tanteFeb 20

Yesterday Cory Doctorow argued that refusal to use LLMs was mere "neoliberal purity culture". I think his argument is a strawman, doesn't align with his own actions and delegitimizes important political actions we need to make in order to build a better cyberphysical world.

EDIT: Diskussions under this are fine, but I do not want this to turn into an ad hominem attack to Cory. Be fucking respectful

https://tante.cc/2026/02/20/acting-ethical-in-an-imperfect-world/

Acting ethically in an imperfect world

Life is complicated. Regardless of what your beliefs or politics or ethics are, the way that we set up our society and economy will often force you to act against them: You might not want to fly somewhere but your employer will not accept another mode of transportation, you want to eat vegan but are […]

Smashing Frames
Show threadFediThing Feb 20

@tante

I really like and admire @pluralistic and have utmost respect for him, and that's why I'm totally baffled about why he is claiming "fruit of the poisoned tree" arguments as cause of LLM scepticism.

The objections to LLMs aren't about origins but about what they they are doing right now: destroying the planet, stealing labour, giving power over knowledge to LLM owners etc.

The objections are nothing to do with LLMs' origins, they're entirely about LLMs' effects in the here and now.

Show threadCory DoctorowFeb 20

@FediThing @tante

Which parts of running a model on your own laptop are implicated in "destroying the planet?" How is checking punctuation "stealing labor?" Or, for that matter "giving power over knowledge to LLM owners?"

Show threadNelsonFeb 20

@pluralistic I think you can answer these questions yourself.

Suppose you wore a coat made out of mink fur. The minks are already dead, simply wearing the coat won't kill more minks. What does wearing mink fur have to do with cruelty to minks?

Suppose you live in the time of the Luddites. Legislation prohibits trade unions and collective bargaining. Mill owners introduce machines, reducing wages. But you build your own machine. Problem solved? You helping labor or capital?

@FediThing @tante

Show threadCory DoctorowFeb 20

@skyfaller @FediThing @tante

This is a "fruit of the poisoned tree" argument.

Suppose you use a computer to post to Mastodon, despite the fact that silicon transistors were invented by the eugenicist William Shockley, who spent his Nobel money offering bribes to women of color to be sterlized?

Suppose you sent that Mastodon post on a packet-switched network, despite the fact that this technology was invented by the war criminals at the RAND corporation?

Show threadNelsonFeb 20

@pluralistic I don't think mink fur or LLMs are comparable to criticizing the origins of the internet or transistors. It's the process that produced mink fur and LLMs that is destructive, not merely that it's made by bad people.

For example, LLM crawlers regularly take down independent websites like Codeberg, DDoSing, threatening the small web. You may say "but my LLM is frozen in time, it's not part of that scraping now", but it would not remain useful without updates.

@FediThing @tante

Show threadCory Doctorow

@skyfaller @FediThing @tante

No. Literally the same LLM that currently finds punctuation errors will continue to do so. I'm not inventing novel forms of punctuation error that I need an updated LLM to discover.

Feb 20 at 2:00pmWeb
Show threadNelsonFeb 20

@pluralistic Ok, fair enough, if spell checking is literally the only thing you use LLMs for.

I still think you wouldn't rely on a 1950s dictionary for checking modern language, and language moves faster on the internet, but I'm willing to concede that point.

I still think a deterministic spell checker could have done the job and not put you in this weird position of defending a technology with wide-reaching negative effects. But I guess your post was for just that purpose.

@FediThing @tante

Show threadCory DoctorowFeb 20

@skyfaller @FediThing @tante

I'm not using it for spell checking.

Did you read the article that is under discussion?

Show threadNelsonFeb 20

@pluralistic I apologize, I did in fact read the relevant section of your post, and I was using spell-checking as shorthand for all typo checking, because deterministic grammar checkers have also existed for some time, although not as long as spell checkers and perhaps they have not been as reliable. I understand that LLMs can catch some typos that deterministic solutions may not.

I just think we should put more effort into improving deterministic tools instead of giving up.

@FediThing @tante

Show threadCory DoctorowFeb 20
@skyfaller @FediThing @tante Thanks.