josh's harp12h ago

It really bums me out that I keep seeing blog posts from technical people like "putting aside the obvious moral and ethical implications of LLMs, I'm interested in evaluating whether they can be useful for my work."

Like "putting aside the obvious moral and ethical concerns of breaking into my neighbours' houses, I'm interested in evaluating whether this can be useful for acquiring other people's valuables."

Show threadCheeseness10h ago

@Joshsharp I find it deeply disappointing too, especially when I see it coming from people who are in control of their own working conditions.

Sometimes I think the intent is to find a way of engaging with people who clearly do not subscribe to those moral and ethical concerns (you'll never convince someone who doesn't care about the environmental impact to see the environmental impact as a dealbreaker) in order to convey that there are still insurmountable problems/shortcomings

Show threadCheeseness
@Joshsharp But personally, I find this just gives a framing that encourages an imagined future where things have fewer technical problems is fine, when (to me at least), the kind of LLM bollocks everybody's pushing right now would not be the slightest bit desirable even if it had no technical problems.
4:10amWeb
Show threadjosh's harp9h ago
@Cheeseness I think you're totally right in your perception of their intent. And yeah, the end result still doesn't help anybody. If you've already ceded the ground that the ethics are irrelevant, in order to debate their practical value, inevitably you'll lose the argument on that point too. Well put!