No, because OpenAI and Microsoft both have “CUSTOMER NONCOMPETE CLAUSES” in their terms of use. I didn’t check Apple, but Google doesn’t have any shady monopolistic stuff like that.
“What You Cannot Do. You may not use our Services for any illegal, harmful, or abusive activity. For example, you may not: […] Use Output to develop models that compete with OpenAI.” (Hilarious how that reads btw)
“AI Services.
”AI services” are services that are labeled or described by Microsoft as including, using, powered by, or being an Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) system. Limits on use of data from the AI Services. You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service.”
That 100% does include GitHub Copilot, by the way. I canceled my sub. After I emailed Satya, they told me to post my “feedback” in a forum for issues about Xbox and Word (what a joke). I emailed the FTC Antitrust team. I filed a formal complaint with the office of the attorney general of the state of Washington.
I am just one person. You should also raise a ruckus about this and contact the authorities, because it’s morally bankrupt and almost surely unlawful by virtue of extreme unfairness and unreasonableness, in addition to precedent.
AWS, Anthropic, and NVIDIA also all have similar Customer Noncompete Clauses.
I meekly suggest everyone immediately and completely boycott OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, Anthropic, and NVIDIA, until they remove these customer noncompete clauses (which seem contrary to the Sherman Antitrust Act).
Just imagine a world where AI can freely learn from us, but we are forbidden to learn from AI. Sounds like a boring dystopia, and we ought to make sure to avoid it.
They cannot enforce a non-compete on a customer. Check out the rest of their terms that talk about durability. They will sneakily say "our terms that are illegal don't apply but the rest do."
You cannot tell a customer that buying your product precludes them from building products like it. That violates principles of the free market, and it's unenforceable. This is just like non-competes in employment. They aren't constitutional.
> But no, they cannot levy fines or put you in jail.
Those are the consequences that matter. I don't care if Microsoft or Google decide they don't want to be friends with me. They'd stab me in the back to steal my personal data anyway.
Sounds like we need legislature to void these "customer non-compete clauses". Not holding my breath though, see what govts allows copyrights to become. Govts seems to protect (interests of near-) monopolies more than anything.
This is a perfect example of the owner class getting away with crime (copyright infringement) and using it against the public (you can't use AI output!).
Businesses are not entitled to life or existence the way individuals are.
It's not unlawful, it's not morally bankrupt. Noncompete clauses have been around since the beginning of human commercial activity and have a valid reason to exist - to encourage companies/people/investors to put large sums of capital at risk to develop novel technologies. If there was no way to profit from them, the capital would be non-existent.
It's not theater, it's very real. Companies are making decisions to not use data generated from openai. They are making the decision because they know if they go the other way they know they risk it being leaked via someone internal that they are doing it, that it's pretty easy to figure out during a discovery process. I'm involved in this issue right now, and no one is treating it as something to just blow off. I know several other companies in the same boat.
They have many orders of magnitude more money and attorneys that would work full-time on such a case to ensure that even if they lost the court battle, the person or company doing the thing that they didn't like would be effectively bankrupted, so they still win in the end.
You'll find that if you learn a good amount about the law, it's empowering. The courts are an adversarial place. For every person getting sued... someone is suing. It's isn't "big brother" or "my keeper" or "the man keeping you down" or however you imagine it. You can be the one exerting the pressure if you know what you are doing.
Proof OpenAI has this shady monopolistic stuff: https://archive.ph/vVdIC
“What You Cannot Do. You may not use our Services for any illegal, harmful, or abusive activity. For example, you may not: […] Use Output to develop models that compete with OpenAI.” (Hilarious how that reads btw)
Proof Microsoft has this shady monopolistic stuff: https://archive.ph/N5iVq
“AI Services. ”AI services” are services that are labeled or described by Microsoft as including, using, powered by, or being an Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) system. Limits on use of data from the AI Services. You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service.”
That 100% does include GitHub Copilot, by the way. I canceled my sub. After I emailed Satya, they told me to post my “feedback” in a forum for issues about Xbox and Word (what a joke). I emailed the FTC Antitrust team. I filed a formal complaint with the office of the attorney general of the state of Washington.
I am just one person. You should also raise a ruckus about this and contact the authorities, because it’s morally bankrupt and almost surely unlawful by virtue of extreme unfairness and unreasonableness, in addition to precedent.
AWS, Anthropic, and NVIDIA also all have similar Customer Noncompete Clauses.
I meekly suggest everyone immediately and completely boycott OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, Anthropic, and NVIDIA, until they remove these customer noncompete clauses (which seem contrary to the Sherman Antitrust Act).
Just imagine a world where AI can freely learn from us, but we are forbidden to learn from AI. Sounds like a boring dystopia, and we ought to make sure to avoid it.