I came across the following example & I wanted to write about it but I realized it was a good example of a Thinkie & I haven’t written about thiat Thinkie yet so here it is. Whew! Quite the opening sentence.
Pattern: You’re stuck thinking about a complicated problem.
Transformation: Look at the problem in its wider context. What are the “sources & uses” (from Permaculture) of the problem? What feedback loops does it participate in?
Okay, here’s the motivating example. I’ve been hearing the slogan, “Profit is theft.” I’m not convinced but where does the idea come from? Here’s the quote that got me thinking about wider scope:
In economics there’s a concept called “ecosystem exploitation.” It’s what happens when a producer appropriates the difference between what an input costs and what it contributes to the final output. In the original framing this was strictly about labor.
A factory owner pays a worker a wage.
That worker produces something worth considerably more than that wage.
The owner sells that product and pockets the difference in value.
That final act is exploitation because the surplus created in production is not returned to the input that generated it.
The paper goes on to talk about how training LLMs is exploitive in this way, which I happen to agree with. However, not my point.
The structure above—paid a wage→produce→sold—isn’t the whole picture. “Profit is theft” makes good sense if that’s the whole picture. However, there’s a larger sequence into which this picture fits:
Capital owner invests in building a factory.
Worker paid a wage.
Produces widget.
Widget sold at a profit.
Capital owner gets paid back with interest.
What incentive does the capital owner have to build the factory, without which there is no production, without step 5? If we give all the profit to the worker, the factory never gets built. We’re going to have to find a way to split the excess of sales price - cost of production.
Now, I realize I have stepped into a giant centuries old debate, no, war, but that’s not my point (although my question about incentives for those producing content digested by LLMs holds). My point is rather than pick apart the pieces of a complicated problem, sometimes it’s more productive to zoom out & see the problem in context.
This lines up squarely with a post I'm writing on the Performance Pillar that talks about local vs system optimization. In this case, if the system (factory) is optimized for return to investors, it will only do what's needed to keep workers effective at that goal. All profits to workers will mean shutting the factory down when it's time for expensive repairs or expansion. Both are cases of local optimizations.
I think the real question is about equitable distribution of profits AND agency. Some get a share of future profits in the form of equity or a pension. How much say in the direction of the company does a single worker have compared to a single investor? Depends! Collectively, workers can organize for a bit more say in their future. Investors can pool or singly pony up more cash.
Trading future health and ability to earn in the future for current pay isn't a viable long-term strategy for workers so there's also healthy working conditions that factory laborers need to think about.
Meanwhile, investors also need to protect their future returns. Redistributing some profits back into the company for maintenance, repairs, insurance, growth, etc is equally important for everyone - workers included. They may see other opportunities to invest that have a higher return, so there's that too.
And there's the even bigger picture - a sizable portion of investment capital comes from pension funds! The future income of workers is at stake too. Not sure if that's the snake eating its own tail or not, but it warps the picture even further thinking about how and when profits make their way around.
The introduction of copyright law in response to the printing press may be a useful precedent for changing the framework of IP for the LLM era.
The printing press radically changed how content was consumed, in a way that was beneficial to consumers. But the profits went entirely to those owning the technology (printing houses), with nothing going to the creators, often not even attribution for creating the work. Copyright law, although originally intended to give the (English) government a revenue stream and censorship powers, evolved into something that gave content creators a share of the proceeds for distributing their work. It did this by applying the concept of property to content, so the existing legal system could be extended to cover content.
So now LLMs are radically changing how content is consumed, in a way that is beneficial to consumers (although not everyone agrees). All of the profits (or revenues, at least) currently go to those owning the technology (the LLM makers), with nothing going to the creators, usually not even attribution.
I don't think current copyright law works in this world. I also don't think the answer is simply shutting down LLMs, or making it more difficult for them to train on content. There is genuine benefit to society and consumers in making content widely available through LLMs.
I don't know what the answer is, but I strongly suspect it involves changing the legal framework. I wonder if something like Performing Rights Organizations could work, acting as intermediaries to collect payments from LLM makers and distributing to content creators, could work.
Enforcing attribution is important as well.
As a non-fiction author, I want what I write to be reflected in what people are told by LLMs. Otherwise what they are told will be wrong ;-). My motivations for creating content are a) to make a small bit of money, b) to disseminate my ideas because they are the right ideas (again, ;-)), and c) to boost my reputation so people hire me.
The last one is really the most concretely important to me. I don't mind other people making some profit off of my content (publisher, distributors, bookstores all do). But if I get no direct money or visibility from writing, then ultimately, the only people providing content for LLMs to consume will be crackpots and cranks.