@brasic.bsky.social
Those data sets are just a bunch of text from the internet. Are you going to legislate a rate limit on me looking at Wikipedia? At what point would that approach run into serious first amendment problems?
December 26, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Those data sets are just a bunch of text from the internet. Are you going to legislate a rate limit on me looking at Wikipedia? At what point would that approach run into serious first amendment problems?
I’m again going to challenge you to identify the legal authority that Congress could invoke to justify “LLMs are illegal to use”, or are you conceding it would require constitutional changes?
December 26, 2025 at 8:29 PM
I’m again going to challenge you to identify the legal authority that Congress could invoke to justify “LLMs are illegal to use”, or are you conceding it would require constitutional changes?
But isn’t that tautological? If everyone agreed all socks should be pink it would be possible to restructure our society into a police state that ruthlessly cracked down on non-pink socks. That doesn’t make the scenario plausible.
December 26, 2025 at 8:15 PM
But isn’t that tautological? If everyone agreed all socks should be pink it would be possible to restructure our society into a police state that ruthlessly cracked down on non-pink socks. That doesn’t make the scenario plausible.
Right. I can personally train and implement a small LLM on hardware I own, using nothing but academic papers and freely available data sets. How would you make it illegal for me to do that without dramatically altering the constitutional order we live under? I think you can’t.
December 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Right. I can personally train and implement a small LLM on hardware I own, using nothing but academic papers and freely available data sets. How would you make it illegal for me to do that without dramatically altering the constitutional order we live under? I think you can’t.
And the same is true here. The constituency for the radical proposition of banning a widely-used technology is vanishingly small, so in that sense, we as a political community have “decided” that we don’t want to make the extreme changes to the constitution necessary to outlaw it.
December 26, 2025 at 8:10 PM
And the same is true here. The constituency for the radical proposition of banning a widely-used technology is vanishingly small, so in that sense, we as a political community have “decided” that we don’t want to make the extreme changes to the constitution necessary to outlaw it.
I think a useful historical precedent for the US government trying to ban a class of computation is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_..., and look how that turned out. I’ll take the other end of the position and say “as a practical matter, LLMs could not be banned by the US federal government.”
Crypto Wars - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
December 26, 2025 at 8:05 PM
I think a useful historical precedent for the US government trying to ban a class of computation is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_..., and look how that turned out. I’ll take the other end of the position and say “as a practical matter, LLMs could not be banned by the US federal government.”
Federally? Using what enumerated power? The commerce clause is stretched as it is, hard to argue that banning such a wide class of local computation could possibly be justified as a regulation of interstate commerce, especially if you were (presumably) banning commercial aspects of the same activity
December 26, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Federally? Using what enumerated power? The commerce clause is stretched as it is, hard to argue that banning such a wide class of local computation could possibly be justified as a regulation of interstate commerce, especially if you were (presumably) banning commercial aspects of the same activity
Hey Matt, love money stuff. Noticed a typo in "Lockups": "If you persuade the market that SpaceX is a $1.5 billion company" should be trillion I think.
December 17, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Hey Matt, love money stuff. Noticed a typo in "Lockups": "If you persuade the market that SpaceX is a $1.5 billion company" should be trillion I think.
Give me a break. Any working software engineer can tell you that LLMs used properly are an enormous boost to productivity. I have decades of experience and I can accomplish tasks in a few minutes that would have taken a day. It’s simply not realistic to claim that LLMs aren’t useful for SE dev.
November 9, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Give me a break. Any working software engineer can tell you that LLMs used properly are an enormous boost to productivity. I have decades of experience and I can accomplish tasks in a few minutes that would have taken a day. It’s simply not realistic to claim that LLMs aren’t useful for SE dev.
Yes. And it would need to survive a veto.
October 29, 2025 at 12:21 AM
Yes. And it would need to survive a veto.
Why is it legal to charge this in EDVA if the alleged conduct took place in Washington, DC?
September 26, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Why is it legal to charge this in EDVA if the alleged conduct took place in Washington, DC?
Class action requires a large group of people that are harmed in essentially identical ways. Libel and copyright infringement are both extremely fact-specific, so class action will not work.
September 1, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Class action requires a large group of people that are harmed in essentially identical ways. Libel and copyright infringement are both extremely fact-specific, so class action will not work.
Never a good sign when you have to say this.
August 12, 2025 at 3:49 AM
Never a good sign when you have to say this.
Yeah, I will never forgive LLMs for ruining emdashes for those of us who have been using them all along.
August 12, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Yeah, I will never forgive LLMs for ruining emdashes for those of us who have been using them all along.
Before the first commercially available black and white TV, even (1936).
July 29, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Before the first commercially available black and white TV, even (1936).
I mean, that’s exactly why they do this inside court houses: no guns.
June 17, 2025 at 5:38 PM
I mean, that’s exactly why they do this inside court houses: no guns.
Odd comparison. Eisenhower invoked the insurrection act to nationalize the guard. If trump had done that this would be a different case.
June 13, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Odd comparison. Eisenhower invoked the insurrection act to nationalize the guard. If trump had done that this would be a different case.
To be fair, the OK Charter School Board is also a government actor and was petitioner along with the school.
May 22, 2025 at 2:55 PM
To be fair, the OK Charter School Board is also a government actor and was petitioner along with the school.
Obviously pronounced %26mdash%3B%20Shaeleigh%20%26mdash%3B…
May 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Obviously pronounced %26mdash%3B%20Shaeleigh%20%26mdash%3B…
Benedicta tu in couple two tree mulieribus
May 8, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Benedicta tu in couple two tree mulieribus
Wow TIL that economist gift links only work for a single view.
Here’s one I just generated: www.economist.com/united-state...
Here’s one I just generated: www.economist.com/united-state...
May 8, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Wow TIL that economist gift links only work for a single view.
Here’s one I just generated: www.economist.com/united-state...
Here’s one I just generated: www.economist.com/united-state...
I’m not trying to justify anything. But I don’t see how your screenshots are relevant. Öztürk was here on a valid F-1 student visa that DHS/State purported to revoke due to an op-ed she published. This has nothing to do with the AEA except that both are part of an anti-immigrant crackdown by admin.
A timeline of the Rümeysa Öztürk case
Rümeysa Öztürk is a Tufts University student who was arrested and detained after federal officials quietly revoked her student visa. Here's a timeline of her case.
www.wbur.org
May 8, 2025 at 3:17 PM
I’m not trying to justify anything. But I don’t see how your screenshots are relevant. Öztürk was here on a valid F-1 student visa that DHS/State purported to revoke due to an op-ed she published. This has nothing to do with the AEA except that both are part of an anti-immigrant crackdown by admin.
Öztürk’s removal is not based on the Alien Enemies Act.
May 8, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Öztürk’s removal is not based on the Alien Enemies Act.
That car, to the tea shop:
🎵 We must never be apart. 🎵
🎵 We must never be apart. 🎵
May 1, 2025 at 2:19 AM
That car, to the tea shop:
🎵 We must never be apart. 🎵
🎵 We must never be apart. 🎵
Stealing the villain’s catch phrase from incredibles is an interesting choice.
April 23, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Stealing the villain’s catch phrase from incredibles is an interesting choice.