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This from @caseynewton brings to the foreground something that’s been eating at me:
What exactly do Google and OpenAI and Microsoft and the rest of the AI bubble think is going to happen here when LLMs disincentivize the creation of the data that feeds them?!
https://www.platformer.news/google-io-ai-search-sundar-pichai/
Working that out a bit:
The premise of the ad-supported web is that you profit by driving traffic to your site. The premise of LLMs is in large part to •supplant• traffic to web sites. LLMs need people to keep creating web sites. (More in the article.)
In private, behind closed doors, is the expectation that…well, what? That people will just keep posting useful bot-visible information for free?
Is there an expectation that AI model trainers will end up paying for content, and ad revenue is supplanted by “LLM training data fee” revenue? (I can’t imagine GoogleAISoft’s investors think that’s the high-ROI lucrative future they’ve buying.)
Do they privately know this LLM stuff is a bubble, and expect it to burst before data source die-out kills it?
At a guess, it’s all just FOMO greed-panic and nobody’s thinking that far ahead. But truly, I wonder! What •do• they think will happen?!
Yeah, I think @sysadmin1138@octodon.social nailed it.
https://octodon.social/@sysadmin1138/112442908788514243
@inthehands I think they're hoping to make underpaid canyons generate the content. That would be very strange.
@ravenonthill Have cayons ever been paid fairly? Did the Grand Canyon ever make a cent off its fame?
@inthehands DYAC, but it was funny.
@ravenonthill
I figured, and figured I should embrace it!
This situation reminds me of the cartoon strip Zippy The Pinhead, particularly the character Shelf Life - a fast-talking schemer always looking for "the next big thing"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippy_the_Pinhead#Characters_and_story
https://www.zippythepinhead.com/pages/aacast.html
https://zippythepinhead.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ZTP&Product_Code=1stsl
@inthehands @sysadmin1138 not only privately held data that already exists
Just like you get access to certain services in exchange for you watching ads, in the future companies may compel you to produce new data for the continued use of services
Who wants to be the first company offering free or reduced price phone service in exchange for them recording your calls for AI training purposes?
@crazybutable @sysadmin1138@octodon.social Oh god, you’re right
@inthehands @sysadmin1138 (I’m thinking of that apple patent of a camera in the TV that makes you stand up and say “McDonald’s!” before the ad unpauses)
Any one party consent state can have an army of people with small recorders in their backpacks recording all nearby conversations in any park, restaurant, theater, or any other public space
People who submit recordings of any conversation can get credits / coupons / etc based on how much useful text is recoverable from them
@inthehands @sysadmin1138 or sports venues putting clauses in saying they can use any captured footage of you to train their AIs (you already generally agree to a waiver to appear in ads)
@crazybutable @sysadmin1138@octodon.social I mean, you’re still thinking small. Your phone doesn’t just record your calls; the virtual assistant doesn’t just record your interaction. The mic of every internet-connected device is always on, and records and submits •everything• for training.
@inthehands @sysadmin1138 I mean, I trust the Apple tech stack, that they are not doing that without getting my informed consent, and that they are requiring any app that uses the microphone to gain that consent
Apple may be bastards but they aren’t liars. Of course that could change in the future, I don’t trust that to be true forever.
@inthehands @sysadmin1138 imagine every seat with a microphone when you travel on Spirit airlines
Or “these premises under audio/visual surveillance” sign with tiny buried fine print with what they do with the recordings.
Restaurants get a small kickback for installing the “customer insights” cameras and microphones
@inthehands if we're to believe the hype I guess the idea is that magic AGI that no longer require training data is the goal before the collapse
@inthehands I think that most of these execs are making decisions in terms of the next quarter's share price, and little else. "How do we train the models when people stop creating data," is a mess they'll leave for the future. And when they get there, you can expect them to continue to do the most dystopian thing they can think of.