148 pointsby throwworhtthrow7 hours ago11 comments
  • int32_645 hours ago
    Aaron Swartz was facing up to 35 years for wire fraud and hacking for swiping some JSTOR documents, and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics.
    • snickerbockersan hour ago
      Because that's not what IP law is for. IP law was always corporate rent-seeking. None of those arguments about fairly compensating people for their creations or preserving the profit motive were ever being made in good faith. The point was always to force you to pay for something that would be free under natural laws. And I do mean you specifically, because the act of copying information freely was always going to be preserved for them.
    • gruez5 hours ago
      >and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics.

      For good reason. Courts have so far ruled AI training is fair use, and it doesn't look likely to be overturned by the supreme court. Theres also the matter of some labs pirating books to get training data, which is illegal (they lost in civil court), but it's unclear whether that can be criminally prosecuted.

      • c2h5oh3 hours ago
        Courts have also ruled that sharing in P2P network is enough to get hit with 150k in statutory damages per shared work.

        AI companies did quite a bit of uploading while e.g. getting Anna's archive over BitTorrent.

        • eastbound2 hours ago
          It's transformative. Not aimed at exact reproduction, so not in the scope of copyright law.
          • tareqak2 hours ago
            They participated in uploading the files as part of the downloading the torrent from other peers. Their use of the BitTorrent protocol to acquire these files would not have been transformative.
            • DANmode5 minutes ago
              > They participated in uploading the files as part of the downloading the torrent from other peers.

              Did they?

              Are you sure?

          • lobf2 hours ago
            I think you misread. There is nothing transformative about bittorrent automatically sharing parts of a file you're downloading with your peers.
      • adastra224 hours ago
        Hacking other companies is illegal as far as I understand.
        • gruez4 hours ago
          1. OP specifically mentioned "IP violating antics", not hacking

          2. All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent, which so far as we can tell didn't exist in those cases. At best you can try some "reckless" or "negligent" angle, but that would a novel legal argument and would be risky to prosecute

          • someothherguyy3 hours ago
            > All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent

            No, they don't, see laws that make negligent behavior illegal

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

          • crote3 hours ago
            But officer, I didn't mean for my autonomous bank vault busting robot to autonomously bust any bank vaults!
      • crote3 hours ago
        Okay, and? If anything, the Swartz case was even more direct fair use. There's very little to use JSTOR for which isn't some form of teaching, scholarship, or research!

        Clearly the fact that the end-use is (possibly) fair use isn't the only thing that matters.

      • Madmallard2 hours ago
        It wouldn't be ruled fair use in a sane society without bribery and lobbying with competent technologically savvy law interpreters.
    • tptacek4 hours ago
      It's not at all relevant to this thread, but no he wasn't. At their worst, prosecutors were threatening to push for 7 years; the guideline sentence for Swartz's offense, were he to take it to trial and lose, would likely have been under the level allowing for straight probation (go to a sentencing calculator and plug the values in); writing after his death, his own lawyer stated that had he gone to trial and lost he was unlikely to face a custodial sentence at all.

      We get this "35 year" number from adding up all the counts he faced, taking their maximum sentence. That's just not how sentencing works. Like charges group, and you're sentenced according to the most severe charge.

      People cite these numbers in part because DOJ posts them in their press releases. DOJ is in these instances lying. When we amplify those lies, we're doing their work for them.

    • sorokod10 minutes ago
      The obligatory:

      “The rain falls upon the just

      And also on the unjust fellas

      But mostly it falls upon the just

      Cause the unjust have

      the just’s umbrellas.”

    • charcircuit27 minutes ago
      Aaron Swartz was not charged for violating IP either.
    • ronnier3 hours ago
      So you are for shutting down xcancel?
    • dearing3 hours ago
      Michel Foucault enters the chat.
      • eadler3 hours ago
        I've read a fair amount of Foucault and while I could guess, what specifically were you thinking of?
        • dearing3 hours ago
          Aaron sees safety in sharing, interests see threats in the shared, governence see threats in the sharing.
  • nlan hour ago
    The Register of course take what Kahn says (where he is arguing that no new laws need to be created to regulate AI) and taking extending it to say "breakout the handcuffs".

    Kahn doesn't even imply that. Instead he's making a well reasoned point about using existing tools (as many in this discussion point out existing laws could be applied to inadequately controlled cyber incidents)

    • georgemcbay40 minutes ago
      Lina Khan is a woman. Not that it is particularly relevant here, but just letting you know.
    • chneu40 minutes ago
      Kahn is a woman.
  • afavour5 hours ago
    It won’t happen, but if it did the CEOs have no one but themselves to blame. They’re hyping up their products as being able to destroy the human race then are somehow surprised at the level of anti-AI sentiment out there in the world.
    • pjc503 hours ago
      If the nuclear power or life sciences people were putting out press releases saying "our product may kill us all", they'd be dragged into endless Congressional inquiries.
      • nfujd726 minutes ago
        Wasnt the Oppenheimer story basically that?
    • mikrl5 hours ago
      I honestly don’t know what anyone expected given all the labs started building self-driving malware at about the same time.

      I remember lots of people talking about running agents in VMs or on whole dedicated machines, yet barely anyone talking about how they were using mundane OS access controls.

    • verdverman hour ago
      > level of anti-AI sentiment out there in the world.

      I'd caution about projecting Western Ai attitudes onto the rest of the world. Some countries are very excited and optimistic about the future it brings, cultures and circumstances give rise to differences in opinions.

      One of many results showing a similar pattern, largely bifurcated along "the west" vs "the rest", or "modern economies" vs "third world" ("common terms" used even though I'm not a fan of them)

      https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/publi...

      • chneu43 minutes ago
        Even in the western world most anti-ai sentiment ends on social media.

        People are anti-ai cuz it's easy. They say something, repost or like something, and they're anti-ai. Then they turnaround and use AI in their email or calendar or to make funny pics or whatever. They watch AI generated content and engage with it.

        Anti-AI is pretty NIMBY. People want AI, they just don't want AI data centers in their area or to give up their use/privilege.

  • throwworhtthrow7 hours ago
    Source: https://x.com/linamkhan/status/2099204390548639960 (seems like a single post, so you don't need to log in and see replies)

    I can't tell if Khan is being realistic when she says laws against “unfair or deceptive [acts]” or “unfair methods of competition” apply to AI labs. Her 2-sentence justifications aren't enough to convince me. But maybe it's sufficient for state AG's who want to start investigations.

    • devindotcom3 hours ago
      She is a former FTC Chair so she knows what she's talking about, although her approach to enforcement was more expansive than others. The FTC would investigate, likely along the lines she summarizes, build a case in writing, and refer it to the Justice Dept, which would actually prosecute the case. Not going to happen under this administration, but Khan is saying it's entirely possible that such an enforcement action could be brought to bear, now or later. Personally I hope she gets her job back at some point and does it herself.
    • georgemcbay29 minutes ago
      > I can't tell if Khan is being realistic when she says laws against “unfair or deceptive [acts]” or “unfair methods of competition” apply to AI labs. Her 2-sentence justifications aren't enough to convince me.

      As I read it, her whole point is that those laws apply to everyone, including AI Labs.

      She isn't saying AI Labs are in violation of those laws (though she is implying they should be scrutinized for possibly being so), she's just saying that if they do violate those laws... well, those laws are already on the books and AI Labs aren't special unicorns for which existing laws somehow don't apply.

  • fwlr5 hours ago
    The passage banning “unfair competition” is utterly marvellous:

        A trader may not, by pursuing a dishonest practice, force his competitors to choose between its adoption or the loss of their trade. A method of competition [is ‘unfair’ when it] casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal… 
    
        It is true that the statute does not authorize regulation which has no purpose other than that of relieving merchants from troublesome competition …  But here the competitive method is shown to exploit [those] who are unable to protect themselves. It employs a device [that has] met with condemnation throughout the community. Without inquiring whether [other criminal statues apply] … it is clear that the practice is of the sort which the common law and criminal statutes have long deemed contrary to public policy. For these reasons a large share of the industry holds out against the device, despite ensuing loss in trade, or bows reluctantly to what it brands unscrupulous. It would seem a gross perversion of the normal meaning of the word … to hold that the method is not 'unfair.'
    
    Apply it immediately!
    • verdverman hour ago
      > For these reasons a large share of the industry holds out against the device

      This is where I stop agreeing, there are some, not large parts any more; not because they were forced to adopt it, but because it has finally become useful and an ROI. This is most evident in pull request reviews and root-cause analysis, both tasks they accel at without the generated code some people bemoan. If you aren't using it for this, you are doing a disservice to yourself and the quality of your code. Because more of industry feels this way, I do not believe the 'unfair' part (compelled to use it or lose your trade) will hold up, we want to use it because it makes us better at our trade

    • homeonthemtn5 hours ago
      ^ further evidence that the problem with democracy isn't democracy, it's that we lack politicians willing to enforce it
      • collingreen4 hours ago
        Isn't that just the human problem for every possible form of government?
      • Tractor86263 hours ago
        Just elect correct politicians doh
        • zhivota3 hours ago
          I was reading a post about the life of a congressman and it's actually horrifying, on the level of the stores of salarymen in Japan who sacrifice everything for the company.

          For me personally being famous is a curse already, pile on top of that the endless fundraising, constant travel, the reality that you're a tiny cog in a huge party machine, and it's a recipe for only attracting the type who has a plan to parlay it into something else - a higher office, a lucrative career in lobbying, outright corruption, etc.

          We're not going to get good government without addressing this issue, and we can't because of another issue, ad nauseam.

  • arjie3 hours ago
    All these things do is market a preemptive universal Presidential pardon - Hunter Biden style. And this President successfully sells those. So I suppose it’s marketing to enrich him.
    • xhevahiran hour ago
      You're suggesting that Lina Khan is trying to give Trump an opportunity to pardon AI company people?
      • verdverm42 minutes ago
        by suggesting criminal prosecution of his "friends" (has none in reality) after he is not president, Khan is indirectly giving Trump an excuse to use Biden's excuse for his son (which I still support him having done given the other petty uses of the US govt Donald the Trump has use in 2.0)
  • EGreg4 hours ago
    If you execute a ponzi scheme with thousands of degens — but it’s magic crypto tokens

    When you perpetrate a huge hacking job with thousands of attackers — but it’s magic agent swarms

  • WalterBright4 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • moribvndvs4 hours ago
      So is the solution to only nominate corporate bagmen who have a perverse incentive?
      • dnautics4 hours ago
        No. Nominate a pissed off insider who knows how things work from personal experience and an axe to grind!
    • collingreen4 hours ago
      And therefore shouldn't be allowed to have opinions on crime and antitrust? Is that your argument?
      • WalterBright4 hours ago
        Everybody has opinions. That doesn't mean those opinions are based on reality.
      • int34 hours ago
        duh? why would you want someone with no experience making decisions?
        • tzs4 hours ago
          She has experience in the relevant areas.

          It is quite common for experience in X itself to be quite different from the experience that is useful in dealing with X in some different context.

          Most oncologists have no experience with actually having cancer themselves.

          A majority of aircraft mechanics are not pilots.

          Only a small percentage of referees in most major professional sports leagues have every played that sport professionally themselves.

          Most patent lawyers are not inventors.

          • WalterBright3 hours ago
            I worked for Boeing designing aircraft parts. I am not a pilot. I worked at the direction of my boss, who was a pilot. He was the gatekeeper of my work.

            He'd also take me up flying, and would let me try the controls a bit. I trusted and valued his pilot's judgement.

            Many other engineers at Boeing were also pilots. Friends of mine are pilots. My father was a combat pilot in two wars.

            Airplane mechanics have very little decision making power. They go strictly by the book. I worked on writing instructions for the mechanics who would be maintaining and checking my gearbox design. It went into excruciating detail.

            I would wager that the better mechanics were ones who were pilots, as they'd know in their bones how important their job was.

          • WalterBright3 hours ago
            I have some patents, and I worked with patent lawyers to file them. The patent lawyers didn't understand diddly squat about my inventions. They knew how to fill out the required forms, though.
        • seemaze4 hours ago
          Depends on if you're referring to experience defrauding the American public, or protecting the American public. That can have different answers depending on what which side of the transaction you sit.
        • throwaway_72744 hours ago
          What does experience mean? Does only private-sector experience "count?" Should we remove Alito from the bench on those grounds?
          • WalterBright3 hours ago
            > What does experience mean?

            Oh, the tiresome word definition game again. No thanks.

            > Does only private-sector experience "count?"

            Why did you feel the need to insert "only"?

    • tzs4 hours ago
      None of those things you list that she has never done help in any meaningful way with understanding antitrust law.
      • WalterBright4 hours ago
        Running a business is a rude awakening for anyone who hasn't done it. Like a ballet critic who has never taken a ballet class. Or a commander who has never been shot at. Or a sailor who has never been at sea.

        Mayors Katie Wilson and Mandami have never run a business, or worked for a business, and it shows.

        How can one regulate a business without ever being in the trenches?

        • tzs3 hours ago
          > Like a ballet critic who has never taken a ballet class.

          In this case though it would be more like an inspector checking that the changes made to modify a building to house a ballet studio follow code has not taken a ballet class.

        • anonymous_user92 hours ago
          > Mandami have never run a business, or worked for a business, and it shows.

          In record-high approval ratings, multiple reforms supported by small businesses, and fast progress on many huge initiatives?

    • adestefan4 hours ago
      So what.
      • WalterBright4 hours ago
        Theory and practice are different things.
    • throwaway_72744 hours ago
      Lina Khan has never eaten breakfast cereal out of a boot, nor even a shoe.
  • VCFundedGenYer5 hours ago
    It’s definitely happening in 2029 if the election goes a certain way. They all know that too.

    There WILL be an end to this.

    • verdverm40 minutes ago
      The most extreme Dems are not winning primaries, just like MAGA. Most people do not want the extremes of either side, both political parties are shrinking because they are so out of touch. 2029 is a long way away, I hope to see the White House restored to its former glory over today's perspective on what Ai regulation should be, by a long shot, one is tangible, the other is based in theoretical fears.

      Context, I volunteer in my local Indivisible, the tone is changing because the anti-ai people are now also finding certain uses of Ai really nice and now acceptable. It's no longer ban Ai and data centers, it's craft reasonable legislation. Expect to see more after the midterms, we'll be working with the Washington State legislature to craft laws we hope are a model for other states / countries, as WA has done in other areas like voting rights and civil liberties.

    • DarmokTanagraan hour ago
      [dead]
  • rustcleaner3 hours ago
    God I would love to see Sam Altman behind bars for cornering the DRAM silicon market. Even though there were other factors, I uniquely place him as the destroyer of home computing this decade!
    • chneu37 minutes ago
      It's kind of crazy how nothing happened with that. That was blatant.
  • xnx5 hours ago
    AI is a very competitive market where consumers are getting the product for much less than it costs. This does not seem like an area where the government needs to butt in.

    Attention would be better spent on long list of other poorly behaved companies: cable ISP monopolies, health insurance companies, home insurance companies, etc.

    • NewJazz3 hours ago
      Why wouldn't the government have incentive to intervene to end a market inefficiency like the one you described?
      • stale20022 hours ago
        Because the goal of government policy is to help consumers, thats why.
        • NewJazz39 minutes ago
          No, it is to help all citizens. Even those who are not a party to a particular market.
    • verdverm31 minutes ago
      That is only one aspect of Ai. There are a whole bunch of people who are addicted to the Ai companions. Reminds me of Big Sugar, who sponsored junk science and lobbied politicians, making salt and fat the bad guts, knowing sugar is likely worse... managing to still largely fly under the radar unlike Big Tobacco/Oil.

      My hope is that we start treating Big Ai like Big Social, but before they and their dark patterns have become ubiquitous

    • downrightmikean hour ago
      That's basically the Amazon argument. But it too needs to be addressed
    • lenerdenator5 hours ago
      Bear with me here: we could do all of them.

      You can get these companies under control. You just have to, y'know, try.

      • seemaze4 hours ago
        we could do all of them, but they all seem to be up to date on their tithe. AI has a somewhat mixed record of tribute.
        • fakedang2 hours ago
          Which is why High IQ President specifically responded to Amodei.
          • verdverm26 minutes ago
            There's a hard test containing animal pictures, if you ace it you can say anything you want