Geoff
Robert KingettYou all should read this fantastic post by @onepict about how, largely, AI people just can't leave us the fuck alone. But I'm noticing more and more and more that they get super mad when they wanna shove their #AI creation at you and you simply say, no thanks. That's it. No extra bashing, just, no thanks, and they get super offended. https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar #AIHype #LLM
Bits&Terminal Jeff@WeirdWriter @onepict Oh, that post is fantastic!
Bogdan Buduroiu@WeirdWriter @onepict there's literally been a witch-hunt by "never AI" types on Mastodon because Cory Doctorow dared to use ollama to spell check his posts. Idk who is the group getting offended.
@budududuroiu @onepict Using an LLM to spell check is all sorts of cringe because there are better applications of machine learning but moreover how do you know they never use an LLM?
@WeirdWriter @onepict you're literally proving my point.
Someone: I find small LMs useful for spell checking
Anti-AI types: Nooo, how could you? You're so cringe, what's wrong with you.
@budududuroiu @onepict It just shows me you don’t understand the technology you’re using, because there’s far more applicable forms of machine learning you could actually be using that would be a better spell checker
@WeirdWriter @onepict like what? Transformers and attention is a step change from what we've had before in terms of spell checkers. If you're using the iOS keyboard, you're using transformer-based spell checking, same with GBoard to a degree.
"Their" vs "there" vs "they're" are all valid spellings, transformers encode the bidirectional context or causal context you need to tell the wheat from the chaff in this case. I think you're out of your depth here, respectfully.
Regardless, you're just proving my point further because you're obsessively offended by someone finding use in a piece of tech and can't let them be.
MarjorieR@budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @onepict we had and still have spellcheckers, which might be labeled AI (machine learning), long before someone had the idea of using LLMs to spell check.
Using a LLM to spellcheck is amazing overuse of resources to do something badly. A spell checker should be trained on your own practice and good quality sources such as dictionaries not on what MAGA idiots write on Facebook, X or Truth Social.
LLMs are general purpose stocastic parrots and have very limited context, they are not trained on how you write, unless supplemented they will not remember how you write.
Using a LLM to spellcheck is amazing overuse of resources to do something badly. A spell checker should be trained on your own practice and good quality sources such as dictionaries not on what MAGA idiots write on Facebook, X or Truth Social.
LLMs are general purpose stocastic parrots and have very limited context, they are not trained on how you write, unless supplemented they will not remember how you write.
Tiota Sram@marjolica @budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @onepict also Doctorow didn't just use an LLM for spell-checking, he pivoted to defending LLM use in general and disparaging those against it because he rightly predicted we'd be unhappy about his use of LLMs for spell-checking.
Also: we're unhappy because the technology being pushed on us is harmful in numerous ways. The AI boosters are unhappy because someone won't use the thing they're trying to sell (and/or because they keep getting called out on the harms). These are very different reasons to be unhappy with different levels of validity.
@tiotasram @marjolica @budududuroiu @onepict These pro LLM types always miss the larger point, don’t they?
@WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict What's the bigger point? That you take a moral stance against LLMs but use transformers on the regular. So what are you really against? Instruction fine tuning? Reinforcement learning of pre-trained transformers?
@budududuroiu @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict You are that Tech Bro at the bar. https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar
@WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict Idk man, you seem like more of the obsessed person that has to convince me of your viewpoint, calling me technically illiterate while not knowing most spell checkers today use transformers
David Phd@budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @tiotasram @onepict there are some spellcheckers/autocomplete these days that are absolutely demented, such as the one in Google's Messages. Maybe that explains why they are so poor.
ben@tiotasram @marjolica @budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @onepict Tbh I feel like a lot of people would have been willing to overlook the use of an LLM just for spellchecking, but Doctorow himself blew it out of proportion, imagined a massive backlash before one had even happened, and pre-emptively doubled down on it by smearing the criticism as 'purity culture'.
@benjamineskola @tiotasram @marjolica @budududuroiu @onepict This! I know I wouldn’t give 2 shits if he used an offline LLM trained from ethical sources or his own stuff but he had to ramp up the backlash by being extremely disingenuous
@WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @budududuroiu @onepict I think there is a secondary issue that 'open-source' offline LLMs aren't as ethical as people would like to claim them to be. (As far as I know all of the existing models are still based on plagiarism even if you're using an offline version. But I might be wrong about that.)
But it's a matter of degree and picking one's battles. Spellchecking seems less bad (to me) than outright generating new text, etc. I'd rather it was done only with ethically-trained models, obviously, but it wouldn't have seemed worth picking a fight over.
(Basically my perception of him — not just based on this — is that he likes attention.)
@benjamineskola @WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict open source LLMs are ethical enough for me because it steals straight from the imperial core and provides efficient access to technology to the Global South. I can deploy a genuinely impressive Qwen3.5 on a gaming rig, this is massive. That Deepseek, Kimi, Qwen are all distilled from Claude and GPT is even more awesome.
The issue with slop today is merely accelerated by AI, the slopification of everything started with the financialisation of the internet, open-core SaaS, etc.
That's my take.
@budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict Tbh I'm not really interested in arguing about whether so-called 'open source' LLM are 'ethical enough'.
The point is that there was no 'witch hunt'. Doctorow invented it for attention.
@benjamineskola @WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict tooootally not a witch hunt dude, like totes.
https://circumstances.run/@hipsterelectron/116119492721224685
You're treating pre-emption as an admission of guilt, I understand where he's coming from because I've seen accounts that are usually LLM skeptic post about how they found AI useful for X and immediately get barraged with "i can't believe you'd use fascist technology, blocked", and also the comments under this post prove exactly the "lib purity culture" Doctorow points to: https://hachyderm.io/@[email protected]me.org/116102639675376764
States are using LLMs for wars of aggression and Mastodon is arguing about whether watching YouTube or using an LLM spell checker is more unethical due to energy consumption (which shouldn't matter, we should have renewables and nuclear).
d@nny disc@ mc² (@[email protected])
THE DOWNFALL OF DOCTOROW https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/116109623550360087 CHUGGING THE HATERADE TO CELEBRATE
@budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict You're missing the point entirely, which is that this all came *after* he claimed there was a 'purity culture' 'witch hunt'. He made it up for attention, because that's what he does, and now you're rushing to defend him for ... reasons? I guess? Like, you're claiming that there are bigger issues but that's precisely the point: you're the one who brought him up. Why aren't you focusing on these bigger issues instead?
AI users are desperate to feel like the underdog, basically.
@tiotasram @marjolica @WeirdWriter @onepict how has technology been pushed on you when you don't want to?
I'm ambivalent on LLM use, but I only ever need to interact with it if I want to. Is it more work? Yes, I have to curate my own feeds, but you're on Mastodon so I assume you're ok with that.
To address this specific point for people who might actually listen: my 11-month-old opens up some sort of AI-powered Google "assistant" on my phone when she finger-mashes it. I didn't install it and it doesn't even show up as an app in the apps list. When I eventually figured out how to disable it (not through disabling the AI assistant in the settings) Google warned me that my operating system might not work if I did so (spoilers: that's a scare tactic, the OS works just fine).
LLM-generated summaries are present in most search engines and turned on by default (I have switched engines to avoid this), but also, even when the search engine doesn't embed it, lots of the hits are LLM-SEO'd bullshit full of lies. If I want to find answers to perfectly normal questions I've got to wade through these and hope I can spot the real info amongst all the slop.
Cherry on top: human & bots are submitting slop to human-curated spaces like open-source projects and writing/art contests. They've effectively DDoS'd several, and behave badly when simply told "please don't submit LLM/GAN-generated content here." (Oh right, that's what this thread was about in the first place!)
So please don't try to act like this stuff is opt-in or we're choosing to see it. It is very literally being thrust into our attention often against our explicit wishes.
Oliver Schönrock> my 11-month-old opens up some sort of AI-powered Google "assistant" on my phone when she finger-mashes it.
Use GrapheneOS / disable Gemini
> LLM-generated summaries are present in most search engines and turned on by default
I can share my uBlock Origin list with you if you want
> lots of the hits are LLM-SEO'd bullshit full of lies. If I want to find answers to perfectly normal questions I've got to wade through these and hope I can spot the real info amongst all the slop.
So was bullshit SEO and content farm stuff before AI, Google Search was enshittified before AI, we know this because it came up in the 2019 Google anti-trust case that Google was purposefully making search worse to get people to search more and boost ad revenue
> Cherry on top: human & bots are submitting slop to human-curated spaces like open-source projects and writing/art contests. They've effectively DDoS'd several, and behave badly when simply told "please don't submit LLM/GAN-generated content here." (Oh right, that's what this thread was about in the first place!)
Curate your content, idk what do say, use RSS, follow bloggers that choose not to use AI.
> So please don't try to act like this stuff is opt-in or we're choosing to see it. It is very literally being thrust into our attention often against our explicit wishes.
So are ads, so is data harvesting, you can complain about it not being right, or do something about it, but you absolutely CAN do something about it.
Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊)@budududuroiu how have LLMs been pushed on us when we don't want them??
You're joking, right? This is a joke. Surely. 🫠
@jaredwhite I assure you I'm not. I have 0 interaction with LLMs unless I specifically want to.
RE: https://kolektiva.social/@tiotasram/116193822725041391
please read this post and explain yourself....
https://mastodon.social/@tiotasram@kolektiva.social/116193822836695131
Bogdan Buduroiu (@[email protected])
@[email protected] > my 11-month-old opens up some sort of AI-powered Google "assistant" on my phone when she finger-mashes it. Use GrapheneOS / disable Gemini > LLM-generated summaries are present in most search engines and turned on by default I can share my uBlock Origin list with you if you want > lots of the hits are LLM-SEO'd bullshit full of lies. If I want to find answers to perfectly normal questions I've got to wade through these and hope I can spot the real info amongst all the slop. So was bullshit SEO and content farm stuff before AI, Google Search was enshittified before AI, we know this because it came up in the 2019 Google anti-trust case that Google was purposefully making search worse to get people to search more and boost ad revenue > Cherry on top: human & bots are submitting slop to human-curated spaces like open-source projects and writing/art contests. They've effectively DDoS'd several, and behave badly when simply told "please don't submit LLM/GAN-generated content here." (Oh right, that's what this thread was about in the first place!) Curate your content, idk what do say, use RSS, follow bloggers that choose not to use AI. > So please don't try to act like this stuff is opt-in or we're choosing to see it. It is very literally being thrust into our attention often against our explicit wishes. So are ads, so is data harvesting, you can complain about it not being right, or do something about it, but you absolutely CAN do something about it.
KFears& 🏳️⚧️@tiotasram @marjolica @budududuroiu @WeirdWriter @onepict Wait what the fuck? So the guy that has written for years how LLM field is toxic to absolutely everything it touches and is a massive money black hole started using it and doubled down on it? What the fuck is this world, even.
@KFears @tiotasram @marjolica @onepict Yep. He announced it quite proudly in his announcement anniversary post. I can't find it at the moment, but https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-spiral
Esther Payne 
@WeirdWriter @KFears @tiotasram @marjolica
This is a good post about it as well
https://brennan.day/an-open-letter-to-cory-doctorow-ollama-is-part-of-the-enshittification/
An Open Letter to Cory Doctorow: Ollama is part of the enshittification!
A response to Cory Doctorow's defense of generative AI, examining the contradictions in supporting Ollama while championing open source principles, and an examination about what purity culture and hypocrisy really means.
@WeirdWriter @KFears @tiotasram @marjolica
This is Doctorows Post
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/
"Doubtless some of you are affronted by my modest use of an LLM. You think that LLMs are "fruits of the poisoned tree" and must be eschewed because they are saturated with the sin of their origins. I think this is a very bad take, the kind of rathole that purity culture always ends up in."
Which as I explained elsewhere was a little bit of a dog whistle, it was also the wrong definition.
@WeirdWriter @KFears @tiotasram @marjolica As survivors of religious cults have pointed out "Purity Culture" is rife in evangelical spaces and they need that term to explain the abuse they escaped.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread by @benjamineskola Cory wanted the attention.
It was badly done.
@WeirdWriter @KFears @tiotasram @marjolica @benjamineskola For reference using the term Witch Hunt to describe folks asking for accountability or say to be able to refuse AI tooling or contributions is a little bit of a right wing dog whistle as well.
@onepict @WeirdWriter @tiotasram @marjolica @benjamineskola Mhm, all the right-wing dog whistles present. "Purity culture", "witch hunt", "cancel culture", whatever fucking else. Just meaningless word soup to paraphrase "cmon it's not that bad, you're overreacting". Disgusting bully behavior.
Thank you for the links, saved them all, will read and share. People deserve to know.
@marjolica @WeirdWriter @onepict are you using an iPhone? Android? Your keyboard uses transformers and attention (the core architecture of general pre-trained transformers (GPTs).
By your definition, you're wasting your phone resources.
Grow Fediverse@onepict @WeirdWriter 4 panel web comic of two people chatting.
Panel 1: First person saying "If you don't use AI you'll be left behind"
Panel 2: Second person pleasantly replying "Okay!"
Panel 3: First person staring in stunned silence.
Panel 4: First person scowling and red in the face from impotent rage
Panel 1: First person saying "If you don't use AI you'll be left behind"
Panel 2: Second person pleasantly replying "Okay!"
Panel 3: First person staring in stunned silence.
Panel 4: First person scowling and red in the face from impotent rage
@growfediverse @onepict The most eye rolling is when they say it’s the future bro!
Enrico Zini@WeirdWriter @onepict
I find it pretty fitting with my own experience, and looking at it from the guy at the bar angle I kind of see the same underlying pattern of: "I want you to admire me even though I know I don't deserve it"
I find it pretty fitting with my own experience, and looking at it from the guy at the bar angle I kind of see the same underlying pattern of: "I want you to admire me even though I know I don't deserve it"
@spanezz @onepict Yep! I had my own version of this https://sightlessscribbles.com/posts/the-bookstore-hope/
@WeirdWriter @onepict that seems to tie together colonialism and craving for undeserved admiration in a way that isn't at all unsurprising once I look at it. It matches quite well the lyrics of the fascist song "Faccetta nera", too
Ivan Sagalaev 
@WeirdWriter @onepict that is such a precise observation. Just recently I had to mute a guy here who suddenly started posting looooong threads about how LLM coding was inevitable. I wonder why it needs so much energy to convince people about something obvious and "inevitable".
@isagalaev @onepict Right? They call us the obnoxious types, but in every instance I’ve seen, AI evangelist just can’t leave the non-AI user alone. If they say no thank you, I don’t want to use it, it doesn’t have any use for me, then there’s a litany of replies and so much more. I had a guy replied to me and he couldn’t just leave it alone. He had to come away from the conversation letting me know that I was wrong and thus becoming that guy at the bar. These folks are an insult to computer scientists and AI is an insult to actual machine learning and machine computation
George Liquor, American
Morgan ⚧️@isagalaev @WeirdWriter @onepict the best part is he probably didn't even write those threads. I bet he couldn't come up with a long screed of good reasons to use ChatGPT, and that became the best reason to use ChatGPT 😂
@WeirdWriter @onepict I'm sure a lot of them were already like this, but I wonder how many have been trained by the YesBot not to take no for an answer anymore... When one spends most of their time in a box with a fake person who can never reject them or their ideas, it's probably really frustrating when they go interact with real people and discover we all have our own priorities and boundaries that differ from theirs 🤷 oh well, they can decide at any time to start respecting humanity and life
@raphaelmorgan @onepict You made me laugh with this, but you also probably hit the nail on the head.