Post by @stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe

I'm reading about a Word "clone", apparently made by the same people who recreated "clones" of Adobe's software suite.

I don't know how legal any of this is, and I'm not going to get into that. But I can't help smiling at the reactions.

When they started pushing AI, they told us we would lose our jobs, whether we liked it or not. That AI would replace us, whether we liked it or not.

Now that someone has decided to apply the very same principle to their products, suddenly they don't like it anymore.

"You can create new games, but you can't recreate existing ones."

Hurts, doesn't it?

And that's the point. The problem isn't the technology itself, but the way certain sharks use it at other people's expense. When they're the ones on the receiving end, and only then, ethics suddenly becomes a concern again.

2 Boosts

1 Like

Maduraimari

@Maduraimari@mastodon.social 15 min. ago

@stefano I am Muthumari from Tamil Nadu. After my small business revenue dropped, I fell into debt and made mistakes that I have now completely overcome. Today, I am in a severe financial crisis and urgently need support for my son's medical needs and basic family survival.
I fully understand online fraud makes it hard to trust strangers, but my situation is genuine. Any advice, guidance, or financial aid would mean the world to me.
#MutualAid #HelpNeeded #Crowdfunding #EmergencyHelp

Caro S.

@Heidentweet@todon.eu 18 min. ago

@stefano
Boosted this, but just a thought: What have sharks ever done to you? They're ancient and endangered! CEO would be a better slur to use, IMO.

Kentaur

@Kentaur@mastodon.social 31 min. ago

@stefano This is the situation when the ice cream is licking back. 😆

Colin van den Akker

@colinvandenakker@mastodon.social 2 hr. ago

@stefano If large firms try to use Generative AI to hollow out worker's rights, then of course that needs to be opposed. But maybe we here have a case in which GenAI can be used to humble a rent-seeking monopoly (primarily Adobe); then I see no reason to object to it.

(Provided that the executables are not malicious. In the Snap repository, ArtCraft etc are offered as sandboxed programs, seem to work as intended, and require no AI for operation.)

(I'm sticking to Libre for everyday use.)

PypeBros

@PypeBros@mastodon.social 2 hr. ago

@stefano so we should actually ask AI to design GPUs for us ?

Hyperlink Your Heart

@hyperlinkyourheart@mastodon.ie 2 hr. ago

@stefano I'm not inclined to use any of these "cloned" products, and I don't think they balance out the harms of the technology, but I do enjoy seeing generative AI used against its creators 😏

Christoph Thiede :verified:

@LinqLover@norden.social 3 hr. ago

@stefano Well I'd still feel bad for all the LibreOffice and OnlyOffice and Collabora and Co. devs if people just started migrating to a soulless AI clone of Word whose generation was only possible because being trained on the public code of Libre & Co.

Stefano Marinelli

@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe 3 hr. ago

@LinqLover I'm sure (wise) people will still prefer LibreOffice to those solutions. But maybe this could be the first step towards the Open Source world.

I'm sure there are tons of good use cases for those original Microsoft Office products. I just don't like the imposition of them.

Some Italian public offices still send "docx" documents that are full of things that aren't compatible with LibreOffice.

This makes me mad. You cannot force me to *buy* a closed, proprietary software solution to fill a public form.

NeonkAaa

@nk@sns.neonka.info 1 hr. ago

@stefano
Not addressing Italian ones. But one time we applied for a gov tender, and it was required to upload some doc created only using a specific version of Word (before 2008). Because yes, the same doc saved in the modern Word (but the same format) did not pass the auto validation.
@LinqLover

𝙹𝚘𝚎𝚕 𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚝 ♑️🤪

@joel@gts.tumfatig.net 4 hr. ago

@stefano you’re talking about LibreOffice, right? 🤭

Stefano Marinelli

@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe 4 hr. ago

@joel to be fair, I haven't used a Microsoft Office product for...decades?

Stefano Marinelli

@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe 4 hr. ago

@joel s...sure 😆

Argo

@openfreenet@mastodon.bsd.cafe 4 hr. ago

@stefano, AI and robotics will not clone only Word but also the majority of workers. So we had to change our economic model, because there will be no many jobs left in the future. This will be mandatory.

From a technological point of view I'm very optimistic: automation, green energy, durable goods, etc...

From a social point of view, I have many more concerns because power corrupts, and as you noted, our ethic is far from optimal :-/

EDIT: and I am also frightened by the chaos of the intermediate period