AI and the Corporate Capture of Knowledge (www.schneier.com)

A recent commentary revisits the legacy of Aaron Swartz, whose efforts to make publicly funded knowledge accessible led to his prosecution and tragic death in 2013. The piece highlights the ongoing contradiction between the ideals of open knowledge and the reality of corporate control over intellectual property, particularly in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). While Swartz faced serious legal consequences for his actions in liberating academic research from costly paywalls, today's AI companies are largely unchallenged as they utilize vast amounts of copyrighted material—scraping books, articles, and other works to train AI models—often without consent or compensation. This practice raises critical questions about the discrepancy in how copyright law is applied, depending on whether the extractor is an activist or a tech giant. The implications for the AI/ML community are profound. As these proprietary systems become the primary means through which society accesses knowledge, the concentration of control in the hands of a few tech companies threatens democratic principles and accountability. If AI models are built on public knowledge that remains opaque and inaccessible, critical questions about expertise and information dissemination come to the forefront. The piece warns that the direction AI is taking may lead to a future where access to knowledge is dictated more by corporate power than by the ideals of openness and public benefit, posing a significant risk to democratic engagement and informed discourse.