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Anthropic's Claude AI blocks video game cloning and reverse-engineering — sweeping new restrictions also hit legitimate developers and basic troubleshooting tasks. (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -7 points 5 days ago (9 children)

Yet another absolutely fascinating comment section. Let me try to understand what is happening here.

Are some of you upset because Claude can no longer do this? Were you perfectly happy with AI being used to decompile games and circumvent Sony's PlayStation ecosystem when it was being used to stick it to a major corporation? But now that Anthropic has decided to prohibit this particular use of its technology, suddenly AI is terrible again? Suddenly it devalues human labor, which, incidentally, isn't really what is happening here. In many instances, it eliminates the need for that labor altogether.

Then there are those arguing that only AI companies should be allowed to do these things, rather than independent individuals. Which is, quite frankly, a ridiculous argument. Companies have every right to dictate how their products and services are used, particularly when we're talking about a proprietary service like Claude. You don't own Claude. You don't purchase the underlying technology. It belongs to Anthropic, and Anthropic gets to establish the terms under which it is made available.

So which is it? Do you oppose AI on principle, or do you only oppose it when it doesn't serve your particular interests? Is AI the enemy of human creativity and labor, except when it's being used to accomplish something you personally want?

I'd appreciate a little consistency from this user base. Surely that's not too much to ask.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    The user base isn’t homogenous

    I like that Claude can jailbreak consoles and decomp and port games quickly. These are projects that are cool, have utility, are obnoxiously difficult and or tedious, and exclusively unpaid. Is it better if some super coder does it all? Probably, but the unpaid bit means progress is painfully slow and limited to people doing passion projects. But is it also cool I can play a bunch of retro games natively on basically any platform and then jailbreak a ps5 to run Linux and steam? Yes

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    I will admit that it is possible I need to make my position a little clearer. The vast majority of comments on this platform are overwhelmingly critical of AI in other posts, yet many of those same people were praising it when it was being used to decompile video games and jailbreak the PS5.

    I am simply, once again, pointing out the two-faced nature of this platform. My gripe, if you will, is consistency. If you hate AI, then hate it for everything it does, including the things that might actually be beneficial. It's convenient to play both sides and act as a devil's advocate when it suits your position, but ultimately, that's a useless and self-defeating stance.

    If you're going to take a centrist position on AI, then do that. Praise it where it deserves praise and criticize it where it deserves criticism. But don't turn around and say you hate everything about AI in one breath, only to make an exception when it happens to serve your interests.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 days ago

    My take on it is that AI has been thrusted into everyone's face without need or want and with no consideration to original content developers that the AI was trained on. There then became a use case where it allowed access to previously locked down corporate products. Within the span of weeks, this access has now been blocked /removed. This highlights that corporations will always protect corporations (AI didn't give a shit about creative commons). When individuals push back the response is "suck it up, you should appreciate it" when it impacts a corporations bottom line or IP then there's immediate changes. This forecasts that AI is not for value or benefit of people but of corporations.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Claude rests on a foundation of open source contributions hoovered up with license files sent to /dev/null. The unexpected positive we had for a little while was that maybe it could pry open the walled gardens of applications (conincidentally also built atop the same open source contributions). But it wasn't to be, only big corporations get to use this benefit.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago

    But they're not. Big corporations aren't decompiling games, modifying them, and then distributing them for free. They're not even doing it for profit.

    In a grand act of irony, they stopped potential copyright infringement involving the very games being decompiled and redistributed.

    My complaint, and the point I'm calling out, is that people on this platform will praise technology when it's convenient for them, only to throw it under the bus when it becomes convenient to do so. Even when, in this particular instance, the technology provider technically did the right thing by putting a stop to the activity. Although, no doubt, this was prompted by pressure from Sony, Rockstar, and other concerned parties.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago

    So which is it?

    Multiple things can be true at once, or change their status and realization as the world revolves. Very few facts get the honour of remaining as true axioms.

    Is AI the enemy of human creativity and labor, except when it’s being used to accomplish something you personally want?

    It's the enemy of human creativity and labour, even when it’s being used to accomplish something I personally want. But if as you say, I don't get to choose how the technology is used, then there is good moral reason to not be glad when its action happens to align with your intent. After all, we are glad for fair weather every once in a while.

    May I remind you also that the worker class were quite certainly not the owners of the pitchforks and guillotines with which they rebelled against their oppressors.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    The usual fallacy of treating the comment section as if it were a unified single opinion.

    Also, false dichotomy. There's plenty of other options, some of which make a lot more sense.

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  • [–] -1 points 4 days ago

    Your first comment, accusing me of treating the comment section as one unified opinion, is a straw man. It is significantly easier to defend an argument when you change it entirely, rather than address what I actually said. I was arguably addressing the comment section as a collective, not suggesting that every individual held the exact same opinion. Your response demonstrates that you either misunderstand or are misusing the term logical fallacy.

    Your second statement is pure nonsense for the same reason. You clearly don't understand what a false dichotomy is. I didn't introduce a dichotomy or present two mutually exclusive positions. I simply asked a question: which is it?

    Please stop throwing around logical fallacies when you don't understand what they mean. It derails the conversation entirely. Instead of addressing the substance of my argument, you've changed the discussion into an argument about whether I understand logical fallacies. Worse, you've completely avoided addressing the actual point I was making. That's precisely the kind of diversion that prevents any meaningful discussion.

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