> they can never be taken away
Your right to 3d print whatever you want is about to be taken away (in California).
What software you can run on your computer can already be restricted.
Absolutely everything can be taken away. The simplest way to remove open models is probably to declare them a tool that terrorists could use. Crazy? Yes, the world is totally crazy these days.
That only affects people in California. Whereas Fable being shut down affects people all over the world.
There's also, importantly, a distinction between what are told we can no longer use, and what can actually be taken away.
Open source and open hardware can be called illegal by a government, but, if we collectively invest our energy into open alternatives, they can't be taken away in the same sense. I can build a RepRap printer and I can use a local AI model. It's on all of us to make sure that the open alternatives are viable, maybe in the current global political reality now more than ever.
Making something illegal isn't a disincentive for everyone. When they start banning books, some of us start assembling printing presses.
Believe me, if the government wants to stop you from having access to something like that, they could do it. Just give people some incentive to report you and make really harsh punishments and everyone will be thinking really hard about how bad they want have access.
Because that has worked so well for:
* Drugs
* Media piracy
* Alcohol
* Sex work
* Unlicensed gambling
The government is not an all powerful entity with absolute control over its people. Even in countries under past and present dictatorship there are examples of people getting access to what the government deemed as illegal.
I was thinking of this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
Of course you’ll always be able to get access but the risk can be made so high that most people won’t try it.
There are countries that have death penalty on dealing with drugs and really severe prison terms just for having a small amount of drugs. There are still people that do it, but most people are effectively deterred because it’s just not worth it.
> but the risk can be made so high that most people won’t try it.
Possibly I've been mislead about how easy it is to access illegal drugs. I get the impression most people have actually tried them; or at least have easy access if they feel like it. Although I haven't bothered to look up the stats so maybe that is mistaken.
Hypothetically... say I rent out some server space in Russia, host GLM 5.2 and charge/pay for everything with crypto (one of the privacy coins). How exactly would the US government shut that little operation down? Or make it more risky for any participant than marijuana or torrenting? Even detecting it is an interesting technical challenge. It seems like it'd be low-skill and low-risk, and take insane resources on the part of the US to stamp out for something so harmless. The hydra would be growing heads faster than they could cut them off.
This isn't bars of gold, they can search my house all they like and there isn't going to be a lot in it. They would probably struggle to figure out who I am to do a targeted raid, let alone all the other small fry who could pull of a similar scheme.
Did that cause the complete disappearance of gold from private hands?
Probably not, but I never claimed that’s what happens. But for a regular person, it’s probably a high enough risk to stop doing the thing the government wants to disincentivize.
Fun fact: Hacker News is canonically banned in China, but I'm still talking here. There are plenty of techs to work around region block. The incentive to report somebody is comically called '50w' (500k CNY) and no one gives a shit about it in real life.
Hello from the US! I'll never not be amazed by the fact that we live in a point in human history where language and distance are no longer barriers to the exchange of ideas, despite the efforts of our governments.
They know. They just don't want a international incident to deal with. But if the shit hits the fan, they know.
What’s the penalty if you get caught?
Well, sure. The same could be said of any freedom they want to take away. The responsibility is on us to preserve those freedoms. Free software, open hardware, right to repair, privacy tools, etc. will all be the weapons of the people in the fight against totalitarianism.
They can stop piracy or child predators. what makes you think they can prevent access to running models that require no internet access to run
Piracy is in a practical Golden Age rn and the Epstein Files exist - so the Government doesn't really do either of those things very well at all.
Plus for a certain type of person "Piracy" is more of a philosophical belief or political position - there are fundamentalist equivalent, very proficient, "Pirates" who will under no circumstances stop and are not doing it for money. There are obviously an enormous amount who are in it for the money - "big brand names" now reportedly comprise as high as 63% of the advertising on illicit piracy sites - I'm too lazy to get the link, that sentence ought to be enough tho if you want to look into that bizarre reality.
I'm not certain either of those things are in the Government's direct control - both require society at large to share the belief and essentially choose not to do said activities.
(Regarding your second example, unfortunately most abusers are people children know, the Epstein Class was supposed to be just Q Anon crazy conspiracy stuff, none of this is ok in any fashion. Both exist, one local entirely beyond the government - the other appears to have incorporated people from government.)
My point is simply this - WE determine what the Government can do. What we believe matters more than anything else. Don't ever discredit The People's ability - we are pretty awesome.
They can’t even stop people typing “can” when they mean “can’t”. :P
the government is not God, they cant do much beyond declaring anything bad.
It is on people to realize we have the ultimate power and oppose the overreach of government in all ways we can to keep our freedoms.
Freedom is not free, after all
Fortunately we have both a democracy and a constitution, making those sorts of things hard for the government to do.
> That only affects people in California
That’s not how any of it (human nature) works
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There’s going to be more and more propaganda about open models being a tool to program your children into being Chinese spies or some other absurd reason, and then a new beautiful law will be enacted unanimously, banning their use. And “thankfully," child-protecting measures will by then be implemented at the OS level.
Just like declaring piracy illegal stopped piracy and removed pirated materials from everyone's computers.
Everything cannot, in fact, be taken away. Don't propagandize yourself. Some things, like information, are free. Not even China can prevent all its citizens from accessing Western internet. USGov simply does not have the resources to find and audit every hard drive and USB stick in the country for illegal files. The internet cannot be censored 100% without literally cutting every cable and confiscating every radio.
The software that runs on my computer cannot, in fact, be restricted. It can be declared illegal, but there literally is no mechanism by which it can be enforced other than a government goon standing over my shoulder 24/7.
Some freedoms really cannot be removed without utterly implausible amounts of effort. Arguing otherwise is helping to erode freedom. So stop it.
Maybe we can each get assigned an AI government goon to look over our shoulders 24/7. Maybe each neuron in my brain will have their own subagent goon. Each mitochondria gets their own subagent government goon. The government will perfectly model my every move. They will perfectly model the smell of my asparagus piss aroma.
Remote attestation?
On PCs, the best you could really do is restrict access to certain websites on certain boxes with TPMs the users can't disable. Remote attestation can lock people out of your stuff, but not out of their own stuff. For that you need control of the device. Of course, most mobile phones aren't easy for the user to have control of, but most PCs still are, so long as you scrub the rootkits (e.g. windows) off 'em
it doesnt even work in the government's own servers to protect their own shit
You wouldn't download a car?
In Soviet Russia, one couldn't download a car. In modern America, cars upload you.
> What software you can run on your computer can already be restricted.
Yes, over my dead body.
Your right to 3d print has been taken away, but not your ability.
Well that's true isn't it? If your goal is to blow up the proverbial Death Star, you want to be running your AI locally, right?
Anything can be taken away, yes.
But in a free and democratic society, there's an enormous difference between "the democratically chosen state powers may take something from me" and "a private entity takes away something from me on an inscrutable whim with no recourse".
Neither is good if you don't want the thing taken away. But removing the second mechanism is still a laudable goal.
I think one is worse than two. Only governments have the power of violence.
Currently there's very much of a blur between "democratically chosen state" and "a private entity" (with a lot of money).
And we want them to. And to have the power to take things away. It's all a matter of degree and details.
> What software you can run on your computer can already be restricted.
Are laws that are inherently unenforceable even laws?
With the age verification and whatnot, these laws are getting more enforceable with time.