Free software people: A major goal of free software is for individuals to be able to cause software to behave in the way they want it toLLMs: (enable that)Free software people: Oh no not like that
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@mjg59 Well that's an answer! I'm not great at science either because my head doesn't cooperate, but I decided to go into the humanities instead.
I'm trying to sum up my objection to the LLM trend, once we attempt to separate the LLM from the thoroughly corrupt apparatus of corporate technology that's spawned the latest craze. I try to remember that the current crop of techbros didn't invent the LLM after all; as with all their faux innovations, they appropriated the LLM from earlier work. So let's assume for the moment that there was actually some value to the brute-force LLM technique, and you don't care that it's sold fraudulently as if it were superintelligent.
Here's what your proposing, as far as I can see: it's acceptable for someone who doesn't know how to code, to nevertheless contribute to developing software which you want other people to use (in other words, this ought not to be about yourself, but about the users upon whom you propose to inflict LLM-modified software) because you think that it's acceptable to contribute code that you didn't actually write, generated by a black box whose internal workings or technological context don't actually mean that much to you—because you care only about its output.
@mxchara Oh gosh no - I'm not proposing that at all. I'm saying that if someone who doesn't know how to code has software that doesn't do what they need it to do, an LLM would potentially allow them to change that.
I don't think anyone should ever contribute code they don't understand. I don't think anyone should ever encourage other people to run code they had a machine regurgitate without understanding it themselves. I don't think LLMs are the future of free software development.
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@glyph Mm, but when we talk about the ethical impact of LLMs it tends to be focused on how it impacts artists rather than the people doing wrote output (but I'd also argue that there is significant creativity in the actual writing of a good instruction manual in a way that isn't true of most code).
But maybe I haven't been clear. To me, the algorithm is the creative part of this, not the code that embodies the algorithm. But despite that, I'd have no ethical concerns about reimplementing it.
@mjg59 @glyph But there are many possible implementations of a technique. How do you go about distinguishing between them or choosing one? Isn’t that creativity?
You could say any variation in the implementation that has mechanical consequences (I.e. not just syntax or style) means it’s a different algorithm, but then you would be acknowledging that the code itself matters.
I guess to an extent the concrete implementation *is* the algorithm?
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@phooky I greatly enjoy programming! I enjoy figuring out how to solve a problem, I enjoy having that solution exist in the real world, the actual process of writing the code is pleasing. But the code itself feels like the least interesting part of that?
@mjg59 playing music is pleasing. is the instrument the least interesting part of it? is the score? are the brushstrokes the least interesting part of a painting? it depends what you're looking at, and what the artist enjoys. it's completely valid that you think that the code itself is boring, but understand that other people find different forms of value in the work they do, and none of these opinions are universal.
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Look, coders, we are not writers. There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose. The creativity exists outside the code. It always has done and it always will do. Let it go.
I see what you're saying but also restructuring or making major changes to a novel *does* remind me of refactoring code. I think that's the part of coding that feels most like fiction writing to me - the editing.
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Personally I'm not going to literally copy code from a codebase under an incompatible license because that is what the law says, but have I read proprietary code and learned the underlying creative aspect and then written new code that embodies it? Yes! Anyone claiming otherwise is lying!
@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer If what you are claiming is true - that most code does not creatively express the underlying idea - then it is ineligible for copyright in the United States.
(Though I’m certainly not going to argue that judges understand the creative expression of ideas through code better than you.)
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@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer If what you are claiming is true - that most code does not creatively express the underlying idea - then it is ineligible for copyright in the United States.
(Though I’m certainly not going to argue that judges understand the creative expression of ideas through code better than you.)
@tryst That was the state of affairs until 1983!
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@bsandro Not at all! But almost all users of software typically never see the underlying code, which feels like a significant distinction from literature
Okay, that was an extreme example but still.
But akin to woodworking or welding or anything like that coding is craftsmanship; ofcourse it is possible to make chairs en masse on a factory, but imagine you spent your career building them by hand. Why wouldn't you be proud of small bits and parts of every item you've made?
Just because some crafts are not as old - it doesn't devalue them.
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Okay, that was an extreme example but still.
But akin to woodworking or welding or anything like that coding is craftsmanship; ofcourse it is possible to make chairs en masse on a factory, but imagine you spent your career building them by hand. Why wouldn't you be proud of small bits and parts of every item you've made?
Just because some crafts are not as old - it doesn't devalue them.
@bsandro If I design a wonderful physical object and then program the CNC machine to make it, I'm proud of the design work rather than proud of putting the numbers in the CNC machine. To me, the actual act of coding feels much closer to that than it does to producing a hand crafted version of the same thing
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@MrBerard I agree that code *can* be beautiful, but the overwhelming majority of it is not in a way that is very distinct from, say, literature, where even the most churned out boilerplate nonsense still embodies some level of emotion
Sure. But if it's just a matter of degree within the extant corpus, it is not a categorical argument.
Even the most boring code can be made significantly less elegant whilst remaining functionally identical.
Which means that although, maybe, sure it never crossed the threshold into 'beauty', there is an aesthetic dimension, which is overlapping with readability and maintainability.
So it is a dimension of code quality - not inappropriate to assess LLM generated code on it.
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Sure. But if it's just a matter of degree within the extant corpus, it is not a categorical argument.
Even the most boring code can be made significantly less elegant whilst remaining functionally identical.
Which means that although, maybe, sure it never crossed the threshold into 'beauty', there is an aesthetic dimension, which is overlapping with readability and maintainability.
So it is a dimension of code quality - not inappropriate to assess LLM generated code on it.
@MrBerard I was unclear in what the motivation for this assertion was, and I think that's left things confusing. I don't think LLMs produce code that is anywhere near equivalent to a skilled coder in terms of clarity or structure without significant handholding. It's more about whether I think the reuse of material is inherently ethically questionable in the way I think it likely is for literature or art or music.
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@MrBerard I was unclear in what the motivation for this assertion was, and I think that's left things confusing. I don't think LLMs produce code that is anywhere near equivalent to a skilled coder in terms of clarity or structure without significant handholding. It's more about whether I think the reuse of material is inherently ethically questionable in the way I think it likely is for literature or art or music.
Yeah, but you chose to make that point through aesthetics for some reason.
I don't know that people object to LLM coding in Open Source for reuse or IP, or originality angle? Or even aesthetics, actually
More that the capacity to generate massive SloC count is actually not a point in favour of maintainability, quality and safety?
How do you counter the argument that LLM contribs make repos less safe, more bloated, cause more review work unless you're willing to let a vuln thru?
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Yeah, but you chose to make that point through aesthetics for some reason.
I don't know that people object to LLM coding in Open Source for reuse or IP, or originality angle? Or even aesthetics, actually
More that the capacity to generate massive SloC count is actually not a point in favour of maintainability, quality and safety?
How do you counter the argument that LLM contribs make repos less safe, more bloated, cause more review work unless you're willing to let a vuln thru?
@MrBerard I don't, and I also don't think those things matter to an individual just trying to make something work for themselves.
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@MrBerard I was unclear in what the motivation for this assertion was, and I think that's left things confusing. I don't think LLMs produce code that is anywhere near equivalent to a skilled coder in terms of clarity or structure without significant handholding. It's more about whether I think the reuse of material is inherently ethically questionable in the way I think it likely is for literature or art or music.
Also, the ethics of re-use in art or literature are the artefact of IP laws that are recent compared to these creative endeavours.
Fashion doesn't really do patents and IP, and this is why it is crazy creative, arguably to a fault in the case of 'runway' fashion design.
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Also, the ethics of re-use in art or literature are the artefact of IP laws that are recent compared to these creative endeavours.
Fashion doesn't really do patents and IP, and this is why it is crazy creative, arguably to a fault in the case of 'runway' fashion design.
@MrBerard We've ended up in a situation where people feel they can never look at the implementation of a proprietary codebase to learn how it works because they'll end up tainted, even if they're only going to reproduce the concept behind the code rather than the aspects directly covered by copyright, and a lot of the LLM discussion feels like it's pushing us towards an even harder level of copyright maximalism
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@lodurel If someone is interested in coding then they should learn to code! I am 100% in favour of artisinal handcrafted code and the process of learning how to create it. But there's plenty of people who don't have the desire or time to learn, and giving them a way to modify code to behave the way they want anyway seems good?
@mjg59 you have to look at the full picture. What you describe looks good because it looks like empowering: I know something about it, i early adopted a programming language whose promise is to empower everyone to build reliable software. But LLMs in their current political climate ain't that. They're not empowering because they create dependency to their use, and in doing so concentrate even more power in the hands of even fewer corpos. Letting you build stuff you don't understand is not power
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@mjg59 you have to look at the full picture. What you describe looks good because it looks like empowering: I know something about it, i early adopted a programming language whose promise is to empower everyone to build reliable software. But LLMs in their current political climate ain't that. They're not empowering because they create dependency to their use, and in doing so concentrate even more power in the hands of even fewer corpos. Letting you build stuff you don't understand is not power
@mjg59 I know that "this time it's different and this technology is really bad for us" is a well trodden reactionary argument, and I'm truly sad to be on the reactionary side this time, but also *this time it's different*.
This time what's in the balance is the ability to apply cognition on one's own. Multiple studies point to the fact that using these systems are deskilling in major ways. This looks like a health hazard in the same way that asbestos is good for isolation but terrible for health -
@luatic Let me try to express this differently. A literary work consists of both a plot and the work expressing that plot. Both of these are extremely creative - a mechanical implementation of a compelling plot has little value. For software, the concept and the logical structure are where almost all of the value is, the actual choice of words in the implementation is pretty uninteresting in comparison
@mjg59 @luatic I think that's true if all you care about is the end product (without modification), not everything produced in the process. For literary work, source code would be similar to the original draft, which often has some extra information from the work, or author. Some are not interested in them, but some do. See also: https://mastodon.social/@godfat/116429967075899743
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@mjg59 I know that "this time it's different and this technology is really bad for us" is a well trodden reactionary argument, and I'm truly sad to be on the reactionary side this time, but also *this time it's different*.
This time what's in the balance is the ability to apply cognition on one's own. Multiple studies point to the fact that using these systems are deskilling in major ways. This looks like a health hazard in the same way that asbestos is good for isolation but terrible for health@mjg59 also what I told you is truthful: I would probably not have picked up coding in the current environment. With AIgen menacing many creative jobs I might have encountered a vocational crisis. One we should perhaps anticipate in genZ today.
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Look, coders, we are not writers. There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose. The creativity exists outside the code. It always has done and it always will do. Let it go.
@mjg59 this is a very disappointing thread to read.
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@andi Is it the actual code that's the art for you, or its structure? The algorithms it expresses? The functionality it implements? I'm genuinely curious here - I'm certainly open to the idea that I approach this differently to others
I have to think about that a little, my first hunch would be to say all of the above but there are constraints.
I do for example enjoy to write pure HTML for really old systems - that I do per hand, caring how the sourcecode looks. For more practical cases - meaning my company's webpage I still use HTML and make it accessible withouht Javascript. But I'd like to think that I'm not crazy so I use a static website generator, not caring about the look of the source as much.
So I'd have to say it's less the look of the code and more ideas, algorithms and especially efficiency!
I have of course played around with LLMs and will be more interested when I have the chance to run usable models locally. But when I did, I used it for explanations and learning, not to let the AI write the actuall code because I like to understand every single bit and like the very process of coding.
Much of this might have to do with the fact that I never had formal programming training and after almost 30 years are still in the wanting to learn more mindset. Having my code written by someone else would be contrary to that goal.
Also I'm not getting paid for my code. I do use it professionally as well as personally, but only for myself and some of it is released as Free Software. Would I have to compete for contracts, LLMs would probably look a lot more attractive. But then its work and not necessarily art
