It’s the same as asking “should you release open source software knowing that AI companies are training on them”. I could absolutely not care less, that’s not the point why I release my software to the public at all.
I rotate through the libraries near me with my kids.
They are every bit as busy now as I remember them being when I was a kid.
A recent executive order prohibits libraries (among other non-profits) from processing US passport applications. While county clerks (in my state) along with a small number of post office locations also offer this service, the libraries were doing it for free as opposed to charging $50-ish (like the post office or county clerks).
Why might the passport issue be important? The SAVE Act (passed the House of Representatives last year and sitting before the Senate) only permits 4 identification items to register to vote for Federal elections:
1 - A US Passport (costs about $100 to renew, about $150 for first time).
2 - A US Military ID that has proof of US citizenship (CAC cards show this with a white background behind your name - yellow or blue for contractors or non-US citizens). IDs for retirees don't show citizenship.
3 - A REAL ID compliant driving license that has proof of US citizenship. Also called "Enhanced Driving License", on the front it has a US flag and the back looks like the page on your passport with those funny letters. Only 5 states offer this as an extra $30-40 on top of the regular driving license fee.
4 - A REAL ID compliant driving license/ID and certified birth certificate and the names must match exactly. This means that 74 million women who took their husbands' name will not be voting in Federal Elections. Also, no transgender people can vote.
The SAVE Act also requires voter registration agencies to send voter rolls to DHS every month. And every month DHS can throw people off the voter rolls with no warning, no notice nor recourse. One can easily imagine this being done right before elections where people who registered for the "wrong" political party will be thrown off the rolls after the deadline to register.
Project 2025 wants to repeal the 19th Amendment. Throwing 74 million women off the voter rolls is just a start.
Links:
SAVE Act text - https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/t...
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/t...
2. The Chinese have been investing a lot into free models, they're perfectly good and keep improving; despite the best efforts of the US. They're even ramping into making their own hardware. Gemma 4 is pretty snappy too. It doesn't seem like there is much of a moat to this, my guess is there will be perfectly good local models if you want to avoid AI companies.
When the person paying the money is rich, the other thing they are foregoing is typically not a life necessity. When the person is poor, however, it typically is.
I highly encourage you to go and update your priors.
That's what the money pays for when the Comment above mentions 'that you might have to eventually pay an AI company a large amount of money to ask ChatGPT such a question'
Putting aside that it won't be a large amount of money For any particular query , that's how the AI companies see themselves, not as providers of information, but as providers of mechanisms that provide information. It is not selling the Information of others, it isn't selling information at all. They are selling the service of running the mechanism.
I'm always going to have a machine anyway—might as well max out the RAM when I purchase another.
(And so too I jumped on the Mac mini bandwagon a month or two back—64 GB. I'm enjoying pulling down the new models and putting them through my paces.)
It doesn't look like they have a way to filter down to "open" models. By this of course I mean "downloadable, local models".
I suppose if you know the "family" (Gemma, Qwen, etc.), I can just go to those models and test…
I've simply been pulling down what is popular from the LM Studio front end (and what runs on my hardware) and testing in situ.
Clarification:
To maintain the library still requires resources & effort to do so. It only appears to need no funding because the donators of said (disk space / bandwidth / dev effort) are subsidizing it in aid of a goal they believe in (i.e. the church model).
> while the library itself has lost funding
Libraries are inherent parts of universities. While their precise role evolves, do you think that they will just be done away with? Already a substantial amount of scholarship in disciplines other than my own has moved online (legally), and the library is still there.
There are plenty of free models with RAG support. Why do you believe everything starts and ends with a major corporation charging a subscription?