There is a grand irony that in order to create these large language models, capital needed to disregard its own IP laws, and in doing so, created a machine capable of undermining its own IP laws. I remember years ago, as all this stuff was just starting to come online, I was telling someone I knew that IP law sits at the center of AI. I had mentioned that legal battles will be fought over who has the right to ignore IP law and that it would ultimately lead to the downfall of IP as a concept. I am not convinced that is where this is going now, but it sure is widening the gray zone by a large margin.

IP and patents are frankly a hinderance to progress anyway. You would think that would be a pro-capitalist argument, but capital weaponizes IP and patents to solidify monopolies all the time, ensuring they never have to actually innovate in the market at all. International IP law, for example, is one of the primary levers capital has in maintaining control over global south countries and ensuring they stay underdeveloped and reliant on western capital. A primary example would be medical treatments. The pharma industry has a history of bullying even other capitalist ventures that had inovated outside the borders of the national IP regime; it's one of the primary reasons international IP law is as powerful as it is. TRIPS is low-key one of the most destructive global trade agreements when assessed through the lens of the pharam industry. The amount of delayed delivery of treatments for global south nations amounts to a continuous and mass disabling event, keeping the world in a delayed state of unhealth (for lack of a better word) well behind the global north. Even still, that delay can be real for people in the global north as well, if you happen to be part of the margins, such as monopolizing and delaying advanced treatments for things like HIV/AIDS.

All this to say,