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When Conquistadors stole Aztec gold — which largely came in the form of cultural artifacts or religious items — they often melted it down into simple, crude even, gold bars for easier transport:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gold-bar-once-belonged-aztec-emperor-moctezuma-180973959/

After all, they were not interested in the cultural and religious significance of these items. They just wanted the gold, which they could easily sell to others.

By reducing it to the raw material they destroyed the cultural and historical context. We are all poorer for it.

🧵/1

Spanish Conquistadors Stole This Gold Bar From Aztec Emperor Moctezuma's Trove

Forces led by Hernán Cortés dropped the looted treasure during a hasty retreat from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in June 1520
Theresa Machemer (Smithsonian Magazine)
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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
I think it is fair to say that such destruction of cultural artifacts, such reduction of items that had meaning and significance to people is a type of violence in and of itself, regardless of how these items were acquired.

But of course those who created these works of art and these religious items in the first place, and others for whom they had significance — maybe they were family heirlooms? — were never asked for consent.

Conquistadors took it all because nobody could stop them.

🧵/2
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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
When #AI techbros train their #LLMs on people's works, these works are similarly removed from their individual context, "melted down" into the raw material — training data. Just disembodied words and phrases and sentences for the model to parrot later.

Historical and cultural and social context of these works is destroyed, melted away.

And it also happens without consent.
And it also happens on a gigantic scale.
And it also happens because techbros can sell the output.

#Writing

🧵/3
#AI #writing #llms
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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
And it also happens because nobody can stop them from crawling the open web and slurping all these cultural artifacts into their training raw materials.

After all, "this was all out there in the open; by publishing it online, authors asked for it to be crawled."

And it also, I dare say, is a form of violence.

And we will also be poorer for it.

#AI

🧵/4/end
#AI
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Andrew
same energy as “its on google images so its free”
pettter
There's a whole book that could be written about the generations of internet folks who have continuously predicted that not doing copyright reform is going to benefit no one but the large companies for whom laws simply do not apply.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
I think @pluralistic already co-wrote that book, it's called Chokepoint Capitalism. 👀
@Cory Doctorow
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pettter
@pluralistic Ah, still on the list I'm afraid, but this might bump it up a couple of notches ;)
@Cory Doctorow
Mastodon Migration
There is a kind of maniacal enthusiasm for engineering technical things that ignore inherent rights. Just because it is technically feasible to build something, does not mean that it is legal or morally justifiable.

This same headlong rush is now going on with illegal Fediverse bridges to corporate platforms that extract a license to the content. These bridge builders do not have the right to license Fediverse content. The copyright belongs to the author of the content.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@mastodonmigration and even if we ignore the legality aspect, it can still be immoral and wrong to do
@Mastodon Migration
Mastodon Migration
It all kind of has its genesis in Napster and Youtube. When these things came out, many were shocked by the blatant disregard for content rights that they flaunted. Never-the-less they persisted, grew fast, and while licensing issues were eventually adjudicated, the lesson that Silicon Valley learned was to "go fast and break things" (like laws and ethical boundaries) and clean up later after pocketing billions. It's now the standard MO of tech culture.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@mastodonmigration there is also a lot wrong with copyright as it stands today. I don't like the term "content rights" just as I don't like the term "content", as it also make it seem as if works are interchangeable, a "resource" to be used by the big players.

We need to reform copyright such that authors actually get more agency. Both in the sense of being able to control how big corporations exploit their works, but also in the sense of being able to build on previous works of others.
@Mastodon Migration
Gerardo Lisboa
@mastodonmigration

You don't need to reform copyright because of that. You already have plenty of control in the Law.

Scraping online content and use it in ways it isn't allowed is illegal.

What you need is to enforce the Law: identify the cases and bring them to court.

Otherwise you'll just fall in to the hole of DRM and perpetual copyright.

What the _buyers_ of those systems MUST require is the identification of the sources used.
@Mastodon Migration
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@gvlx I was talking about copyright reform in a more general sense. Copyright law as it stands today benefits the gatekeepers and Big Tech way more than it benefits individual creators.
@mastodonmigration
@Gerardo Lisboa @Mastodon Migration
Gerardo Lisboa
@mastodonmigration

Once copyrights are traded you no longer distinguish authors and holders.

I would call on copyright sales contract reform, where the original authors always keep a share of the each subsequent sale's proceedings, through out their life.

I think that is something that has already the subject of discussion in the art world.
@Mastodon Migration
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@gvlx

> Once copyrights are traded you no longer distinguish authors and holders.

And that's one of the problems.

In Polish copyright law that distinction remains, though, to some extent.

@mastodonmigration
@Gerardo Lisboa @Mastodon Migration
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
> I would call on copyright sales contract reform, where the original authors always keep a share of the each subsequent sale's proceedings, through out their life.

Definitely not "throughout their life", as that blocks creativity (especially of young, up-and-coming creators) that thrives on cultural references and ability to base on previous culturally significant work.

Consider all the stuff around Mickey Mouse and how Disney stifles independent creativity.

@mastodonmigration
@Mastodon Migration
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Bi—zaar
Please, would you put it in your blog?
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@XavCC amazing, thank you. I feel honored!

Yest, toots are CC By-SA, and this kind of thing is exactly why. I believe this is the first time somebody translated my thread to another language! :blobblush:
@Bi—zaar
Kevin Karhan :verified:
well, you technically CAN by literally blocking their IPs and ASNs, but that'll require #TechLiteracy and people actually investing time and effort in it, thus making tech less accessible for #TechIlliterates.

Corpe problem is how #Copyright and shit it setup to only benefit rich corporations!
https://mstdn.social/@kkarhan/110649611911474303
#copyright #TechIlliterates #techliteracy
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
you can block ASNs and IPs, they can start using Tor or cycle through IP addresses. And they have enough resources to do so.

It's not about tech literacy, it's about power dynamics and resource differential.
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Kevin Karhan :verified:
well, botting trhoug #Tor doesn't work well - and whilst one could do an #OnionService and forcibly redirect #Tor #ExitNode IPs to it [ https://github.com/greyhat-academy/lists.d/blob/main/blocklists.list.tsv#L17 ] your core argument is OFC valid, as this would mostly stall them until they invested heavily into @torproject infrastructure themselves...

As long as IP adress space and bandwith are purchaseable with money, the internet WILL INEVITABLY reflect the injustices and inequalities of #capitalism.

lists.d/blocklists.list.tsv at main · greyhat-academy/lists.d

List of useful things. Contribute to greyhat-academy/lists.d development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
#capitalism #tor #exitnode #onionservice @The Tor Project
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@kkarhan exactly. And so while tech literacy is important (I've been shouting this from the rooftops for quite a few years now), the focus here needs to be on these injustices and inequalities. They're the cause.
@Kevin Karhan :verified:
Thomas Manthey
isn't that analogy wrong since incorporating a text into the training material of a#LLM does not destroy the original?
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@thomas_manthey it's an analogy.

No analogy is ever perfect. Some are useful or illuminating.

I find this one to be both, you may disagree. 🤷‍♀️
@Thomas Manthey
carahuata
We see such examples of cultural destruction all over the Americas. They melted down countless gold objects, built churches over pyramids, and destroyed all but four books of maya writing just to name a few.
Skele8tron
There has to be a way to poison those datasets, to turn them worthless. Next gen monkeywrenching.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@skele_tron exactly.

I mean, given enough time and given enough AI-generated crap on the Web (amount of which will rise exponentially…), these tools will become useless anyway. Hoist by their own hallucinations, so to speak.

But I wonder if we can speed up that process and maybe even "term-bomb" them in the meantime.
@Skele8tron
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