Is Still One of the Best Technologies We Have

GitHub Actions Has Problems

The future of independence is interdependence

Web Search API

Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2018) [pdf]

The Future of Mathematics

Making a GTK application in Haskell, part 1

OpenAI "rogue" agent activities found on Wikimedia projects

How to save a life without knowing CPR

Linux containers in 500 lines of code

Denmark Data Breach Exposes 8.8M People's Personal Data

Show HN: Nightwatch – a Mac menu-bar app that tells you when tonight is clear

One person is now a quorum at the SEC

Anthropic reported diary entry to police, woman faces felony charge

Norway Eyes Partial Ban of Smart Glasses

Huawei and Qualcomm announce broad patent license agreement

The technology to eradicate mosquito-borne disease exists

Differences Between `Foldl` and `Foldr`

The mental health of young men is declining. Experts warn it could get worse

After bankruptcy, he was banned from sports betting sites. Then he found Kalshi

Greenvolt begins building 600 MW/2.4 GWh BESS in Poland

Beating the Compiler

2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Deisseroth, Hegemann, Nagel

Mold Linker Version 3.0.0 Release – Rewritten in Rust

Hot Flashing Guide Rev. 2.0 (2004)

Pixel 11 doesn't yet meet the GrapheneOS security standards and may be skipped

Martian chaos terrain

US closely monitoring case of lab worker who possibly died of plague in Siberia

In the wake of Tippett Studios’ closure, a digital archive appears online