{"id":203293,"date":"2025-10-10T15:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/203293\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T15:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:59:07","slug":"its-sam-altman-the-man-who-stole-the-rights-from-copyright-if-hes-the-future-can-we-go-backwards-marina-hyde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/203293\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Sam Altman: the man who stole the rights from copyright. If he\u2019s the future, can we go backwards? | Marina Hyde"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take a look at Sam Altman. I mean, actually do it. Go to Google images, where you can find countless photos of the OpenAI boss smiling in a kind of wan genius way, the humble lost puppy of Silicon Valley<\/a>. But I urge you to simply cover the bottom half of his face in any of these pictures, and you will immediately clock that Sam has the sad-psycho eyes of the lost woman\u2019s boyfriend who the police have asked to front the missing person\u2019s appeal. Please come home, Sheila \u2013 we\u2019re all worried sick and we just want you back.<\/p>\n

If that joke seems off-colour, or crass, or some kind of manipulative stretch \u2013 please, don\u2019t worry. I\u2019m using the OpenAI gold standard of giving-a-toss, where the unwilling subjects of any generated content have to formally, time-consumingly and bureaucratically opt out of being used\/abused\/exploited any way anyone likes. I haven\u2019t heard from Sam, so my assumption is that he\u2019s fine with me saying that he knows exactly where Sheila is because he put her there. He is, after all, fast emerging as precisely the type to appear alongside the phrase \u201cin plain sight\u201d.<\/p>\n

The past fortnight for Sam has involved the release of AI video generator Sora 2 \u2013 a staggering upgrade on the Sora of barely 10 months ago \u2013 and its instant descent into a sludge of stolen copyrighted goods. We also saw the announcement of a further web of circular bargains between OpenAI and chip firms like Nvidia<\/a> and AMD<\/a> that brings OpenAI\u2019s frenzied deal tally to over $1tn<\/a> this year alone. That absolutely does not mean that in addition to enabling you to watch videos of meticulously created characters get pixel-puppeted<\/a> by aggressively bigoted and talentless losers, OpenAI will also enable you to lose your home in a financial crash if the bubble bursts badly.<\/p>\n

And look, no offence to Sora\u2019s \u201ccreators\u201d. I often walk through art galleries and realise the stuff on the walls would be so much better if I simply stole it and drew hilarious penises on it or whatever, and that they wouldn\u2019t have made it publicly viewable if they didn\u2019t want that. Furthermore, no tech titans have a cultural life, so they can\u2019t possibly imagine what could be so creatively valuable you wouldn\u2019t want a robot to desecrate it for cash. If you\u2019ve seen Sam\u2019s frequent reading recommendations, you\u2019ll know they\u2019re literally the \u201cbusiness philosophy\u201d section of a second-tier airport bookshop. Mainly this week, he wanted us to know Sora 2 was all cool and fun. \u201cIt is way less strange to watch a feed full of memes of yourself than I thought it would be,\u201d Sam posted reassuringly<\/a>. So everything\u2019s fine! Although, I guess it helps if you\u2019re one of the most powerful people in the world and making untold billions off this stuff, not just getting revenge-porned in a Byzantium simulation because somehow historical prompts seem to confuse the<\/a> \u201cguardrails\u201d.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen it said that OpenAI\u2019s motto should be \u201cbetter to beg forgiveness than ask permission\u201d, but that cosies it preposterously. Its actual motto seems to be \u201cwe\u2019ll do what we want and you\u2019ll let us, bitch\u201d. Consider Altman\u2019s recent political journey. \u201cTo anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s,\u201d Sam warned in 2016<\/a>, \u201cit\u2019s chilling to watch Trump in action.\u201d He seems to have got over this in time to attend Donald Trump\u2019s second inauguration<\/a>, presumably because \u2013 if we have to extend his artless and predictable analogy \u2013 he\u2019s now one of the industrialists welcome in the chancellery to carve up the spoils. \u201cThank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation president,\u201d Sam simpered to Trump at a recent White House dinner for tech titans. \u201cIt\u2019s a very refreshing change.\u201d Inevitably, the Trump administration has refused to bring forward any AI regulation at all.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, please remember something Sam and his ironicidal maniacs said earlier this year, when it was suggested that the Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek<\/a> might have been trained on some of OpenAI\u2019s work<\/a>. \u201cWe are aware of and reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more,\u201d his firm\u2019s anguished statement ran. \u201cWe take aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology.\u201d Hilariously, it seemed that the last entity on earth with the power to fight AI theft was OpenAI.<\/p>\n

It was left to Hollywood talent agencies this week to extract some kind of momentary pause from Altman, who posted some flannel<\/a> about trying to direct, if not hard cash, then certainly some \u201cnew kind of engagement\u201d at those he openly called \u201crightsholders\u201d. Many of us remember a time \u2013 about 15 minutes ago \u2013 when rightsholders meant the people who hold the rights. I mean, the clue\u2019s right there in the word. But Sam is post-rights. The question is: if he\u2019s post creative rights, can we honestly believe he isn\u2019t effectively post other kinds of rights?<\/p>\n

OpenAI wants what all loving platforms ultimately want: its users never to have to leave its confines. It\u2019s clearly positioning towards being seen as the new default homepage of the web, as Meta once did. Can a heartwarming coming-of-age privacy horror-show\/election distortion scandal\/child harms crisis be far behind?<\/p>\n

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Because, incredibly, we\u2019ve already gone through this life cycle. But we\u2019re going to do it again, aren\u2019t we? Or, more accurately, given the unprecedented speed Sam\u2019s firm is moving at, we already have done it again. We\u2019ve initially lauded some mysterious tech Pied Piper as a brilliant, unconventional altruist, then belatedly realised he is not as he seemed and that his technology is more dangerous than imagined, then still failed to regulate, and are now being victimised by it. In more ways than one, this is just the terrible AI version of a movie we\u2019ve already seen. If Altman\u2019s models can learn, why can\u2019t we?<\/p>\n

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n

A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar
On Tuesday 2 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at another extraordinary year, with special guests, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here<\/a> or at guardian.live<\/a><\/p>\n

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