Interoperability Can Save the Open Web (2023)

One of the things we got really lucky with is that Claude Code and not the ChatGPT app won the war for the defining AI product and it runs on your filesystem. There's a different reality where everything had to go through the API on a closed app layer and we're all begging OpenAI to add XYZ endpoint to their platform.

Anthropic is now racing to close this gap because they realize there's no lock-in. If the product is just .md files with hierarchy, you can drop any harness and intelligence on top of it. It is interoperable by default, possibly not even by intention.

We should do everything possible to stop the great lock-in that they'll attempt in the next 18 months.

I am nobody. I have little impact. I want my programs to be safe from government intrusions, from age checks, from encryption backdoors, from corporate surveillance. How do I win this battle with big tech?

I am deeply in self-host. For the self-host to succeed it needs to be better, unregulated, and free. It needs to be easily distributed. The data should be easily distributed. Import and export should be fast and easy.

That is why most of my programs use JSONs that are human readable, or use SQLite tables that are just copy-paste away.

I am from Poland. My ancestors were able to survive by hiding, and by fighting small partisan battles. My idea of software is "partisan". It battles big tech in small, distributed ways.

I am not sure, but I think what I said is similar to interoperability.

Interoperability is what made the Web possible. Not sure I buy that it will save it without a fundamental change in people's behavior.

Image you are a 1960s household and RCA tries to sell you a TV to only watch ABC and Zenith has a TV to only watch CBS. 60 years later linear TV is unwatchable by normal humans IMO. It's not like "let advertising pay for this" enshittifying an entire industry hasn't happened before.

If you look at the healthcare space, you will realize interoperability only exists because it was mandated by government programs that the patient owns their data and must be provided timely access to all of that data; and also defines specifies the format of that data (open source definitions).

You might also define "exists" in some sort of way that makes sense. And you can also realize that payers are encroaching on every aspect of interoperability data exchange.

> Cory Doctorow: Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing

[dead]

Previously:

Interoperability can save the open web - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37399799 - Sept 2023 (97 comments)

(Published: 05 Sep 2023)

offtopic: i've always read cory doctorow as cory dotcrow. anybody else?

> we can propose two different rules for Twitter ... an end-to-end principle ... If I follow someone, and they post something, I can see it. That rule makes it really hard for Twitter to overweight content from its preferred suppliers. On top of that we add the Right to Exit. This is the right to leave Twitter without losing your followers and followees. This would be a mandate to stand up an API,

I don't even understand what the first point is even proposing, legislating use cases now? It's gotta be some dog whistle about Twitter pushing "fascism" and entirely hinges on the weasel word "overweight"

The second statement just seems like a category error. In what way can you leave twitter yet still retain followers and followees. Those words only mean something in the context of Twitter. We have no relationship in the world. If I follow someone on twitter and then they exercise their "right to exit and retain" do i now follow them on tiktok and mastodon and telegram and etc. No of course not.

Suppose I hate nazis and follow all the nazis on twitter. Now I exercise my right to exit. What data about the people I hate will Twitter be forced to provide me?

At some point this will be solved by AI, where you can just say: hey chatgpt, turn this powerpoint file into a keynote file.