No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture."
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
they want you to be compliant, not critical.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade That take reminds me of the whole boycotts, strikes and protests are a privilege take that was going around in 2020/2021.
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Hell, if you disagree with me and think I'm wrong on the merits, then by all means make that argument! (Preferably not in my mentions, I'm tired of this whole debacle and am not personally open to changing my mind on LLMs right now.)
But "purity culture" isn't an argument, it's an appeal to the idea that holding principles is *bad*.
@xgranade Yes this! This! This is like the "radical centrists" (in Michael Hobbes and other folks usage) who spent years talking about abstract principals of "free speech" to rail against any public criticism of people saying odious things to avoid talking about whether those odious words mattered and what impact they had.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade it depends so much, I mean I can oppose screwdrivers being used to drive nails into the wall
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@xgranade it depends so much, I mean I can oppose screwdrivers being used to drive nails into the wall
@codinghorror Sure, but we're not talking about "which tool is best for driving a nail that I own into a wall that I own," we're talking about "is it ethical to use a technology built on fascist ideology and stolen work, that carries unconscionable environmental costs, and that's used to disrupt labor movements to perform a task that that technology is fundamentally unsuited to?"
It's quite fair to have a very firm "no" by way of answer to the second question.
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@codinghorror Sure, but we're not talking about "which tool is best for driving a nail that I own into a wall that I own," we're talking about "is it ethical to use a technology built on fascist ideology and stolen work, that carries unconscionable environmental costs, and that's used to disrupt labor movements to perform a task that that technology is fundamentally unsuited to?"
It's quite fair to have a very firm "no" by way of answer to the second question.
@codinghorror Anyway, this isn't the first time you've replied to me to make the argument that LLMs are just another kind of tool. I suspect we won't see eye-to-eye on that, especially as my work has been abused to make LLM products.
I hope we can agree though, that my objection *even though you disagree with it* is principled and neither knee jerk nor purity culture.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade i don’t know what ‘opposing LLMs’ means for someone who doesn’t develop software.
Opposing the use of gen-AI tools in your creative endeavors? Sure. But that’s not much of a principled position as it does not affect anything or anyone but you and what you make.
To stand against the massive effort to defraud investors and steal public money which is what this whole AI thing is mostly about and what empowers the development of software using LLM’s to harm people
You will have to take a firmer and more proactive stand than just not using LLMs.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade Calling opposing LLM's and their social consequences 'purity culture' sounds like the dumbest ass Democratic partisan nonsense I've heard since they called Bernie a sexist.
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@xgranade i don’t know what ‘opposing LLMs’ means for someone who doesn’t develop software.
Opposing the use of gen-AI tools in your creative endeavors? Sure. But that’s not much of a principled position as it does not affect anything or anyone but you and what you make.
To stand against the massive effort to defraud investors and steal public money which is what this whole AI thing is mostly about and what empowers the development of software using LLM’s to harm people
You will have to take a firmer and more proactive stand than just not using LLMs.
@subterfugue @xgranade This isn't just about money or code friend.
Ever heard of AI psychosis? Children who were directed by AI software to kill themselves? Environmental devastation from training and using AI models? Trauma caused to underpaid workers in the global south, without which these AI models would never have functioned in the first place? People getting fed lies about their own health by using an AI model to find out what ails them? Misinformation caused by people using AI software like a search engine? Etc. Etc. Etc.
AI is a fascist project and an irredeemable system. Doing all we can to reject and destroy AI is one of the biggest moral imperatives of our generation.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade being vegan can be called purity culture but first order effects of not being vegan cannot be dismissed without acknowledging "I'm causing harm"
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@subterfugue @xgranade No, I meant to respond to you. AI is causing those harms, so rejecting and fiercely opposing the use of AI is harm reduction. Get it?
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No. That's provably false. Investors rely on hype to make money. We, the public, can reject their advances and loudly proclaim that we have no confidence in their investments.
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I wouldn't be saying all this if it was just Doctorow, I'm even fine disagreeing with people I deeply respect. But he's not the only one saying shit like this, and I think it's worth calling out the broader rhetorical point.
@xgranade I've fallen off reading Doctorow. Is he boosting the hallucination engines lately? That would be surprising but I just haven't listened to him recently.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade I have to wonder whether Cory Doctorow has taught a class lately (as opposed to speaking engagements), and waded through a pile of middling written assignments submitted by students incapable of answering simple questions on the subject matter. There's a reason competent instructors aren't fans of this technological, er, advancement.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade What is an LLM?
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@xgranade@wandering.shop opposing LLMs is an integrity culture, not purity.
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@xgranade It's like someone kept punching you in the face and when you object they claim it's purity culture that you don't want to be punched in the face.
Words mean things. Wanting to not be made accomplice to useless evil for no good reason is not "purity culture"
I mean, if "purity" means, I have an actual conscience and don't feel like participating in industrial levels of exploitation and bullshit, then, sure, call me a purist all day.
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No, opposing LLMs isn't "purity culture." I've seen this now from quite a few different people, and I disagree vehemently. It is good, actually, to have moral principles and hold to them, even when people with more money than you find said principles annoying.
@xgranade I still keep hoping the Doctorow quote was just him doing a shit job of explaining his stance and he'll elaborate or that it's not true or is a misquote or something, because Doctorow was one of the few people left I agreed with on literally everything involved in tech and almost seems to be fundamentally counter to statements I recall him saying mere months prior.
I don't speak about this part of my opposition to its usage because I don't know what to actually do about this happening to people. It feels like I'm watching a bubonic scale parasite spread to everyone who even looks at a computer fondly for half a second and feeds on specifically the parts of their brain in charge of critical thinking and any and all technical skill that isn't just vibe coding or asking the LLM why it isn't working.
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I wouldn't be saying all this if it was just Doctorow, I'm even fine disagreeing with people I deeply respect. But he's not the only one saying shit like this, and I think it's worth calling out the broader rhetorical point.
@xgranade repeating a point i've seen mentioned elsewhere its important we also do something with that disagreement like as an example continuing the culture of helping each other as it pertains to programming because presumably at some point it'll stop being pushed this hard and we are back to requiring this culture to continue after instead of it being lost knowledge that we never get back to -
@xgranade@wandering.shop opposing LLMs is an integrity culture, not purity.
