Stephen Downes

The gist of this article is that "We believe reciprocity must be embedded in the AI ecosystem in order to uphold the social contract behind sharing." Specifically, "If you benefit from the commons, and (critically) if you are in a position to give back to the commons, you should." I know Creative Commons is adopting something like this as an organizational stance, but I don't agree with it. When I share, I'm not trying to tie you to some sort of social contract or create some sort of obligation on your part. That's not sharing, that's exchange, and the ethics of the two are very different. It turns our space into a marketplace, not a commons. Even if people use it to train AI, the commons is still there as long as we keep it a commons. It's when we convert our commons to a marketplace that it can become inaccessible, which is exactly what I don't want when I share. Via OEGlobal.