I don't think that's the rebuttal you think it is.

GP's argument is usually used in the sense of "if I hadn't done it, someone else would, so I might as well do it and the end result will be the same, except then I'll reap the rewards".

It's a crap justification for doing something unethical. But in many cases, even the unethical ones, it's also true, and I think in this case it is too. If the US had magically shut down every AI lab on day one, and banned all AI research, that wouldn't have stopped this train. Probably would have slowed it down, but not enough to really matter.

I never said it was justified, just observed that it would happen and is happening, regardless of what "AI proponents" want to happen. IP law, like many laws regarding business practices, have and always had varying regulatory environments around the world when countries find it advantageous for their economies to have those environments.

Regardless of whether or not we agree with it, adherence to our idea of IP law is not something the whole world agrees upon, even before LLMs.

> That's an age-old rationalization for everything.

Sometimes they're actually true.

Repeatedly tell people climate change is a serious problem for over half a century -> hand wringing.

Make solar panels cheap -> renewables become 99.2% of net new electricity generation in the US.

You need something that looks like the second one.

In this case, this is what people want - they're fed up with all the IP bullshit, but never before had the tools to trivially bypass it. Now we have.

Also that age-old rationalization has generally always been true.