Comment by code51 2 days ago
Vibing, not firing at his ML problems.
He's doing a capability check in this video (for the general audience, which is good of course), not attacking a hard problem in ML domain.
Despite this tweet: https://x.com/karpathy/status/1964020416139448359 , I've never seen him citing an LLM helped him out in ML work.
One can believe in the capability of a technology but on principle refuse to use implementations of it built on ethically flawed approaches (e.g., violating GPL licensing laws and/or copyright, thus harming open source ecosystem).
What you see as copyright violation, I see as liberation. I have open models running locally on my machine that would have felled kingdoms in the past.
I personally see no issue with training and running open local models by individuals. When corporations run scrapers and expropriate IP at an industrial scale, then charge for using them, it is different.
AI is more important than copyright law. Any fight between them will not go well for the latter.
Truth be told, a whole lot of things are more important than copyright law.
You're free to believe whatever fantasy you wish, but as someone who frequently consults an LLM alongside other resources when thinking about complex and abstract problems, there is no way in hell that Karpathy intentionally limits his options by excluding LLMs when seeking knowledge or understanding.
If he did not believe in the capability of these models, he would be doing something else with his time.