Today, I saw this post on Twitter.

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Now, I also personally know a few people that loudly complain about ‘AI stealing our work!’. Arguments as to why this is a problem fall into two categories:

  1. It is unfair - AI companies make money while we the content makers don’t.
  2. It devalues intellectual work, AI can work now too.

I’ve found both arguments really unconvincing, and the argument, in general, bullshit. Here’s why:

  1. It isn’t unfair, because everyone with a semi-working brain is doing that all the time, even unconsciously. I’ve made a lot of money by learning online from free resources without paying a single $. This is how knowledge works and always has worked ever since Homo sapiens started walking upright and talking, damnit. If an NVIDIA GPU can suddenly listen and learn, that doesn’t suddenly make it unfair.
  2. History shows that good things come from the devaluation of work. How much work did it take 1000 years ago, to write a book? Honestly I don’t even know, what did people use to write and share knowledge? Compare that to today: How much work does it take now? The work devaluation is good, because the humanity needs an infinite amount of it. The less a thing costs, the more we want. Same goes for the domestication of the horse - sure, the professional runners would be pissed to lose their jobs to horse-riders, but we as a whole are better off.

AI is stealing your work, my work, and a 99% of the garbage that is on the internet, and is, in this process, creating useful outputs for everyone without discrimination or prejudice. I don’t remember the AI not answering my query for any reason, and neither do I remember anyone accusing ChatGPT of bigotry – in contrast to humans. Finally, let me ask you this: If your blog had a chance to take part in helping over 900 million weekly active users of ChatGPT, wouldn’t it be immoral to NOT share your blog? I would argue it would be.