Mastodawn

An interesting stunt: Malus.sh will take your money and in exchange it will ingest any free/open source code you want, refactor that code using an LLM, and spit out a "clean room" version that is freed from all the obligations imposed by the original project's software license:

https://www.404media.co/this-ai-tool-rips-off-open-source-software-without-violating-copyright/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/23/poison-pill/#kobayashied

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Faraiwe Apr 23

@pluralistic TL;DR

Product:

#LLM #ai #scam

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Scott Galloway Apr 23

@faraiwe @pluralistic Ironically that painting was elevated to a work of international importance (prior it was nothing notable) and the woman who started the restoration became a celebrity. I stopped using it as an exampel of failure and instead as one of a HUGE mistake paying off.

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Faraiwe Apr 23

@scottgal @pluralistic She made some money. She also destroyed a wonderful piece of art, generated heaps of work that may not even be feasible to restore the art work.

She is an obscure, one-hit meme maker, with an even more obscure online shop, to cash in on her shitjob.

Nobody knows her name. You'd have to search HARD.

And the search would need to include the original work title/artist.

It's the PERFECT analogue, what the hell are you talking about, man =D

@faraiwe @scottgal @pluralistic she didn't sell anything. She was trying to help her community and failed with the artwork, which wasn't even famous. Ironically, now the church is receiving lots of visits to see the mess. She passed away recently.

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Faraiwe

@theklan

Um. She opened an online shop.

It profits from the destruction of an art work.

Please, go away. Re=evaluate your entire techbro ish existence.

Shoo.