I'm not a downvoter, and I fully agree philosophically with your entire comment, so this is me trying to be helpful by telling you what I would guess based on way too much time over the years on HN.

> These free generators need to include some kind of audio watermark or key to indicate they are ai imitations. At least raise the barrier for this kind of action to being able to run your own llm or something.

My guess is that one of the reasons for downvotes is that your proposed solution is impossible, and even to attempt it would require a massively invasive pro-active law enforcement effort that looks at everything people buy, electricity usage patterns, everything people post online, and more. It would require a regulatory and licensing department that has to approve and monitor people who want to run LLMs, even on their mobile phones. Just trying to define what is and isn't an LLM would be difficult. And even then, plenty will slip through the cracks. So you've essentially turned all of computing into a regulatory and authoritarian nightmare (as the governmnent absolutely would iterate on the regulation toward suppressing stuff they don't like), and still haven't met the original goals. You don't have to look much further than movies/music/etc piracy to see what it would be like. There have been significant efforts to eliminate piracy, and yet it is still very achievable for nearly anyone who wants to do it. Running LLMs would be the same way.

I would love it if we could require watermarks without having to pay the price, when you consider the cost it doesn't seem remotely worth it to me.

Now that said, I don't think people should have downvoted you. Much better would have been to articulate why they disagree with you in a comment. But downvotes are much easier than intellectual engagement.

Thank you! It's great to hear a different perspective.