Indeed. This whole LLM has been a planetary scale theft of labor. They stole our labor and are now leasing it back to us as rent-seeking on the means of production.

Those of us who refuse to use that stolen labor are loosing our jobs, fast.

▲

Rapzid 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's not even limited to software engineering.

I'm sure word is getting around of MBAs and etc getting access to GitLab and using AI to make python apps. Look, you don't need devs anymore?

Okay, but wouldn't a software engineer be better at that? "No, because I'm an SME, I know finance!". Right, but the LLM knows finance?

A year ago these tools were assistants, copilots, but know.. It's clear if the pace doesn't plateau or slow greatly we are headed towards replacement of massive swaths of knowledge workers.

And it risks completely destroying our society due to the economic fallout from mass unemployment..

	▲	astrange 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		“If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what [Alan] Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God.” -- Paul Krugman, 1997 Note this does not say "it will decrease if we suddenly invent new productivity technologies".
	▲	lowbloodsugar 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Jokes on them. You don’t need MBAs any more. You just need the cash or a credit line.

▲

skybrian 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you mean publishing open source code, they didn’t steal it. We gave it away. Generosity has always been vulnerable to “exploitation,” but some of apparently understood that risk better than others.

▲

Rapzid 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My jumping off point was OSS, but I was actually talking about the entirety of human knowledge being used to make a few people insanely rich while sending everyone else who made the LLM training possible to the bread line.

▲

runarberg 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, I reject this framing. Copyright violations are orthogonal to labor theft. Labor theft can include copyright violation, but it doesn’t have to. My MIT licensed code may not have been violated (it probably was though; where is the copy of the notice that my license requires?) but my labor was for sure stolen.

I am fine with people using my work, copying my source code, and distributing derivative work. I am not fine with AI companies stealing everyone’s work and renting it back to us.

▲

skybrian 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Stealing labor itself isn’t actually a thing. Your wages could be stolen, except - what wages? Maybe the output from your labor could be stolen, but not if nothing material was lost. If you can’t point to a specific intellectual property violation, you have no case.

Did they steal Wikipedia? Wikipedia is still there.

▲

runarberg an hour ago | parent [-]

Stealing my labor means that I do all the work, and they take all the profit.

This would be true even if I signed a contract stating that I give all my labor away for free to my exploiter. You cannot sign away your rights like that, and my exploiter is not allowed to abuse my goodwill this way.

▲

skybrian 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

It sounds like you're making a claim to someone else's profits with a very thin rationale for why you had anything to do with it. Basically, claiming something that never was yours and has next to nothing to do with anything you worked on.

	▲	runarberg 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		My labor was mine. Even the worst capitalist ideologues admit that workers own their own labor and the sell it to their employer for wages. You are basically arguing in feudalism. My labor belonged to my landlord and they had full right to take all the profit for them selves.

▲

atomicUpdate an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You already valued your own labor at zero by giving it away for free. How is taking something you give away for free suddenly considered "stealing"?

	▲	runarberg an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The same way that Fitzcarraldo stole the labor of the Amazon Indians when they moved the ship over the mountain in order to profit from the rubber. Previously when I licensed my code with a liberal license I got something back, credit, contributions, connections, job opportunities, etc. The AI companies stole my labor, then they demanded I pay them, and finally they took my job.