That’s factually incorrect. You can use most of these products for free. I use ChatGPT, Perplexity, ClaudeAI, and Gemini every day without paying, and even just these free services have already improved various processes in my life.

I do agree with you on the point that we need to find better ways to compensate the people creating content—especially considering that parts of this "AI service," as we might call it, are subscription-based.

But in the long run, I’m quite sure that if everyone shared this opinion, it wouldn't move us forward technologically.

Also, a couple of other points:

    Google and others have been scraping the internet for years, and no one complained then.

    You're not paying the AI company for the knowledge itself—you're paying for the technology behind it, for the ability to access and use it effectively.

1. What exactly is wrong with the first part of that point? I agree that the second part is inaccurate—right now, the money mostly flows in one direction. But as I mentioned earlier, we can use many of these tools for free.

2. You’re not paying just to have your own knowledge echoed back at you. You’re paying so that someone (or something) can read what you provide and, ideally, return improved knowledge or fresh insights. As I said above, you’re paying for the technology and its capabilities—not the knowledge itself. That’s how I see it.

> Most people don’t want computers to know everything.

That may well be true. But how many of those people are specifically against AI companies scraping the web? That’s not really an argument—it’s an assumption based on personal perception.

> Ask the average person if they want more or less of their lives recorded and stored.

What exactly is the "average person"? Also, I’ll admit my earlier claim was a bit exaggerated. But let’s be clear: this isn’t about recording personal data—it’s about collecting and structuring knowledge.

And beyond that: companies have been scraping the web for years. They still are. And they’re gathering far more personal data for online marketing, tracking, profiling—whatever the reason—and the so-called "average person" hasn’t raised much of a finger. People remain glued to platforms, willingly sharing their personal lives. And what do they get in return? Doomscrolling and five-second video clips.

That’s not what I said. Let me rephrase it: Do you want computers to help us solve medical or scientific problems in order to improve human life?

In the sense that people are voluntarily installing and running this malware on their computers, rather than being tricked into running it? Is that the only difference?

Which is ironic considering that I strongly disagree with one of the primary walled garden justifications, used particularly in the case of Apple, which amounts to "the end user is too stupid to decide on his own". Unfortunately, even if I disagree with it as a guiding principle sometimes that statement proves true.

No doubt in a dense wall of text that the user must accept to use the application, or worse is deemed to have accepted by using the application at all.