Mastodawn

Rubén Béjar 1d 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."

josh's harp 1d ago

My dude, if there are obvious moral and ethical implications, how are you able to "put them aside" so easily? I just don't get it

josh's harp 1d ago

Gonna mute this thread now. That's more than enough being perceived on the internet for one day.

Mx Rey (Fuck ICE) 💜 🏳️‍⚧️1d ago

@Joshsharp there sure are some good ol' whataboutists in this thread for sure 😬

Sin Vega 1d ago

@Joshsharp putting aside the obvious moral and ethical issues, it's also clearly limited to spewing out useless generic shit by design. But it must be fine for me to use it for convenience, somehow. why would the people selling it lie

josh's harp 1d ago

@sinvega love too put aside my ethics for convenience!

Sin Vega 1d ago

@Joshsharp that's what they're FOR!

Viraptor 1d ago

@Joshsharp
Honest answer: The same way that I'm writing this on a phone which both in the production process and as a software-social ecosystem has obvious moral and ethical implications. Or how I use retirement investment funds which likely prop up the price of many terrible corporations. Nothing's perfect and we make imperfect choices of balancing comfort of life with the world impact every single day.

josh's harp 1d ago

@viraptor I get that, but "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" doesn't mean we should just give up

Viraptor 1d ago

@Joshsharp
Nor am I suggesting giving up. I'm just saying I make the imperfect choices using those systems for building something for the community I'm involved in or improving work at my clinic. That's my balance. Less putting aside, more definitely being aware of it.

@viraptor @Joshsharp I have to reluctantly find a balance on this too - for me, it's "if I don't do this I get fired" and "this community is pushing AI anyway and the battle is lost". But I'm increasingly looking to seek refuge in more AI skeptical communities - everything is tainted already (Linux kernel, curl, etc) but we need to maintain areas where people are not trying to make it worse.

Those are increasingly rare 😞

Jason Robinson 🐍 🍻 🚴7h ago

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I call myself lucky to be able to be a senior engineer in a fast moving tech company that doesn't actually enforce AI on it's employees. But fearing the day that might change :/

Bob Thomson 1d ago

@viraptor @Joshsharp that’s a fair point. The slight difference to me is that if smart phones were replaced with Nokia bricks tomorrow, there would be a bit of an impact and adjustment to make that’d take time, whereas I think if all LLM chatbots ceased tomorrow, there would be little impact at all for the vast majority of folk, so we are not at all at a stage with LLM where they are indispensable and who knows when or if we will be for the average person?

Quantum ⊂ AI 1d ago

@viraptor @Joshsharp

Viraptor 1d ago

@pikesley
That's like the inverse of my post? Not sure if you got what I meant.

Jacob Ibáñez 🔒

@viraptor @Joshsharp I'm sorry but I'm SO tired of this type of answer. A phone is a very useful tool which is essential to the autonomy of MANY MANY vulnerable people. GenAI didn't exist 5 FUCKING YEARS AGO and makes a lot of people's live miserable, ESPECIALLY the vulnerable. Also the scale matters. Using phones at the current pace won't end drinkable water sources in less than 50 years. No, it's not the fucking same. IT'S NOT THE FUCKING SAME!! making the choice of not using genAI is SO easy.

Jacob Ibáñez 🔒

@viraptor @Joshsharp and don't fucking tone police me because I can see you coming

Stephan Eggermont 18h ago

@iakobsdesamos @viraptor @Joshsharp https://youtu.be/t8oy-5AAjqg?si=nG6ddW8cP5BqZuVF

Kasper Østerbye - AI Inside Pharo - 28 January 2026

YouTube

⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe 1d ago

@Joshsharp i can put them aside *temporarily*, while i make the argument that they don't work from a pragmatic perspective. because if they don't work, the only reason to use them is for the moral and ethical implications…

Alex von Kitchen 1d ago

@Joshsharp you don't get far in the tech industry if you're not able to

josh's harp 1d ago

@Dangerous_beans probably explains why, despite being in tech, I am also poor

Alex von Kitchen 1d ago

@Joshsharp yeah, it was my problem too

Haelwenn /элвэн/

@Joshsharp Well, I see it as a manner of approaching things that's similar to your typical anti-social politician.

Stefan Galler 1d ago

@Joshsharp
I would say we all (industrial countries, middle-class) have years of practice in putting aside moral and ethical implications of our way of life. AI is just another instance of the same problem.
In our wealth and our perceived superiority, we convince one another that we have a right to prosperity at the expense of others and cling to our privileges. Our media, politics, culture, and lifestyle enable this cognitive dissonance. Fuel by greed and capitalism.

64 Islands Aroha Cooperative 1d ago

@StefanGaller @Joshsharp this, 100%. i have ethical issues with gen-ai and won't use it but i've driven cars my whole life 🙃

(cars are at least useful, though humans did fine without them for a long time, and there were probably plenty of weirdos who held out against them as dangerous and disruptive back in the day. they were not wrong)

Magnus Ahltorp 1d ago

@airshipper @StefanGaller Cars have to be dangerous to be ”useful” in current car-dependent societies, otherwise people would just use the streets and roads for cycling, walking, standing, markets, …

degenerating degenerate 1d ago

@Joshsharp It's simple, they said that to forestall a tiresome lecture.

For training coding AIs, anything with a liberal license is on board with it according to the license. At least as far as that goes (most of github's contents...) there aren't any "moral and ethical implications".

flere-imsaho 🇺🇦1d ago

@hopeless you're quite wrong: all free software licenses at the very least require retaining attribution.

and of course you chose ignoring all other extractive aspects of building the large commercial models.

degenerating degenerate 1d ago

I am not required (by copyright law rather than the license...) to attribute squat if I read, eg, MIT code and use the ideas I saw in there to write something different. Just like there's no attribution for container_of in the Linux kernel despite the idea came from elsewhere.

> and of course you chose ignoring all other extractive aspects of building the large commercial models.

Is there something specific you have in mind from this handwaving dark muttering I should care about?

flere-imsaho 🇺🇦1d ago

@hopeless if you copy the code verbatim, as the coding llms are frequently wont to do, you need to attribute the author in order to comply with the licence.

and copyright and free software license washing destroys the commons people built for decades.

as to your other question, yes, obviously.

but also i'm not going to participate in your sealioning exercise any longer that i need.

have an adequate remainder of your life now.

degenerating degenerate 1d ago

FWIW The handwaving guy I replied to blocked me and ran off rather than explain what his problem was.

Gregório 1d ago

@hopeless nobody owes you shit, dude. You can read by yourself.

degenerating degenerate 1d ago

Yes nobody owes me shit. However if they want to reply disagreeing with me, they should at least make their case.

They shouldn't run off the moment the understandings they thought they had based on "everyone knows" get challenged, such as their wrong understanding of what's in Copyright Law vs the License, or their cherished beliefs it's OK to hate on AI and anyone using it because they are more "moral".

Ayush Agarwal (आयुष अग्रवाल)1d ago

@Joshsharp if I had to guess, there are no obvious consequences of doing so. One doesn't need to worry after DDoSing the websites of multiple people on the Internet, not unless one does it to a powerful and wealthy person or corporation.

@Joshsharp

white people have been putting moral and ethical implications on the side for so long it's a second nature to them. You can't build a global hegemony without doing that. That's unfortunately not surprising

Cassandrich 1d ago

@Joshsharp "Putting aside the obvious moral and ethical implications, rounding up all of the AI fans and beating beating them to a pulp would really solve the problem with AI slop."

Maximilian Overdraft, Esq.19h ago

In the economy of unfettered wealth, the point of moral and ethical obligations is to put them aside. The immoral see morality as a straw man argument.

taichara 10h ago

@Joshsharp Because techbros marinate in evil and have perfected the "skill" of arguing But I'm Different.

@Joshsharp This is almost word for word what my boss told me today, except replace "I'm interested in" with "you better start".
Part of why this tactic is successful (certainly in my case) is that the job market makes "screw you then, I quit" not a viable alternative.

josh's harp 1d ago

@fn0rd that sucks. Definitely seems hard to avoid at the moment, but I hope that it won't be too long before the bubble collapses and it's a much easier proposition to find a less shitty job.

Blake C. Stacey 1d ago

@Joshsharp "Putting aside the moral and ethical implications, don't you think I'd look hot wearing these conflict diamonds?"

Martin Vermeer FCD 1d ago

"Putting aside the moral and ethical implications, I enjoy posting stuff on Mastodon using my genocide processor and genocide graphics chip"

https://fediscience.org/@martinvermeer/115439665670630737

@Joshsharp maybe it’s about trying to find where to draw a line about morals and ethics in capitalism.

I’d argue that there have been no moral or ethical roles in corporate tech for decades, and anyone claiming there are is already compromised. I make no claims about my own complicity or lack thereof this millennium.

@Joshsharp
I have said this, but it was sardonic

Paul_IPv6 1d ago

"but other than that, mrs lincoln, how was the play?"

The Orange Theme 1d ago

@paul_ipv6 @Joshsharp I love this quote so much.

Cheeseness 1d 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

Cheeseness 1d ago

@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.

josh's harp 1d 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!

Gurkenglas 1d ago

@Joshsharp reminds me of my friends who care about animal welfare but do research on health impacts of different diets "Putting aside the obvious moral and ethical implications of eating animals, I'm interested in evaluating whether non-vegan products like meat could be useful for my health."

Tom 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️1d ago

@Joshsharp
What that literally means is, "I don't care that LLMs are obviously immoral and unethical, I want to use them anyway if they can be useful in my work."

tuban_muzuru 1d ago

Any paragraph which starts with "Like" is inevitably a cheap shot.

@iveyline 1d ago

@Joshsharp Well said!

@Joshsharp if I say that, it's generally to point out that they're also bad in other ways while acknowledging that I know about the moral and ethical concerns. Sort of like "even if you're a sociopath you shouldn't be using these".

josh's harp 1d ago

@aatch @fishidwardrobe sure, but doing that risks ceding ground and then losing an argument purely in terms of the practical value, I think. I'm not sure it helps
https://mastodon.social/@Cheeseness/116265178062547556

⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe 1d ago

@Joshsharp @aatch not sure, because you can still say, "okay, lets loop back to those ethical concerns i put aside earlier, because they do matter…"

s/A.I./slavery/g in my mind, always and forever.

Same kind of exploitation, just less direct.

Stephan Eggermont 1d ago

@Joshsharp computers make copying near-free. LLMs are just another step in that. They bring no new dilemmas.

LukefromDC 1d ago

@StOnSoftware @Joshsharp Well, they spew out junk data while consuming huge amounts of electricity and cooling water. Freely copying is one thing, jacking up people's electricity bills while further heating the climate is quite another.

Using an LLM instead of your head is like using a Learjet to commute to work.

Stephan Eggermont 1d ago

@LukefromDC @Joshsharp also that is nothing new. The scale of it is caused by lack of enforcement of anti-monopoly law