alt Hacker NewsI write things on the internet because I want to share ideas. If someone reads my post and tells a friend, that's great. If an AI crawls my posts and passes along the ideas that's great too.
(It doesn't work for ad-funded writing, but while I have substantial sympathy there this has historically been an unpopular argument on HN)
Replies
kennywinker • yesterday at 8:43 PM
Setting aside ad-driven revenue - the ideas, when spat out by an llm, are disconnected from the author. If people like your ideas, they aren’t becoming fans/followers/long-term-readers. That means good luck leveraging some interesting writing into a book, a speaking tour, a podcast, or even any kind of consistent readership. The llm slurps up your content and monetizes it while you get nothing.
➕ show 1 reply
Sure but this means that you’re no longer eligible to make living from your ideas, which can be fine by you but it eliminates entire class of people who used to make living from intellectual work.
This also could have been fine, it can bring back authenticity however for this to happen no one should be making money from it. Instead, only megacorps make money and they can just ignore your ideas and generate theirs. They control the distribution and the supply now.