<
https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/>
"The visions of the open access movement have inspired countless people to
contribute their work to the commons: a world where “every single human being
can freely share in the sum of all knowledge” (Wikimedia), and where
“education, culture, and science are equitably shared as a means to benefit
humanity” (Creative Commonsa).
a.
Creative Commons is a non-profit that releases the Creative Commons licenses:
easily reusable licenses that broadly release some rights so that anyone can
share and/or build upon the works under specified terms.
But there are scenarios that can introduce doubt for those who contribute to
free and open projects like the Wikimedia projects, or who independently
release their own works under free licenses. I call these “wait, no, not like
that” moments.
When a passionate Wikipedian discovers their carefully researched article has
been packaged into an e-book and sold on Amazon for someone else’s profit?
Wait, no, not like that.
When a developer of an open source software project sees a multi-billion dollar
tech company rely on their work without contributing anything back?
Wait, no,
not like that.
When a nature photographer discovers their freely licensed wildlife photo was
used in an NFT collection minted on an environmentally destructive blockchain?
Wait, no, not like that.
And perhaps most recently, when a person who publishes their work under a free
license discovers that work has been used by tech mega-giants to train
extractive, exploitative large language models?
Wait, no, not like that.
These reactions are understandable. When we freely license our work, we do so
in service of those goals: free and open access to knowledge and education. But
when trillion dollar companies exploit that openness while giving nothing back,
or when our work enables harmful or exploitative uses, it can feel like we've
been naïve. The natural response is to try to regain control.
This is where many creators find themselves today, particularly in response to
AI training. But the solutions they're reaching for — more restrictive
licenses, paywalls, or not publishing at all — risk destroying the very commons
they originally set out to build."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
