muldvarp (u/muldvarp)

muldvarp commented on AI's Unpaid Debt: How LLM Scrapers Destroy the Social Contract of Open Source quippd.com/writing/2025/1... · Posted by u/birdculture

p0w3n3d · 7 hours ago

Normally people get punished for downloading illegal books. Allegedly someone at meta downloaded hella ton of illegal books and taught the LLM on them and they said "oh it was for his/hers private usage". You won't get justice here

muldvarp · 7 hours ago

This to me is the most ridiculous thing about the whole AI situation. Piracy is now apparently just okay as long as you do it on an industrial scale and with the expressed intention of hurting the economic prospects of the authors of the pirated work.

Seems completely ridiculous when compared to the trouble I was in that one time I pirated a single book that I was unable to purchase.

muldvarp commented on How elites could shape mass preferences as AI reduces persuasion costs arxiv.org/abs/2512.04047... · Posted by u/50kIters

crote · 16 days ago

Note that nothing in the article is AI-specific: the entire argument is built around the cost of persuasion, with the potential of AI to more cheaply generate propaganda as buzzword link.

However, exactly the same applies with, say, targeted Facebook ads or Russian troll armies. You don't need any AI for this.

muldvarp · 16 days ago

But the entire promise of AI is that things that were expensive because they required human labor are now cheap.

So if good things happening more because AI made them cheap is an advantage of AI, then bad things happening more because AI made them cheap is a disasvantage of AI.

muldvarp commented on Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB tomshardware.com/video-ga... · Posted by u/doener

rwmj · 17 days ago

23GB is supposed to be "slim"?!

muldvarp · 16 days ago

Well yes? Have you played the game? It's got lot of content and is very pretty.

Those high resolution textures will just take space. You could obviously decrease the graphical fidelity but I'd guess that most players (me very much included) would rather play a very pretty 23GB Helldivers II than a 5GB ugly Helldivers II.

150GB was very annoying, ironically forcing me to install it to a HDD. 23GB isn't even worth thinking about for me.

muldvarp commented on PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage tomshardware.com/pc-compo... · Posted by u/speckx

nickpp · 23 days ago

> And then? I'll compensate the loss of thousands of dollars I don't earn anymore every month with the profits of a $100 investment in some ETF?

Probably most of it at least, because under your supposition that the AGI will replace labor we'll get incredibly cheap products and services as a result.

> Property has inherent value.

You weren't talking about inherent value when you wrote "Super-intelligence will make labor worthless (or very cheap) it won't make property worthless." which is what I replied to.

> None of this has any connection to anything I've written. I'm talking about the concept of a resource curse.

And my point was that the wealth of a nation does not come from its resources but its entrepreneurs. Resources are a course usually when monopolized and administrated (looted) by corrupt governments, not when exploited by private entities. AIs controlled by governments would scare me indeed.

> Other rich people can buy their products and services.

> He could still sell his cars to Altman

Are you joking?! How many cars do you think Altman can buy?! Do you really think the rich people can be an actual market?! How many rich people do you think there are out there?! Are you talking about middle class by any chance?

> Why do you think rich people would like to buy your labor if using AI/robots is cheaper?

Because labor evolves too, just like it evolved when automation, IT and outsourcing came around. Yes, I can't sell my dirt digging services in the age of digging machines but I can learn to drive one and sell my services as a driver. Maybe I can't sell coding in the age of AI but I can sell my ability to understand, verify and control complex systems with code written by AIs.

And so on, you get the idea. Adaptation, creativity and innovation is the name of the game.

> You're proving my point

> The point is: Because rich and powerful people still have to pay for labor their incentives are at least somewhat aligned with the incentives of the average person

Not at all. My point was that Elon and rich people are interested in you as a customer, not for your labor. That is the old mindset and the one we need to evolve from. See yourself as selling and buying products and services, not your labor, and the world will be full of opportunities. "The rich" won't seem like a separate class from you, but regular people you can interact and profit from (while mutually benefiting).

muldvarp · 22 days ago

> Probably most of it at least, because under your supposition that the AGI will replace labor we'll get incredibly cheap products and services as a result.

No, we will get cheap _labor_, not necessarily cheap _products_.

> You weren't talking about inherent value when you wrote "Super-intelligence will make labor worthless (or very cheap) it won't make property worthless." which is what I replied to.

I was talking about value, not price.

> AIs controlled by governments would scare me indeed.

What is the difference?

> Are you joking?! How many cars do you think Altman can buy?!

Why would Elon need to sell more cars? And for what exactly? You have nothing Elon wants.

> Maybe I can't sell coding in the age of AI but I can sell my ability to understand, verify and control complex systems with code written by AIs.

Unless the super-intelligence is better than you here too. Why wouldn't it be?

> Adaptation, creativity and innovation is the name of the game.

It is the name of the game until super-intelligence comes along which will be better at all of this than you. That's exactly the scary thing about super-intelligence.

> My point was that Elon and rich people are interested in you as a customer, not for your labor.

This is the same thing. I can only be a customer if I can bring something to the table that Elon wants from me. That thing is money. I can only bring money to the table if someone that has money needs something I can provide. That thing is human labor. If super-intelligence removes the economic value of human labor, I can no longer earn money and consequently Elon will not be interested in me as a customer.

> See yourself as selling and buying products and services, not your labor, and the world will be full of opportunities.

Where exactly is the difference between me "selling a service" and me selling "labor"?

> "The rich" won't seem like a separate class from you, but regular people you can interact and profit from (while mutually benefiting).

I doesn't matter whether or not you see the rich as a seperate class. What matters is simply the following:

People who own a lot of stuff, don't sell their labor and/or buy a lot of labor will profit if labor becomes cheap. People who don't own a lot of stuff, sell their labor and don't buy a lot of labor face an existential threat if labor becomes cheap.

muldvarp commented on We're losing our voice to LLMs tonyalicea.dev/blog/were-... · Posted by u/TonyAlicea10

SoftTalker · 23 days ago

Every time I see AI videos in my YouTube recommendations I say “don’t recommend this channel” but the algorithm doesn’t seem to get the hint. Why don’t they make a preference option of “don’t show me AI content”

muldvarp · 22 days ago

You assume that detecting AI content is trivial. It isn't.

muldvarp commented on We're losing our voice to LLMs tonyalicea.dev/blog/were-... · Posted by u/TonyAlicea10

WD-42 · 23 days ago

Where are these places where everything is written by a LLM? I guess just don’t go there. Most of the comments on HN still seem human.

muldvarp · 22 days ago

> I guess just don’t go there.

How do you know? A lot of the stuff I see online could very much be produced by LLMs without me ever knowing. And given the economics I suspect that some of it already is.

muldvarp commented on We're losing our voice to LLMs tonyalicea.dev/blog/were-... · Posted by u/TonyAlicea10

AstroBen · 23 days ago

There's something unique about art and writing where we just don't want to see computers do it

As soon as I know something is written by AI I tune out. I don't care how good it is - I'm not interested if a person didn't go through the process of writing it

muldvarp · 22 days ago

Writing nice sounding text used to require effort and attention to detail. This is no longer the case and this very useful heuristic has been completely obliterated by LLMs.

For me personally, this means that I read less on the internet and more pre-LLM books. It's a sad development nevertheless.

muldvarp commented on PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage tomshardware.com/pc-compo... · Posted by u/speckx

nickpp · 24 days ago

> You still need to be rich to partake.

Again, you can invest, today, in AI stocks and ETFs, with just $100 and a Robinhood account. No need to be rich.

> Super-intelligence will make labor worthless (or very cheap) it won't make property worthless.

If the labor is worthless, the great majority of people will be poor. Due to the law of supply & demand, property will be worthless since there will be very little demand for it.

> Countries with natural resources often have poor citizens because those citizens are not needed to extract that wealth.

Countries with or without resources often have poor citizens simply because being poor is the natural state of mankind. The only system that, historically, allowed the greatest number of people to exit poverty is capitalism. Here in Eastern Europe we got to witness an astonishing change of fortunes when we switched from communism to capitalism. The country and its resources didn't change, just the system and, correspondingly, the wealth of the population.

> it was their best strategy to become even richer. But that's no longer the case when you can be replaced by super-intelligence.

How can they become richer when most people are dirt broke (because they were replaced by AIs) and thus can't buy their products and services? Look at how even Elon's fortunes shrink when his company misses a sales forecast. He is only as rich as the number of customers he can find for his cars.

muldvarp · 24 days ago

> Again, you can invest, today, in AI stocks and ETFs, with just $100 and a Robinhood account. No need to be rich.

And then? I'll compensate the loss of thousands of dollars I don't earn anymore every month with the profits of a $100 investment in some ETF?

> If the labor is worthless, the great majority of people will be poor. Due to the law of supply & demand, property will be worthless since there will be very little demand for it.

Property has inherent value. A house I can live in. A farm can feed me. A golf course I can play golf on. These things have value even if nobody can buy them off me (because they don't have anything I want). Supply and demand determine only the _price_ not the _value_ of goods and services.

> Countries with or without resources often have poor citizens simply because being poor is the natural state of mankind. The only system that, historically, allowed the greatest number of people to exit poverty is capitalism. Here in Eastern Europe we got to witness an astonishing change of fortunes when we switched from communism to capitalism. The country and its resources didn't change, just the system and, correspondingly, the wealth of the population.

None of this has any connection to anything I've written. I'm talking about the concept of a resource curse. Countries rich in natural resources (oil, diamonds, ...) where the population is poor as dirt because the ruling class has no incentive to share any of the profits. The same can happen with AI if we don't do anything about it.

> How can they become richer when most people are dirt broke (because they were replaced by AIs) and thus can't buy their products and services?

Other rich people can buy their products and services. They don't need you to buy their products and services because you don't bring anything to the table because all you have is labor and labor isn't worth anything (or at least not enough to survive off it). Put differently: Why do you think rich people would like to buy your labor if using AI/robots is cheaper? What reason would they have to do that?

> Look at how even Elon's fortunes shrink when his company misses a sales forecast. He is only as rich as the number of customers he can find for his cars.

You're proving my point: Elon still lives in a world where labor is worth something. Because Elon lives in a world where labor is worth something it is in his interest that there are many people capable of providing that labor to him. This means it is in his interest that the general population has access to food and water, is well eduacated, ...

If Elon were to live in a world where labor is done by AI/robots there would be little reason for him to care. Yes, he couldn't sell his cars to the average person anymore, but he wouldn't want to anyway. He could still sell his cars to Altman in exchange for an LLM that strokes his ego or whatever rich people want.

The point is: Because rich and powerful people still have to pay for labor, their incentives are at least somewhat aligned with the incentives of the average person.

muldvarp commented on PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage tomshardware.com/pc-compo... · Posted by u/speckx

nickpp · 25 days ago

There is absolutely no guarantee that Claude takes your job either. But if you believe so much in AI, investing in it is accessible to pretty much any pocket, you don't have to be rich to partake.

And when did "the rich" hoard anything for themselves only?! Usually I see them democratizing products and services so they are more accessible to everyone, not less.

Computers in my pocket and on my wrist, TVs as big as a wall and thin like a book, electric cars, flights to anywhere I dream of traveling, investing with a few clicks on my phone - all made possible to me by those evil and greedy rich in their race for riches. Thank you rich people!

muldvarp · 25 days ago

> you don't have to be rich to partake.

You still need to be rich to partake. Most business ventures will still require capital even in the age of super-intelligence. Super-intelligence will make labor worthless (or very cheap) it won't make property worthless.

> And when did "the rich" hoard anything for themselves only?! Usually I see them democratizing products and services so they are more accessible to everyone, not less.

There are plenty of examples of rich people hoarding their wealth. Countries with natural resources often have poor citizens because those citizens are not needed to extract that wealth. There is little reason why super-intelligence will not lead to a resource curse where the resource is human intelligence or even human labor.

> Computers in my pocket and on my wrist, TVs as big as a wall and thin like a book, electric cars, flights to anywhere I dream of traveling, investing with a few clicks on a website - all made possible to me by those evil and greedy rich in their race for riches. Thank you rich people!

Those rich people didn't share with you out of the goodness of their heart but because it was their best strategy to become even richer. But that's no longer the case when you can be replaced by super-intelligence.

muldvarp commented on PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage tomshardware.com/pc-compo... · Posted by u/speckx

nickpp · 25 days ago

> upsides on the other hand seem to be the most insignificant things

An abundance of intelligence on Earth with all its spoils: new medicine, energy, materials, technologies and new understandings and breakthroughs - these seem quite significant to me.

muldvarp · 25 days ago

There is absolutely no guarantee that those things will happen just because Claude takes your job. Taking your job doesn't require super-intelligence, it doesn't even require human-level intelligence. It requires just enough intelligence to pump out mediocre code that sort of works and being way cheaper to run than your pay.

Super-intelligence is a completely different can of worms. But I'm not optimistic about super-intelligence either. It seems super naive to me to assume that the spoils of super-intelligence will be shared with the people who no longer can bring anything to the table. You aren't worth anything to the super-rich unless you can do something for them which the super-intelligence can't do.