No idea really, but I think he generally dismisses the platform as a non-threat. Which is good, I don't want him anywhere near it.
I love poking around in good settings menus. I can't stand Windows 11, and even Windows 10 and 7 are rubbish - there shouldn't be two layered styles of settings menus, and I shouldn't have to click through multiple pages to get to the function I want. Android, too, has gotten a bit crap, but at least the search function works well.
Yes, you do make a copy of a web page. And every time you load a video game you make a copy into RAM. However, this copying is all permitted under user license - you're allowed to make minor copies as part of the process of running the software and playing the media.
Case in point, the UK courts ruled that playing pirated games was illegal, because when you load the game from a disc you copy it into RAM, and this copying is not licensed by the player.
OpenAI does not have any license for copying into its database. The terms and conditions of web pages say you're allowed to view them, not allowed to take the data and use it for things. They don't explicitly prohibit this (yet), but the lack of a prohibition does not mean a license is implied. OpenAI can only hope for a fair use exemption, and I don't think they qualify because a) it isn't really "research" but product development, and even if it is research b) it is purely for commercial gain.
Endgame now is to kill off Twitter (and grassroots public forums in general) then replace them with right wing alternatives. Musk's old friend Peter Thiel failed with Parler, with Twitter out the way they have a much stronger chance.
Meanwhile, as Twitter crashes and burns, they can experiment with ludicrous ideas. Most of them will fail, but anything they get away with becomes a template for whatever comes next.
Like I say, that wasn't the plan all along - most likely he just wanted to manipulate the stock price and make a bit of profit - but that's what this has turned into.
The fun part comes later on, when you get a bit laissez-faire with the backups and kick yourself for missing something and having to configure it from scratch. Then you start tinkering and remember that you actually like configuring things.
He's not the only shareholder though.
First off, they didn't pay $44bn, that number includes a $13bn loan that Twitter took out to buy itself on behalf of the new owners. Musk paid ~$27 including fees, $20bn of this was Tesla stock (which since shortly after has been underperforming), then $5bn was other investors, including that Saudi Prince.
Edit: there was also Musk's existing shares, which iirc was around $2bn, but I think that's included in the $27bn - so his payment was something like $25bn, made up of $20bn in stock and $5bn in cash. /e
Musk is the majority owner, owning roughly around 26/31 of the value. However he isn't the only shareholder.
In any case the leveraged buyout has been structured with the intent of killing the business. There was never any sincere hope of paying off the $13bn debt, and the intent was all but proven when they almost immediately stopped paying rent on their offices. This might not have been the goal along, but since Musk was forced to make the purchase that's what it turned into.
information that it can index, tag and sort for keywords.
The dataset ChatGPT uses to train on contains data copied unlawfully. They're not just reading the data at its source, they're copying the data into a training database without sufficient license.
Whether ChatGPT itself contains all the works is debatable - is it just word relationships when the system can reproduce significant chunks of copyrighted data from those relationships? - but the process of training inherently requires unlicensed copying.
In terms of fair use, they could argue a research exemption, but this isn't really research, it's product development. The database isn't available as part of scientific research, it's protected as a trade secret. Even if it was considered research, it absolutely is commercial in nature.
In my opinion, there is a stronger argument that OpenAI have broken copyright for commercial gain than that they are legitimately performing fair use copying for the benefit of society.
how easily accessible does a copy of a copyrighted work have to be from an otherwise openly accessible data store in order to violate copyright?
I don't think it really matters how accessible it is, what matters is the purpose of use. In a nutshell, fair use covers education, news and criticism. After that, the first consideration is whether the use is commercial in nature.
ChatGPT's use isn't education (research), they're developing a commercial product - even the early versions were not so much prototypes but a part of the same product they have today. Even if it were considered as a research fair use exception, the product absolutely is commercial in nature.
Whether or not data was openly accessible doesn't really matter - more than likely the accessible data itself is a copyright violation. That would be a separate violation, but it absolutely does not excuse ChatGPT's subsequent violation. ChatGPT also isn't just reading the data at its source, it's copying it into its training dataset, and that copying is unlicensed.
And just the other day I had people arguing to me that it simply wasn't possible for ChatGPT to contain significant portions of copyrighted work in its database.
I'm convinced the reason Musk rebranded away from Twitter is so that they can sell off the brand name when the business inevitably folds.
Woop the news I'd been hoping for!