When it comes to AI, yes you guys are lucky Meta had that snafu with LLaMa researchers and chose to seize the moment and make LLaMa available freely to everyone. Otherwise it would be quite a different world. Mark Z returned to his open-source roots that he had with Synapse and Wirehog back in the day, before Sean Parker and Peter Thiel “corrupted” him.
But when it comes to everything else, it is the opposite, in my opinion.
Apple sells you the hardware and you install apps locally. It’s not open source, but at least it runs locally. And Apple cares about your privacy.
Facebook is the opposite, it is ad-supported, it will never give you their backend source code or let you run your own social network. They only promote “React” front end framework and other ancillary things. They will try to take your data by hook or by crook (surreptitiously recording your camera and audio as well). Their “Metaverse” play would have to recouo the tens of billions spent on development.
But yeah when it comes to AI, you guys lucked out. Zuck’s image has improved since the first 15 years of “dumbf%[#s” giving him their data. He now surfs in a suit and looks much cooler. But remember — it’s people like Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee, and all the “BDFL”s of all the languages you use (like Guido Vom Rossum for Python and the Zend guys behind PHP) who really create most of the wealth for the world. If not for open source, you’d be spending more and more of your life in some corporation’s world.
Just ask yourself, when the following technologies enter your home or your body, would you rather all be hooked up to a corporation like the Borg, or at least have your own installation where you have a say:
TeslaBot in your house
Neuralink in your brain
Microsoft Recall recording
Hours in “the Metaverse”
Security cameras everywhere
What do you think the incentives will be for TeslaBot or Microsoft Recall surreptitiously storing everything they can about you, including your passwords?
When facing the temptation. Microsoft has already done it. Facebook has already done it.
But it can go far beyond that. How difficult would it be for TeslaBot to get all the info to impersonate you? All your mannerisms, voice recordings, your heartbeat rhythms, gait, everything?
Evidently there is a market for those who want to run their own software and those who don’t care.
Apple caters to the latter. Meta seems to be taking the more open route.
Luckily pretty much all major VR platforms use OpenXR, so we have a better start than in the past.