In other words, that's just the normal lifecycle of words in a language with an active speaker community. In any stage of history, the meaning of words is just the speaker community's projection of will.

Best I can do now is acknowledge that what counts as "theft" is a complicated topic and can't be decided by a binary "is said object still there after alleged theft has occurred?". I've benefited from some digital theft, naturally, so I might be biased to uphold my own morality but the kind of theft contemporary AI tech has enabled is something else entirely. Somewhere there is where I draw the line.

Recently, I introduced a few friends to the works of digital artist wlop. The immediate reaction was "Is that AI?". I can't help but feel offended in behalf of wlop. It doesn't help that they have made LoRAs out of his work. It's not so much the "theft" of techniques/concepts/etc. that enrages me but rather, the theft of credibility that a human is capable of this output. I imagine Jeff Geerling (and, to a lesser extent, maybe ScarJo) is enraged along similar lines. In this AI summer, other people are fighting for their livelihoods, other people are fighting for their credibility. And, of course, there's an intersection of people whose credibility is their livelihood.

Note that in reframing it as theft of credibility, the owning party has been definitely injured to an extent. As in, said object (credibility) is no longer what it once was after alleged theft has occurred.

And I'm not trying to state some Universal Truths that I will debate to death. Again the whole point is that what counts as "theft" is a complicated topic. I'm sure if you spend a bit more brainpower, you can find analogies that will make me look like a hypocrite. I'm just seeing this community lately strongly signal towards preserving some "original" meaning of words in the belief that it will solve some problem or another and I'm tired of it; I have similar linguistic thoughts about the whole uproar on the term "hallucination" but that's for another comment thread essay.

> People have to adjust expectations, not laws.

I know this thread is about theft but this attitude is downright dangerous in general. People should expect laws to adjust, lest they become irrelevant. Quick example: it's not fair to tell workers to adjust their expectation in light of the emergence of the gig economy. Should they just expect their labor to be exploited then, moving forward? I say, absolutely not. Legislation should catch-up to uphold/strengthen labor laws. Replace "gig economy" with "AI" and we are sort-of back on topic.