Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I used to do presentations at educational technology conferences and many (30+)years ago I speculated that "in the future" computers that could create would be licensed. This was based on the observation that every significant past technology under user control was eventually licensed for permission to operate - radio, television, cars, the list is long.




you need better examples than radio/tv/cars

radio/tv share the bands which are very narrow resource so licensing pretty much have to exist else there would be interference abound (imagine competing TV station just driving around with a jammer on competition

cars have that + the fact infrastructure is built by public money. Allowing anyone on anything with no training there literally costs lives

Or, copyright wise, to earn money in before digital world you kinda had to not have too much of copyright infringement - while artist today might get popular enough to subside on patreon/other form of digital tips, before it wouldn't be possible


This doesn't really disagree with the parent's thesis. You're just giving the long explanation for each event.

Any significant technological advancement necessarily uses some shared public resource which will drive people to regulate it. For AI folks are trying to get a lot of random things to stick: the power grid, water usage, public safety, disinformation.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: