But if you take it deeper, didn't most of those authors rely on the work of others? Most of human knowledge is small advancements of things we already knew. Often by reorganizing what we already knew.
Is that not what the foundation models are? A new reorganization of existing knowledge?
So then the problem is that Anthropic seems hypocritical when they knowingly insert themselves into this chain, and then complain about people down-chain from them.
To remedy the negative impressions (if they even care to do so) they should do 1 of 2 things:
1) stop complaining about it
2) stop distilling other people's work
They insert themselves into this chain for profit and complain about it. I really think that adds a thick layer to the hypocrisy that people, or at least me, feel is especially distasteful.
No LLM products would exist without the avalanche of largely non-consensual use of IP to create them, full stop. Any of these companies doing this and then turning around and complaining when their IP is "breached" are going to met with a chorus of tiny violins.
It's hypocritical and we shouldn't listen to their bullshit but I wouldn't expect anything else from them.
This generation of frontier models is "good enough." At some point, the Chinese labs will get to where the Americans are right now, they'll race to the bottom, and we will actually see what proliferation of AI looks like.
If Anthropic wants to be a trillion dollar company, they need to make revenue like Google or Apple do. Both of them have near monopolies, Anthropic is only getting further and further away as time goes on.
Of course they're gonna complain until they either figure out a better plan or accept a new valuation which is high but not spectacular.
It is an ancient practice, that when a human creates something, other humans will observe it and learn from it. Every group of humans living together has practiced this in some form for tens of thousands of years if not longer. Even animals do it. It's a natural assumption when making any form of art.
It is not a natural assumption that someone will digitize the artwork and use it to adjust a couple thousand matrix coefficients in a complex computer program. To most people that seems like copying with extra steps. The brain may in some ways resemble a computer, but what sets it apart is that we have always lived with brains. Everything a human does has already anticipated the presence of other brains, while etched circuits on ultrapure silicon crystals are something new.
Often people ignore scale. N=1 is OK, therefore, N=1billion is OK. Same flawed argument as: "It's OK for one police officer to watch one street corner for the purpose of observing crime; therefore it's equally OK to have cameras recording every street corner in the city 24/7, for all purposes. Same thing!"
Is that not what the foundation models are? A new reorganization of existing knowledge?