alt Hacker NewsI mean, that's fair to some extent.
But on the other hand you could have just purchased any cookbook that covers the basics, instead of taking all this web-scaped content without attribution or compensation. I mean, look, I totally get it and I'm certainly guilty of this too - but let's not pretend that we're not basically stealing other people's content here. Much of the time those people running those recipe websites are just trying to cover their hosting costs and make a squeak of money on the side.
A friend of mine tried to set up a website that would host open-source recipes for people - he called it The Open Sauce - but in the end there just wasn't enough input from recipe creators.
Also, and by the way, the top google hit for bechemal is this : https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/139987/basic-bechamel-sauc.... Few ads, and the recipe is at the top of the page. No life story in sight.
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There are interesting parallels between LLMs and downloading pirated movies/shows.
In the first case its a trillion dollar business based on scraping the entire internet and sharing out a lossy, compressed version of the content with no attribution or financial contributions to the original creator. In the second case its a shady, technically illegal practice of scraping DVDs or online video streams and sharing a lossy, compressed version without attribution or financial contributions to the creator.
Maybe Napster just needed VC backing to make it seem legit.
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Apparently the recipe for bechemal sauce dates back to at least 1733. I think it’s pretty fairly in the public domain at this point. Those poor “content creators” are also just copying the recipe from someone else, just like chatgpt is. I’m sure I even own multiple cookbooks which cover the recipe - it’s just easier and faster to ask chatgpt than go hunting in my bookshelf.
I feel a little sorry for the good quality cooking websites out there. I’m just so burned by the bad ones that I’d rather skip the Google search. ChatGPT is also a straight out better resource because I can ask followup questions to chatgpt - “How much should I make for 6 people?” / “What is rue, anyway?” “It’s been a few minutes and my milk isn't thinkening. Am I doing anything wrong?” - etc. It’s an incredible cooking aide at my level of skill.