After the Assange hall of mirrors it’s refreshing to see a proposal from a hardass realist who recognizes that the devil doesn’t have morals. In this case the devil is Sam Altman.
Gioia lays out a strategy for music publishers to handle Altman. Altman is an incurable and immovable and unlearnable devil, but the human side has SOME power, and Altman is operating in a commercial market where he can’t MANDATE compliance.
Gioia’s main points:
1. Record companies should be working for the artists, not for the streamers. They should also make alliances with OTHER types of publishers who are equally threatened by Altman. This part is possible and relatively easy if the companies know what’s good for them. Alliances have far more bullypower than single companies. The TSA finally canceled its waterboarding mandate when all the airlines got together and said NO. TSA’s existence depends on airlines allowing it to torture passengers, so it had to choose between keeping the new torture or losing all the older tortures. Mengele in a cookie jar.
2. Demand full disclosure. This part may not be possible and doesn’t seem especially important or fruitful. Devils mastered the art of “revealing” a long time ago.
3. Allow the musicians to use AI as a tool, while opposing the use of AI to disemploy musicians. I’m pretty sure this is a bad idea, since all AI is operating in the same servers. The bitcoiners believed their NSA-based technology was decentralized from the other NSA-based tech. Other ‘dark web’ users believe the same myth. The only way to decentralize is to keep the whole process out of NSA’s servers.
The rule should be: If a tool (editor or enhancer) is independent and doesn’t “phone home” in any way, it’s OK. If a tool connects to the web and exchanges information, it’s helping Altman steal the world, so it’s not OK.
4. Refuse to work with tech companies that are devoted to stealing skills and talents. This is possible and would DEFINITELY make a difference. It’s the equivalent of a targeted strike by unions.
5. Celebrate and emphasize LIVE music and the human side of artists. Also possible and helpful.
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Fitting this into my basic principles for handling devils: You can’t and shouldn’t fight a devil. Fighting excites him. If you can simply GET OUT of the devil’s space, that’s best. If you can’t get OUT, use attrition. Try to bore the devil or deprive him of resources. In this case disconnecting from the web is GETTING OUT, and disconnecting from the web also deprives Altman of content and surveillance resources.
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Irrelevant etymology: The word mandate has turned into torture. I tried to recover its more innocent origin and remembered the older legalistic phrase ‘Given by my hand this 26th day of June’. Didn’t seem likely. Looking at the family of related words the base root must have been mand-, not manu datum. Nope, it is exactly ‘given by hand’.
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