Reading RecluseFeb 22

The LLM discourse on the Fediverse has really irked me the last few days.

Refusing to read writing made with the use of LLMs and refusing to give time to writers who use, promote or justify the use of LLMs is not purity culture, it's a boycott. It's a political act of withdrawing my time, resources and support for something that I find deeply morally wrong. It's protest. I have a choice and I refuse.

LLMs are exploitative, destructive, biased, mediocre parroting machines. Using them has a negative impact on the climate, the arts, the quality of the internet, the job market, the economy, the accessibility of electronics, even on skill development, creativity and mental health. LLMs are made and trained on the unpaid labour of millions -if not billions- of people who didn't consent. Their generic output litter the path to finding anything by true human creators.

Wherever I can, for as long as I can, I reject LLMs and anything that is related to them. I'm boycotting.

Show threadPapageierFeb 22

@reading_recluse You do wear machine-woven cloth, though, no?

Seriously: Why?

It's exploitative, the quality is mediocre, it kills jobs, it's a waste of resources, consumes vast amounts of energy, hinders creativity, destroys small businesses, forces uniformity onto people ... why wear it?

Because not doing so would be a waste of time. And time is the one resource that's (still) strictly limited for all of us. We compromise on the quality of clothing (debatable), in order to do other things we couldn't if we were still weaving cloth manually.

When mechanical weaving machines came about, the workers threw their wooden shoes, in French 'Sabot', into the machines to stop them.

All that is left of this effort is a word describing the futile attempt: Sabotage.

So protest all you like, it's just not going to get you anywhere.

Show threadokanogen VerminEnemyFromWithinFeb 23
@papageier @reading_recluse
Hand woven clothes are not generally superior, tho.
You know that, right? I mean, you do, right?
Hand weave a cotton t-shirt, please. Or a fleece jacket. Or tights. I would like to see that done.
LLMs are inherently racist, sexist, and reductive, because the online society they sample is racist, sexist, amd reductive. It is baked in.
Show threadPapageierFeb 23

@Okanogen @reading_recluse I do know, and you are right. But from a code weavers point of view, I don't care about the political bias of a tool. I care about its speed, versatility and code quality. And they are starting to look good.

I'm a bit tired of the argument that LLMs are dog shit, period. My own hands-on experience as someone who has been coding for 25 years says otherwise: this is a valid tool. I am now a decision maker. I have to decide what to do with it. If it works, I have the mechanical loom situation, precisely.

And lets not forget: companies who refused to use those looms went out of business rather sooner than later. Almost all of them.

Show threadokanogen VerminEnemyFromWithinFeb 24
@papageier @reading_recluse
The original post said absolutely zero about "code" and neither did I, but hit dogs will holler.
Show threadPapageier

@Okanogen @reading_recluse Hit dogs will holler 🤔 - I never knew the correct English pendant to my German "getroffene Hunde heulen". Quite a literal translation actually. Thanks for that.

Wrt code - I didn't catch your point. Code happens to be my domain, yes. LLMs work in other domains as well. They are one and the same tool and work for text exactly as they do for code. For music or images, the technical approach is a bit different, but the mechanism is the same. So what is your argument? That my example is about 'just code', as opposed to 'real art'?

Feb 25 at 5:52amWeb
Show threadokanogen VerminEnemyFromWithinFeb 25
@papageier @reading_recluse
LLMs "work" in other domains is a supposition, not a fact. A very, very, very much rejected supposition.
There is no fucking thing as "artificial intelligence". Intelligence is either real or not real. What is kicked out to you isn't "code" it is a model of code. A facsimile. As a professional geologist I have made thousands of models, we don't pretend that they actually ARE the reality. The map is not the territory.
Show threadPapageierFeb 25

@Okanogen @reading_recluse Being a software guy, I am not going to argue about geology LLM results. I hope you trust my expertise in turn when I say: yes, it is code. And it is way better than it used to be half a year ago. It still needs some manual review and fixes, but it is perfectly usable.

Unless you are arguing from a philosophical point of view, saying that code is not code unless an actual coder has written it? In the same way cloth'd be no cloth if a weaver hasn't woven it. I'm afraid that would leave most of us pretty naked, at least philosophically.

Show threadokanogen VerminEnemyFromWithinFeb 25
@papageier
If you trust a large language MODEL with your employment, well, best of luck to you. I'm trying to point out that the word MODEL is telling you exactly what it is. It is a MODEL of the code you are asking for based on how you input the request.
The map is not the territory. Look up that phrase.