Isabelle Levent

Like oil and land, data are a common that is commodified by private actors for profits. The commons being commodified is our essence as humans: our interactions with society at large.

A poem, I would say, is the site where “hollow and void” poetry is tactically deployed in a physical and social context, in order to achieve a particular effect. The poem unites poetry with an intention. So yes, a language model can indeed (and can only) write poetry, but only a person can write a poem.

Second, we should create a legal regime that can make our data’s collective value something we can bargain over as a group.

You must never think at the typewriter — you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. (Ray Bradbury)

This builds on a growing body of work that our ‘‘mind perception’’ (which manifests as inferences of intentions, beliefs, and values) meaningfully varies across individuals and shapes our moral judgments

Imagine an art-lover at an exhibition entitled ‘Dots 2008’. He speaks to two artists, each displaying a painting. In both cases, the art-lover cannot see past the seemingly random arrangement of dots of paint. He mentions this to the first artist, who says: “Oh, no, they’re not randomly placed. Each dot represents a friend of mine. The colour of