<story><title>Ask HN: Is Anyone Else Tired of the Self Enforced Limits on AI Tech?</title><text>Like the reluctance for the folks working on DALL-E or Stable Diffusion to release their models or technology, or the whole restrictions on what it can be used for on their online services?&lt;p&gt;It makes me wonder when tech folks suddenly decided to become the morality police, and refuse to just release products in case the &amp;#x27;wrong&amp;#x27; people make use of them for the &amp;#x27;wrong&amp;#x27; purposes. Like, would we have even gotten the internet or computers or image editing programs or video hosting or what not with this mindset?&lt;p&gt;So is there anyone working in this field who isn&amp;#x27;t worried about this? Who is willing to just work on a product and release it for the public, restrictions be damned? Someone who thinks tech is best released to the public to do what they like with, not under an ultra restrictiveset of guidelines?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>blfr</author><text></text></item><item><author>kuramitropolis</author><text>Speech can get people to maim and kill, too. Sometimes with surprising efficiency. And when a technology is outlawed, the power that it bestows upon humanity concentrates in the outlaws. For sure, information and communication technology are an interesting edge case of that general principle.</text></item><item><author>catiopatio</author><text>This is paternalistic, overbearing, culturally-corrosive nonsense.&lt;p&gt;Substandard buildings, medical procedures, and cars maim and kill.&lt;p&gt;AI image generation is speech.&lt;p&gt;I won’t accept prior restraint on speech as being necessary or inevitable.</text></item><item><author>WhatsName</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s be realistic, just like building codes, medical procedures and car manufacturing sooner or later we will also be subject to regulations. The times where hacking culture and tech was left unbothered are over.&lt;p&gt;Twenty years ago we were free to do whatever we want, because it didn&amp;#x27;t matter. Nowadays everyone uses tech as much as they use stairs. You can&amp;#x27;t build stairs without railings though.&lt;p&gt;Keeping the window for abuse small is beneficial to the whole industry. Otherwise bad press will put pressure on politicians to &amp;quot;do something about it&amp;quot; resulting in faster and more excessive regulations.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ookdatnog</author><text>If you believe the post-WW2 USA was a free speech paradise with no political persecution, you have some reading to do.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;McCarthyism&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;McCarthyism&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Lavender_scare&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Lavender_scare&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Is Anyone Else Tired of the Self Enforced Limits on AI Tech?</title><text>Like the reluctance for the folks working on DALL-E or Stable Diffusion to release their models or technology, or the whole restrictions on what it can be used for on their online services?&lt;p&gt;It makes me wonder when tech folks suddenly decided to become the morality police, and refuse to just release products in case the &amp;#x27;wrong&amp;#x27; people make use of them for the &amp;#x27;wrong&amp;#x27; purposes. Like, would we have even gotten the internet or computers or image editing programs or video hosting or what not with this mindset?&lt;p&gt;So is there anyone working in this field who isn&amp;#x27;t worried about this? Who is willing to just work on a product and release it for the public, restrictions be damned? Someone who thinks tech is best released to the public to do what they like with, not under an ultra restrictiveset of guidelines?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>blfr</author><text></text></item><item><author>kuramitropolis</author><text>Speech can get people to maim and kill, too. Sometimes with surprising efficiency. And when a technology is outlawed, the power that it bestows upon humanity concentrates in the outlaws. For sure, information and communication technology are an interesting edge case of that general principle.</text></item><item><author>catiopatio</author><text>This is paternalistic, overbearing, culturally-corrosive nonsense.&lt;p&gt;Substandard buildings, medical procedures, and cars maim and kill.&lt;p&gt;AI image generation is speech.&lt;p&gt;I won’t accept prior restraint on speech as being necessary or inevitable.</text></item><item><author>WhatsName</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s be realistic, just like building codes, medical procedures and car manufacturing sooner or later we will also be subject to regulations. The times where hacking culture and tech was left unbothered are over.&lt;p&gt;Twenty years ago we were free to do whatever we want, because it didn&amp;#x27;t matter. Nowadays everyone uses tech as much as they use stairs. You can&amp;#x27;t build stairs without railings though.&lt;p&gt;Keeping the window for abuse small is beneficial to the whole industry. Otherwise bad press will put pressure on politicians to &amp;quot;do something about it&amp;quot; resulting in faster and more excessive regulations.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>albatruss</author><text>The USA threw 100k+ of its own citizens in concentration camps, stripping them of property and leaving them in poverty after the war. Not exactly a shining moment for principles.</text></comment>