Simon Tournier

Hey #Guix contributor who explains at length how #GenAI is “good” because using GenAI eases some tasks as packaging, maintaining, etc.

I got it!

Please consider you’re consequentialist: because the consequences (packaging, maintaining) are “good”, then using GenAI is “good”.

You’ll not convinced me or others because our ethical system isn’t consequentialist.

On my side, the system I try to hold is deontology rooted in principles.

Therefore, if you want to convince me that GenAI is “good”, it’s more fruitful to argue with me on my ethical framework and not stay on your consequentialism.

Thanks. 😘

https://simon.tournier.info/posts/2026-05-29-guix-genai-letter.html
#AI

Random thoughts on « AI » and Free Software

8:19amWeb
Show threadmeek cynics5h ago

I imagine it's the same to convince the other way around, @zimoun, people's moral frameworks simply don't align and they/we just talk past each other. I should revisit Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind some time.

GCD 8 might find some success if we try to focus on what to do (the recent automating threads on guix-devel) rather than what's right. Even then, people still have different perceptions of reality, e.g. LLM in everything is the new normal now vs including any amount of LLM output is breaking the status quo and requires consent, which seem impossible to be reconciled. It's also unclear to me what happens if the GCD fails to be the middle ground.

Show threadSimon Tournier4h ago

@cnx Exactly, “focus on what to do” is what I name “our duties”. 😁 I agree with you.

What the blog post I wrote 21 days ago speaks about : we must focus on what to do which thus requires first to sketch why do we need to do.

Somehow, on one hand, people explain again and again “the consequences are good, so using it is good”; and on the other hand, people reply again and again “this and that aren’t virtuous so it’s bad”.

From these two ends, it’s impossible to discuss. As we’ve seen over the past month, it’s just ping-pong about personal values.

My request isn’t that I want to convince peers of my own current conclusion.

Instead, my request is to consider a shift: 1. Clarify the under-the-hood principles* (why to do) and 2. Focus on our duties (what to do) to make live these principles.

This shift is the only way, IMHO, for being able to have a mutual understanding and thus being able to discuss the very complicated topic.

Else it’s just ping-pong: yes it’s “good” because the consequences of X is “good”, no it’s “bad” because there is no virtue about Y.

I agree with you: « GCD 8 might find some success if we try to focus on what to do ». And this “what to do“ needs to sketch “why to do” and the combination of both provides “how to do”.

*principles, not personal values.