On reflection, I think the worst part of Cory Doctorow’s argument in favor of LLM use is this:
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Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew When I simply judge what Coy Doctorow is quoted here, then you are criticizing a straw man.
I don't see the moral bankruptcy here. I see simply pledging people to not overdo it.
How many times have I seen and experienced that moral people are creating a toxic environment where everyone needs to be perfect in whatever the target is. Any deviation is harshly punished.
Which is a well-known disease of any activist groups and regularly tears up initiatives.
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Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew I agree with you, Cory is just looking at it from a skewed perspective. My personal take is:
As long as you, the individual, have the INNER motivation to strive for "perfection" with regards to anything, nobody has the right to stop you. Give the best you are able to offer.
On the other hand, if you're forced to be perfect by others or by society in general, so it's an OUTER motivation, then ... Yeah it might be the right thing to do objectively, but maybe it's not fitting in your reality which might be really constrained (as explained with your example) ... So don't stress yourself out too much about it. Sometimes its not possible to live a contradiction free live. -
Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew Cory Doctorow right now -
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This deserves visibilità AND action:
https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2025/000005_en#
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@jeroen94704 this is very helpful actually, thank you! I'm considering smaller models as well, like buscampers instead of camper campers.
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@mathieui@piaille.fr Thanks for engaging with this. I appreciate the pushback, and I think some of your concerns are worth taking seriously.
That said, I want to clarify something about my position: TGPL (or any specific licensing mechanism) is just one possible avenue among many. The broader argument isn't tied to any single instrument. Regulatory pressure on governments to mandate that models trained on public data be returned to the public, expanded public funding for open research infrastructure, international treaty reform—these are all on the table. The point is strategic pluralism, not a bet on one tool.
On the copyright concern: yes, major players have shown contempt for copyright. But that's precisely why I think purely technical or market-based solutions are insufficient, and why political and legislative pressure matters. The history of generic medicine access is instructive here—no single mechanism won that fight, but the combination of compulsory licensing advocacy, treaty pressure, and public funding reform produced real change over time.
Now, your Luddite parallel: I actually think it argues for my position rather than against it. You're right that the weavers never reclaimed the technology. But the lesson I draw from that isn't “therefore reclamation is impossible.” It's that refusing or destroying the means of production doesn't work. What eventually produced change was organized labor movements that took the existence of that technology as a given and fought over who controls it and under what conditions. That's exactly the kind of struggle I'm advocating for here.
The real question you're raising, I think, is about the subject: is there an organized political force capable of carrying this through? That's a fair and hard question. But it's an argument for building that force, not for abandoning the goal.
