I also want to point out (again) the ways in which lumping together all uses of LMs (like the lumping of technologies into "AI") obscures the issues at hand.

Language modeling is a useful component of many technologies that can be built without extractive, exploitative means. Take the automatic transcription built by and for the Māori people -- there's te reo Māori language model that's part of that.
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And you can build and use language models without turning them into the synthetic text extruding machines that are despoiling our information ecosystem.

And even if those are easily accessible, because OpenAI et al want to burn through cash with their demos, we can still refute and refuse the narrative that synthetic text is somehow a panacea to be used across social services (medicine, education) and in science, etc.
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But instead he wrote a defensive screed, seemingly imagining someone knowing about his LLM use ascribing to him all of the ills of everyone's LLM production and use.

A missed opportunity, to be sure.

@emilymbender Thank you for this thoughtful and balanced post/thread! It almost obviates a comment on @tante 's piece that I have been planning to write. I am particularly happy about your point on the Māori language model, on transformers and how to build and use language modeling without extractive, exploitative means!

If I may thus join in there and add another thought ...

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@emilymbender @tante

What annoyed me in the arguments I had seen was the shallowness of the sketches of liberatory and emancipatory usages, efforts and perspectives - for @pluralistic , with saying "Open Source" enough seems to have been said, while for @tante such usages, efforts and perspectives seem to be in principle impossible, or only "niche attempts" not worth looking into because they are working worse than all the other models anyway. Well, that's not the impression I got when looking at, say, the Institutional Data Initiative, a "Summer School for Women in AI and Data Science" in Addis Ababa and the RAIL workshops, and a host of other movements that I am trying to track from afar, but would love to see much, much more of or eventually become involved with.

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@emilymbender @tante @pluralistic

@collinsworth 's post about "AI optimism is a class privilege" made me realize and acknowledge the privilege I have, but then the question is, how can I make good use of that privilege and be an ally for those who are not as privileged as me? Boycoting AI BigTech?Boycoting any (L)LM whatsoever? With some exceptions for acrasia or external constraints being tolerated? Or as long as I am not talking about it in ways that could be understood as affirmative? Probing and developing/distilliing datasets and models in more open ways? Developing infrastructure, social relations and collective action in other directions?

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