The law was not broken by "super rich people".
It was broken by a company of people who were not very rich at all and have managed to produce billions in value (not dollars, value) by breaking said laws.
They're not trafficking humans or doing predatory lending, they're building AI.
This is why our judicial system literally handles things on a case by case basis.
I just want to make sure I understand this correctly.
Your argument is that this is all fine because it wasn't done by people who were super rich but instead done by people who became super rich and were funded by the super rich?
I just want to check that I have that right. You are arguing that if I'm a successful enough bank robber that this is fine because I pay some fine that is a small portion of what I heisted? I mean I wouldn't have been trafficking humans or doing predatory lending. I was just stealing from the banks and everyone hates the banks.
But if I'm only a slightly successful bank robber stealing only a few million and deciding that's enough, then straight to jail do not pass go, do not collect $200?
It's unclear to me because in either case I create value for the economy as long as I spend that money. Or is the key part what I do what that money? Like you're saying I get a pass if I use that stolen money to invent LLMs?
You're asking me if straight up stealing money from a bank is comparable to stealing books in 2025 to train an AI which will generate untold value for people?
Look, I don't care if you pirate books. But we'd agree that it would be different if you downloaded millions of books and sold them, right?
Now they weren't selling and if it is transformative is still in question. But let's not worry about that. Let's say that you just made billions off of having illegally downloaded all those books.
I hope we can agree that this is a very different thing than a student pirating their school books. The big reason why this leaves a bunch of people with a bad taste in their mouth (even those who believe it is a transformative use) is because the result was dependent on access to those works. Billions were made and nothing was shared with those who built the foundation.
In fact, let's look at this from a very different lens. Do you not think it is a bit upsetting that there are trillion dollar companies that are highly dependent on open source software where there's a single developer who is making no money off of their work? Their work has clear monetary value, but they allowed it to be used for free. Is someone who makes millions, billions, or trillions off of that work obligated to give some back? Not legally, morally. What is fair? Would you give back? Why or why not? Are you grateful? Is it just their loss? What are your thoughts about this?
Yeah in that way the stealing of books is clearly the bigger crime
> It was broken by a company of people who were not very rich at all
I think the company's bank account would beg to differ on that.
> managed to produce billions in value (not dollars, value) by breaking said laws.
Ah, so breaking the law is ok if enough "value" is created? Whatever that means?
> They're not trafficking humans or doing predatory lending, they're building AI.
They're not trafficking humans or doing predatory lending, they're infringing on the copyright of book authors.
Not sure why you ended that sentence with "building AI", as that's not comparing apples to apples.
But sure, ok, so it's ok to break the law if you, random person on the internet, think their end goals are worthwhile? So the ends justify the means, huh?
> This is why our judicial system literally handles things on a case by case basis.
Yes, and Anthropic was afraid enough of an unfavorable verdict in this particular case that they paid a billion and a half to make it go away.