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this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2026
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Let's assume, for a moment, that LLMs are trained on publicly available data. In other words, they're not stealing or pirating that data, just to simplify the argument. (Although, to be fair, some LLM developers have done exactly that and are facing legal consequences.)
Publicly available data is just that: publicly available. Anyone can access it, including individuals, businesses, and AI developers. They're not stealing something that is freely accessible to literally everyone.
And that's the dilemma: either that information is freely available to everyone, or it isn't. You can't argue that it's free for you and me to access but somehow off-limits to OpenAI or Grok simply because they're using it for a different purpose. That's not how public access works.
So, they're not stealing anything under the assumption we're making here. To answer your original question, no, I don't have an issue with them stealing the internet.
The thing about ownership is that unless something else is specified, everything is ARR by default.
Adding insult to injury, they don't care about licenses...
You may be allowed to consume but not to sell that content
But they're not selling that content. I cannot begin to tell you how often I encounter this exact line of reasoning.
If a painter creates an original painting inspired by Rembrandt, Rembrandt's estate doesn't receive royalties simply because his work served as inspiration.
LLMs and other AI models generate novel content. They don't simply copy established works and regurgitate them verbatim. The training process allows these models to identify patterns, relationships, and structures in enormous datasets, which they then use to generate new material.
As usual, much of the anti-AI rhetoric on this platform comes from a place of absolute ignorance regarding how these models actually work, how they function, and how they're trained.
I want to fundamentally differentiate between AI and Humans. A machine cannot feel emotions, a machine isn't bound to the very natural struggles of a biological meaning. Therefore, an AI cannot create what I would call art. A machine, like AI, is very much intended to efficiently prosuce large quantities of something. The profit Motive is therefore deeply engrained in their existence -- unlike an artist, who primarily expresses themselves.
In the case of a machine, I definitely think that royalties are justified, because it cannot create new, it can only recreate.
I mean, that's certainly your interpretation. An incorrect one, in my opinion, but nevertheless, you're entitled to it.
More importantly, it's completely beside the point of what I was trying to communicate and has very little relevance to the actual discussion.
It doesn't matter who creates the media, so long as the result is novel. If I ask an LLM to generate an image of a flower, and that image has never existed before, then it is, by definition, something new. You are perfectly entitled to refuse to call it art. That's your prerogative. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and art is ultimately a subjective designation. I can call something art just as easily as you can refuse to.
And, unfortunately, for both of us, what either of us personally considers art has absolutely no bearing on the novelty, existence, or validity of the resulting creation. Our personal opinions on the matter are entirely irrelevant to those questions.