… 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 About destroying the social, yes! As all the other technologies, no? Any technology often destroys some good and introduces some bad, for sure then it transforms the social into something unpredictable, maybe a better, maybe a worse.

Personal washing machines destroyed all the life (mutual aid?) around the washing house.

The history follows the same slope as the 70+ past years. This slope that values more the “efficiency” than everything else.

@civodul Don’t take me wrong, as you, for me all these LLMs are a strong pity! The balance is just bad and I personally don’t see any good.

It hurts us – as least it hurts me, hardly! – because we were feeling safe in a protected land. And then bang! this beloved land is invaded by the “Technical System”.

The engine of this “Technical System” is indeed the “efficiency”.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Syst%C3%A8me_technicien

@civodul We like it or not: LLMs is just yet another search for “efficiency” – worse because here such “efficiency” is rationally inefficient! – and users of LLM find more “efficient” to loop over it than depend on someone.

The story is already doomed, IMHO, by the very existence of LLM.

As the story of personal washing machines was already doomed when the first people had only running water at home.

To me, the story of LLMs will be over once we’ll collectively refuse to pay the costs of its resource. Sadly not in the near future when all the governments invest a lot of money… Another story.

@zimoun Defeatism and “we knew since Ellul in the 70s” is harmful for those of us who live here and now.

Hopefully this story can fuel a broader discussion of “technology” and its social impact. But first we need to resist the immediate threat.

@civodul This is not “defeatism” but the choose of fights.

I think that whatever we do at the level of our small project about LLM is like an invisible pink spoon in front of an ocean to empty.

And for sure, it’s not because we cannot do anything that we cannot do nothing.

So if we believe so hard in the human-being and that Free Software is about connecting people, we must act collectively!

My point is that the fight is for instance here https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/agenda/plenary-news/2026-03-09/9/protecting-copyrighted-creative-work-in-the-age-of-ai and put all the Free Software projects and their collective pressure we are able to in this kind of direction.