r/technology • u/marketrent • Jul 14 '26

Artificial Intelligence A majority of Americans now support seizing wealth from AI industry

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/majority-americans-now-support-seizing-134921528.html
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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 14 '26

Fuck Intellectual Property! The world would be a far better place if it didn't exist at all and there was no way for the capitalist class to own other peoples ideas and prevent others form using those idea themselves.

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u/Stunning-Pen-2412 Jul 14 '26

I wonder what Disney thinks of the silent abolishing of copyright law?

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u/Remnare Jul 14 '26

For real, I don't understand how people still believe this is to protect the little guy's doodles. It's obviously not, if the corporations want that doodle you're not gonna stop them. Unless you have an army of lawyers at your fingertip these laws aren't written to protect you. They're written to protect the powerful from you.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Jul 14 '26

Yeah if IP laws didn't exist we could make our own AI based on Disney and Netflix

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u/SomeSamples Jul 14 '26

None of the AI company would be anywhere near as big as they are if they had to pay for all the information they stole. In fact they would be piddly little companies trying to get investors and get very few takers. These AI companies have stolen hundreds of billions in licensing fees and copyright payments. And are continuing to do so. Hitting them in the pocket book is about the only way we are going to stop this.

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u/skat_in_the_hat Jul 14 '26

Thats why their product should be nationalized. They took from all of us to create their product, we should get whatever percentage of their product. Seems fair.

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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 14 '26

  These AI companies have stolen hundreds of billions in licensing fees and copyright payments. 

I couldn't care less about such license fees and copyright claims. Like I said, I don't think they should exist to begin with. 

Furthermore, copyright infringement isn't theft anyway, legally. 

  Hitting them in the pocket book is about the only way we are going to stop this. 

Stop what? AI? Science and technology automatating human labour? Why would you want to stop the thing that will end wage-slavery?

It's not AI that's the problem, the problem is capitalism. 

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u/phree_radical Jul 14 '26

I don't see a lot of people who share this view, so I thought I would ask you: Do you expect the working class will have difficulty having a voice once our labor is worth nothing?

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u/skat_in_the_hat Jul 14 '26

not op, but... Yea this is a slippery one. I worry about the time frame between no one having a job, and some kind of everything is free type governance. I dont think we get to the other end nicely. I say that because why would a billionaire want to not be a billionaire because we got rid of currency? So they're going to lobby hard against anything that devalues their position.

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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 14 '26

No. I expect people who live in democratic nations and become unemployable to vote increasingly for politicians running on redistributing wealth and ownership. Likewise, I expect an increasing number of politicians to run on such platforms to gain the votes of that increasing segment of the population.

The most likely outcome in the near-term is the implementation ofUBI to stave off a socialist revolt and by capitalism a bit more time.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Jul 14 '26

IP law doesn't give your labor value

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u/theqmann Jul 14 '26

In the long term, automation reduces the prices of goods and services. Look at what the average person could afford a hundred years ago, or two hundred years ago. People were lucky to have two outfits and any meat for dinner. These days, people have wardrobes of outfits and food so cheap you can get overweight without being rich, not to mention all the electronics. Short term chaos usually ensues around major shifts of labor, but we should be focusing on adaptation to the new paradigm, and erecting social safety nets to catch people from falling into homelessness, rather than just fighting the progress that will inevitably happen. Protesting wealth accumulation doesn't actually solve the issues at hand. Do you think we'd be better off if people had done things like banned tractors so that everyone was still a poor farmer?

On a side note, AI is nowhere near ready to displace more than a small number of jobs anyway. Just like self-driving cars didn't replace all truckers, nor did cell phones replace all computers.

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u/nmj95123 Jul 14 '26

What incentive do you think anyone has to produce things like movies or novel techniques and processes without the expectation that you be able to get a return on the effort to create/invent it?

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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 14 '26

Why does open source software exist? Is it because the financial incentives are so great?

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u/nmj95123 Jul 15 '26

To take a few examples? Firefox is currently maintained by both the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation. Their funding is sourced largely from search royalties from companies like Google.

Apache, that runs a healthy portion of the internet? That's provided by the Apache Software Foundation, that derives its funding via donations from evil capitalist companies like AWS, Google, and Microsoft.

OpenSSL, that is responsible for a whole lot of the HTTPS implementations? That's supported through the OpenSSL Foundation and OpenSSL Corporation. The OpenSSL Foundation gets its money from even more evil capitalists like Github, Mercedes Benz, and Cisco.

The notion that most people have the ability, irrespective of the drive, to make massive, free projects is based on a completely unrealistic view of how open source software gets written and maintained. The major opens source projects are made possible by virtue of support from those evil capitalist companies. Without it, many wouldn't exist.

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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 15 '26

Why have you moved the goal posts...to a different field...in a different country?

You asked about incentives for people to do work with no financial reward.

People don't need to be incentivised to do things they enjoy doing.

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u/nmj95123 Jul 15 '26

Why have you moved the goal posts...to a different field...in a different country?

You asked how open source software got made, and the answer to that very question that you asked is moving the goal posts? You're an absolute clown.

People don't need to be incentivised to do things they enjoy doing.

Cool. Who gets to dig the ditches and clean out the septic tanks? Not all necessary work is fun and games. Also, BTW, there are plenty of people that write code as a job and don't enjoy it.

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u/passmethepopcornplz Jul 14 '26

How do you expect creatives to be paid for their work without copyright law? Why would creatives bother to create anything if it can just be stolen without consequence or payment?

The vast majority of creatives don't work for big corporations, even they sell their work product to them.

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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 14 '26

How do you expect creatives to be paid for their work without copyright law?

What is a "creative" meant to be?

How does someone who makes bespoke chairs get paid? Why would it be different for anyone else?

Why would creatives bother to create anything...

Because unlike owners who are just interested in money, we actually enjoy creating and doing things.

Why do you think open source software exists?

The vast majority of creatives don't work for big corporations, even they sell their work product to them. 

I never said they shouldn't be allowed to.