Mastodawn

Hi, my name is Michel, and I (reluctantly) use #LLM

Since I'm about to announce the existence of some tools I wrote to help with some workflows in the Linux distribution space, I figure it's only fair if I first write about why I ended up (having to) use LLM.

https://michel-slm.name/posts/2026-03-24-my-name-is-michel-and-i-use-llms/

This post is day 32 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit 100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.

#blog #dayjob #foss #MetaInc

Hi, my name is Michel, and I (reluctantly) use LLMs

the old pen resists but the cursor blinks, waiting— I press Enter. Fine. ~ Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) If you know where I work, you’ve probably heard of news reports that we will be judged on AI-driven impact. I’ll let you drawn your own conclusion on how much truth there is in the reports, but you can listen to what Zuck said about AI in a recent earnings report.

Pensées de Michel

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Lauren Weinstein 3h ago

@michelin Sorry, I don't buy it. Using these sh*t machines for any purpose -- no matter how laudable you may consider your own -- encourages the Big Tech CEO fascists to continue pushing the tech into every aspect of our lives. The only way to fight them, absent meaningful regulations, is to starve them of usage and income. There is no "safe level" of LLM usage, just as there is no "safe level" of drinking alcohol before driving. If you voluntarily use these systems, you are part of the problem. There are no exceptions.

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Michel Lind

@lauren hence the bitter Thank you for Smoking mortgage quote in the blog post. If I had been able to #FIRE and I'm just doing this for fun I'd be able to be more principled on this.

So I mostly agree with you. "If you voluntarily use these systems" is key here - until the VC-driven AI craze meets its inevitable crash - maybe the energy crisis thanks to imperialistic hubris this year will trigger that - a lot of us are *coerced* to a greater or lesser extent to use these.

I'm actually looking for AI-free projects to contribute to when I'm not being paid to do open source, so I'm watching the @debian and @guix discussions around AI policy with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.