I’m fine with this. “We can’t succeed without breaking the law” isn’t much of an argument.

Do I think the current copyright laws around the world are fine? No, far from it.

But why do they merit an exception to the rules that will make them billions, but the rest of us can be prosecuted in severe and dramatic fashion for much less. Try letting the RIAA know you have a song you’ve downloaded on your PC that you didn’t pay for - tell them it’s for “research and training purposes”, just like AI uses stuff it didn’t pay for - and see what I mean by severe and dramatic.

It should not be one rule for the rich guys to get even richer and the rest of us can eat dirt.

Figure out how to fix the laws in a way that they’re fair for everyone, including figuring out a way to compensate the people whose IP you’ve been stealing.

Until then, deal with the same legal landscape as everyone else. Boo hoo

Just need to get AI on that.

It has been a pretty short trip from “Don’t be evil” to “The cutting edge of late stage capitalism”

git branch testing.stephanie.slept.with.my.friend.brad

Then delete and start over, or don’t use data you don’t have explicit permission to use. in the first place.

It’s like a thief saying “well, I already fenced most of the stuff so it’s too hard to give any of it back. So let’s just call it quits, eh?”

Waiting for 100% oral exams to make a comeback.

I expect a lot more authors will go this (crowdfunding) route; if Kelsey Dionne can get over $1.3 million for a fairly niche TTRPG product (albeit that it was a very well done example of its particular niche), publishing straight up fiction books via crowdfunding has to look pretty damn attractive.

(edit: added a missing word)

What, too soon?

I’m not completely off reddit yet (reduced interaction but still disentangling from it, it’ll probably take a little while yet to be completely gone), but I made the account I have there now in August 2008, just shy of 15 years ago. I lurked for a good while before making that account though. (edit: > 150K comment karma, most participation on low volume subs)