alt Hacker NewsI'm so baffled. First blatant piracy, now this. Why is it legal for AI companies to hack unaffiliated entities? Genuinely, what is the legal framework here?
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It's not legal, they've just not yet had the book thrown at them yet.
One thing I've taken a long time to internalise is the gap between the law as written vs. the judicial system. There's a famous meme that the average (US) citizen unwittingly commits three felonies every day: it simply isn't possible to throw the book at everyone, which means that enforcement is rather selective even when there isn't anything dodgy going on.
However this does mean that someone can get away with a lot if they know who will and won't (and what they will and won't) prosecute. I'll let people's imaginations fill in who that might be.
But for everyone else, cross an invisible tripwire and you get e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/nov/...
It's "move fast and break things" in action.
But Anthropic alone paid >$1bn for copyright violations, so they did not just get away with it.
These hacking cases are more difficult, because from a legal perspective there is no obvious damage and obviously no intent.
edit: "no obvious damage" is more about the first hacking incidents; in this case it is more straightforward.
> Genuinely, what is the legal framework here
He who controls the Spice, controls the Universe.
There's no "hack". The article says the bots edited an open wiki website.
The legal framework is a DOJ and FBI controlled by the president and "allies" controlled by the "rules based international order".
In other words, the law of the jungle.
First let it happen, then ask for forgiveness, because they are doing something amazing and they need no permission.
Otherwise AI industry will go bankrupt and CEOs won't be able to buy this year's Rolls Royce and a slightly bigger yacht than their neighbor.