As I detailed in that Friendica post, GenAI is a scam, because its entire dataset is fraudulently obtained by mass plagiarism, and it runs like a Ponzi scheme in that it steals new data to augment the old data, like how Ponzi schemes steal new money to pay off their old marks.
GenAI is robbing Peter to pay Paul, but with data instead of money, and somehow people think this is OK, while Bernie Madoff got locked up until he died for orchestrating what was the largest Ponzi scheme in history at the time in '08; in 18 years we went from actively prosecuting fraudsters, to basically giving them a free pass to defraud as many people across as many industries as they want, as Sam Altman, who I view to be basically the modern-day Bernie Madoff, will probably never even see fines for his atrocities, let alone the inside of a prison cell.
We locked up Bernie Madoff until he died for running an actual Ponzi scheme in '08, and bankrupting a ton of people and organizations across all tax brackets in the process, but we’re letting Sam Altman get away clean with running the same type of fraud, but with data instead of money, people…
Nothing gets done until rich people get wronged. That was the rub in ‘08 too.
How about all the MLMs that are allowed to run rampant? Poor(er) and middle class people get scammed all the time with next to no recourse. Artists are mostly poor, so in corporate and government eyes that’s just meat to grind for the money printer.
Once the bigger corporations and wealthy shareholders start actually eating loss, then we might get some sort of action. But until then, best we can do is to continue to not use it.
Within 48 hrs, the mouse house, probably the most overtly greedy entity when it comes to IP hoarding, went from suing an AI company that stole it’s stuff to then licensing their shit, er, IP, to another one.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/11/tech/disney-openai-sora-google
They’d probably like to keep the movies coming without any of the pesky animators and writers and other sucks on the bottom line they resent paying a pittance to for the billions that come in.
Once the bigger corporations and wealthy shareholders start actually eating loss
“AI” isn’t a grift on the privileged. It’s a grift on regular people who are forced to fund power plants, live in their pollution, be surveilled, be targeted for bombs, deportation, prison, etc., ETC. The privileged consider this increased repression of the poors as “progress”.
like a Ponzi scheme in that it steals new data to augment the old data
No. Not only is that not a Ponzi scheme, that’s not how genai works neither.
You can get new investments to improve how existing investments make money. That’s how all businesses work. The fraud is when you get investments to pretend old ones are making money.
‘augment data’ is a meaningless phrase. It’s like saying you augment plain rice by adding more plain rice to it.
Genai doesn’t consume data the way taking investments consumes money. At no point is the data destroyed, they can keep generating without any new training data being needed. And it doesn’t lure in new data by promising to return it with interest, it either steals it or pays for it with money.
You could say the money investments into the genai companies is like a Ponzi scheme, and that’s the nature of an investment bubble. It has nothing to do with how genai works.
strongly disagree. like all great ponzi schemes, it’s built on theft. they just think they can get away with the theft until it makes such ridiculous profits no one will care. Like the vast majority of ponzi schemes, the idiots running them think they’ll actually get away with the riches.
llms, or ‘genai’ if you want something more sexy sounding than overclocked chat bots, are entirely reliant on growing training data and absolutely rely on more coming in every day. It’s literally reshaping the nature of web traffic.
The point here isn’t that genai is ethical: the point is that Ponzi schemes are a very specific kind of crime which doesn’t really map to genai.
Let’s assume that all genai is theft. That still wouldn’t make it a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes are, very specifically, when an investment company sends money to new investors from their old investments while lying and claiming it’s from profit from the new investment, in order to keep new investors coming in.
The specific crime that all genai companies are very clearly and obviously guilty of is copyright infringement. Making the internet worse is unfortunately not a crime.
hear me out: the scheme is the circular flow of funding between nvidia, openai, and the data centers that will do the computational grunt. they think ‘if we simply obfuscate where the billions and billions and billions of dollars land, no one will care!’
when 90% of those profits will land at nvidia and go no where else.
I like that you trying to hold AI companies accountable for the garbage they are trying to pull.
I don’t think that it is theft as stealing would deprive the owner of their property. Copying ones and zeroes is not theft. Perhaps you could argue copyright infringement, but that is a civil issue between corporations.
but that is a civil issue between corporations.
somehow I missed you going whole hog on corporate schlong there. goddamn man, of course you’re quibbling about it being theft if you believe that nonsense
I don’t think you understand how distasteful artificial scarcity is. The underpinnings of Intectual Property are ridiculous. If you think I am going to believe anything is being stolen you are literally barking up the wrong tree.
Speaking of sucking on corporate schlong, that is literally what those who support copyright do for fun.
sure thing sloperator. enjoy your ai girlfriend.
I can’t hear what you say with corporate cock in your mouth.
you’re the idiot defending AI numbnuts
it’s not copying.
IT’S STEALING THE SKILLS OF THE ARTISTS, which is very much theft. when you take a concept artists entire portfolio and feed it to the LLM, and then it can spit out images mostly indistinguishable from the OG artist, that’s not just depriving them of a sale here or there, it’s saying “don’t pay that artist, pay us instead!”
this is not a complex concept either. I don’t give a fuck about individual lost sales, they aren’t stealing the car, they’re stealing the car factory.
All human culture exists through copying. I think you make an interesting point about “stealing” the means of production. This does seem what capitalists do. While I don’t think stealing is the right word for this because it does not deprive the artist of their property, I think your point is still sound
Philosophically and legally it is a difficult concept honestly. This is why we are having a conflict. This is very new and also very disruptive technology.
Similar arguments have been made throughout history. For instance, painters were very upset with photographers “stealing” their livelihood with their fancy machines.
All human culture exists through copying.
you’re referring to apprenticeships and schooling - none of which is engineered to put the master craftspeople or teachers out of work.
it’s not stealing their output, it’s stealing the audience that might pay for that output, but crucially, not with the equivalent - it’s always a poor imitation.
comparing it to photography is specious; painters benefited from photography - enabling them to paint portraits without having the subject sitting there, for one example. and crucially, the camera didn’t cause water and (historical equivalent of electric lighting) whale oil prices to spike.
also why the FUCK are all these AI fanboys here? this is FUCK AI, fuck off if you don’t understand
No, I am referring to all human knowledge and expression AKA our collective culture. You do realize that the arts existed long before the concept of copyright?
You seem to confuse art and expression with commerce. Art through drawing, painting, photography, singing, dancing, etc exists outside of money. In fact, the vast majority of art (99%) is never sold.
The fact that I hate AI but also despise copyright and other forms of Intectual Property is confusing to you.
There are a lot of good arguments against AI. Supporting rent seeking capitalists isn’t one of them.
I’m not sure you or the author knows what fraud or a ponzi scheme is.
They read an AI summary of it.
as people get stupider, emulating human behavior becomes easier. we’re already there after folks lost all those IQ points to long covid
AI exists to allow wealth to access skill without allowing skill to access wealth.
Exactly. But the word “skill” here is like Americans use the word “chocolate”: indistinguishable from the real thing, except to anyone with experience with the real thing.
Hey a post from friendica! That’s neat!
