I usually don’t even understand the lingo they use. “Open-weighted” is the most recent one, then it usually goes down to specific “models” that everybody is supposed to know about.

These are my thoughts (I will stick to the vague “it” for now, but of course therein lies another question: “and how does all this apply to various specialised AIs”):

  • Is it really feasible to run it 100% locally? I know there’s plenty of people with very powerful rigs indeed, but still. Or are 99% of these people really saying “it would, in theory, be possible to run that locally, therefore your concerns are invalid”?
  • If yes to the previous: the software doesn’t come from nowhere and ultimately still relies on gas-turbine-powered datacenters and stolen IP and stolen personal data, no?

If what I wrote above is true, what exactly are people arguing when they say it’s still possible to use LLMs ethically or true to FOSS philosophy, because … ???

edit

Thanks to all who answered.

I guess it’s my fault for asking several questions in one, but this thread has attracted exactly the type of people I’m writing about; several even used the term “open-weighted models” without explaining it.

Asking to get arguments explained, I got more arguments instead.

  • A_norny_mousse@piefed.socialOPEnglish
    5·
    24 hours ago

    Where is the IP theft if money isn’t changing hands?

    Money not changing hands is pretty much the definition of theft.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
      2·
      22 hours ago

      What I’m saying is it’s akin to writing a fanfic or making fanart of your favorite franchise. Or getting inspired by a painting you see, and making something similar yourself.

      Do that for your personal enjoyment? That’s fair use, under the law.

      But the moment you start trying to sell it is when you get in legal hot water, and when it’s indeed morally problematic.

      The scale is different, but I’d argue a similar principle applies: if you use some model trained on public works from a protected IP, but the model and its outputs are not resold, nor profited from, it’s not theft. The point is beyond money not changing hands; there’s no profit being made from the original author’s stuff. They aren’t being taken advantage of any more than someone viewing their public stuff for free, or someone creating derivatives from private work.

      But all that is off the table the moment profit and distribution is involved.