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#rentSeeking

3 posts2 participants1 post today

Australian wealth inequality frays the social fabric

"The top 10% of households now control 44% of all wealth in Australia. The collective wealth of the richest 200 Australians has nearly tripled over two decades, mostly from property and resources – economic activities that extract value from existing assets rather than new productive capacities; what economists call “rent-seeking”.

"Rent-seeking concentrates wealth away from productivity-enhancing investments – in business innovation, public infrastructure and worker wages. This leaves ordinary people paying ever-higher proportions of their income for necessities. Ordinary Australians have little to celebrate."
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theguardian.com/commentisfree/
#inequality #WealthCapture #RentSeeking #housing #rentierism #unproductivity #ActiveProduction #wages #extractivism

The Guardian · ‘Neoliberalism lite’ is no solution to Australia’s cost-of-living and productivity crises. We must curb wealth concentrationBy Guardian staff reporter
Continued thread

I have recently been looking at task and project management software for 1-2 person teams, and am horrified by what is out there. Almost all interesting products are on subscription and offer no possibility of exporting data in a user-friendly format. The thought of having all my organisation and project details at the mercy of a landlord who can modify the product or the rent at any point and offers no safe off-ramp is insane.

I find it astonishing how authors are so afraid that AI is going to steal their readers. If AI only generates derivative works, why are you, as a creator and the only entity capable of producing truly creative works so afraid?

Unless you believe in the fiction that you can own artificial property. In reality, once you let a work out in the world, you can't possibly expect to "own" it and control its distribution - unless you want to enforce a totalitarian dictatorship. So, I repeat, what are you so afraid of?

Unless authors start to understand that creative works can't be really protected against unauthorized copying and distribution and that copyright is a monopoly granted by States, they will continue to repeat the same mistakes, will depriving the public of access to knowledge and culture.

"In late 2024, we surveyed over 400 members of the Australian Society of Authors, the national peak body for writers and illustrators. We asked about their use of AI, their understanding of how generative models are trained, and whether they would agree to their work being used for training – with or without compensation.

79% said they would not allow their existing work to be used to train AI models, even if they were paid. Almost as many – 77% – said the same about future work.

Among those open to payment, half expected at least $A1,000 per work. A small number nominated figures in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

But the dominant response, from both established and emerging authors, was a firm “no”.

This presents a serious roadblock for those hoping publishers might broker blanket licensing agreements with AI firms. If most authors are unwilling to grant permission under any terms, then standard contract clauses or opt-in models are unlikely to deliver a practical or ethical solution."

theconversation.com/new-resear

The ConversationNew research reveals Australian authors say no to AI using their work – even if money is on the table
More from The Conversation AU + NZ

COMPLETE TRAVESTY: Creativity is not an industry. Anyone who dares to say that knows nothing about art, culture, creativity, and manufacturing. You cannot manufacture creativity. Either a work is considered creative by the public and the critics or not.

Am I stealing your words in favor of a rent-seeking, money-grabbing little scheme by copying and pasting it here? Do I have to pay you a license for your fake, artificial property? And you consider yourself a representative of artists and authors?

"My colleagues and I from all sides in the House of Lords have acted where the government has refused, adding emergency transparency measures to the legislation – the data (use and access) bill – that is passing through parliament. Our amendment would allow existing copyright law to be enforced: copyright owners would understand when, where and by whom their work was being stolen to train AI. The logic being that if an AI firm has to disclose evidence of theft, it will not steal in the first place. These measures, voted for in ever-increasing numbers by lords from all parties – and notable grandees from the government’s own backbenches – were voted down by a government wielding its significant, if reluctant, majority."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/

The Guardian · We have a chance to prevent AI decimating Britain’s creative industries – but it’s slipping awayBy Beeban Kidron
#UK#RentSeeking#AI

There maybe indeed situations where the overall public welfare gains obtained by the introduction of a new technology way surpass respecting artificial property. That's probably the situation here, since the gains in terms of access to knowledge and culture can be enormous.

"Referring to the question of whether “artists should be able to withhold their content from the AI models that are being trained,” he said: “On the one hand, yeah, I think it seems to me as a matter of natural justice, to say to people that they should be able to opt out of having their creativity, their products, what they’ve worked on indefinitely modelled. That seems to me to be not unreasonable to opt out.”

However, he added, “I think the creative community wants to go a step further. Quite a lot of voices say ‘you can only train on my content, [if you] first ask’. And I have to say that strikes me as somewhat implausible because these systems train on vast amounts of data.

“I just don’t know how you go around, asking everyone first. I just don’t see how that would work. And by the way if you did it in Britain and no one else did it, you would basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight."

thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/

The Times · Nick Clegg: Artists’ demands over copyright are unworkableBy Lucy Bannerman
#UK#GenerativeAI#AI

Although I'm an avid supporter of transparency, It's a bit annoying that copyright holders only want the disclosure of all copyrighted works used for AI training of LLMs to extract rents from AI companies. And this regardless of the size, not-for-profit nature, and goals of the company/project. Media moguls and their stooges are always yelling: "PAY! PAY! PAY!" I'm sick and tired of all this blackmailing and complaining.

If you can prove that a chatbot can generate every time exact copies of your works using the same prompt, by all means go ahead and demand a license - but only for large companies. If not, please shut up or admit that you're just another seller of commodities and you don't believe in the non-material value of your art. Art works that are able to appeal to spiritual and aesthetic can generate bountiful positive externalities in the medium and long term.

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"Ministers have used an arcane parliamentary procedure to block an amendment to the data bill that would require artificial intelligence companies to disclose their use of copyright-protected content.

The government stripped the transparency amendment, which was backed by peers in the bill’s reading in the House of Lords last week, out of the draft text by invoking financial privilege, meaning there is no budget available for new regulations, during a Commons debate on Wednesday afternoon.

The amendment, which would have required tech companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used in their models, was tabled by the crossbench peer Beeban Kidron and was passed by 272 votes to 125 in a Lords debate last week.

There were 297 MPs who voted in favour of removing the amendment, while 168 opposed."

theguardian.com/technology/202

The Guardian · Ministers block Lords bid to make AI firms declare use of copyrighted contentBy Rachel Hall