Enshittification protests beget more enshittification

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the issue of corporations using user-generated content to train large language models (LLMs), and the author's perspective on how to effectively protest this practice.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Context and Concern

1. What is the author's perspective on the calls to delete existing answers and content?

• The author believes that deleting existing answers and content is counterproductive, as the companies already have the data backed up and will use it anyway.
• Deleting data only hurts humans who are searching for the answers through traditional searches, and it makes the knowledge exclusive to the "AI".

2. What does the author suggest as better ways to protest?

• The author suggests not contributing new answers and not logging in/deleting your account as great ways to register protest.
• The author also suggests directing people to community forums, writing answers on your own website and posting a link to the platform (POSSE style), and stopping further contributions to closed platforms.

[02] Potential Solutions

1. What is the author's analogy regarding the current situation?

• The author uses a dramatic analogy of a marauding force razing your city and driving you away. The author suggests that instead of burning your books in the fire, you should take your books with and build a better city with fortified libraries.

2. What does the author suggest as a solution to the issue?

• The author suggests using this as an opportunity to leave walled gardens and join community spaces, instead of encouraging others to delete answers.
• The author also suggests liberating existing data by using export tools where available, and taking back the web instead of furthering the "Enshittification" by protesting it ineffectively.