… which is short-sighted and loses track of the whole user empowerment goal that free software is supposedly about.

But the “economic” incentives are here.

@civodul IMHO, the adoption by fellow hackers who have resisted years after years against non-free but “economic” incentives doesn’t come from an “economical” pressure and instead comes from the “efficiency” pressure.

Not because it’d be a competition that “we” could loose, but because we prefer ((on average) the immediate “easiness“ of something done. The “worse is better” always wins.

That’s why I think all is already doomed.

Time for farming tutorial 101. 🤪

@civodul If you haven’t scrolled these logs yet, I would recommend you to give a look.

Because they show that ChatGPT is here used to tackle tasks and thus user is acquiring new skills. Somehow it’s user empowerment. 😉

And it’s not so different from the usual loop on trial-and-error one might runs. The difference between manuals, search engines, or LLMs is the kind of mirror one is using for self-reflecting. I agree the nature of such mirror is fully different and the implications are thus radically different.

But, when the criteria is about an individual “efficiency”, then the user empowerment looks the same.

https://chatgpt.com/share/698449a8-80ac-8011-8f3c-16f4b6b2c709
https://chatgpt.com/share/69844da8-58bc-8011-84d3-cfecf7ae2215
https://chatgpt.com/share/69844b1c-0a10-8011-8308-333ed22e3ed2
https://chatgpt.com/share/69844e45-8a0c-8011-8a11-5b5d45cd8547

@zimoun These transcripts look like a conversation one can choose to have with human beings—on IRC, mailing lists, Zulip, StackOverflow—in a spirit of mutual aid.

They illustrate how these commercial chatbots are already destroying the social fabric was built around free software over decades.

@civodul @zimoun Just to spice things up a little bit here: recently, while implementing the compiler for GNU Mes, I found "nobody" would help me. I found really hard to find a solution for a thing that has already been solved, many times.

The LLM though, would answer every single question I make, and even if the answers are wrong (note that people's answers also are) they are something. I don't bother anyone if I do it this way.

Is the LLM the problem, or the fact that we cannot ask for help?

@ekaitz_zarraga 💯 LLMs can sometimes give a form of support that we humans fail to provide; the person who uses the LLM is not to blame.

While imperfect, as you experience shows, free software communities are built around the idea of mutual aid and collaboration. I’d like to see that strengthened, not demolished.

@zimoun