Yesterday Cory Doctorow argued that refusal to use LLMs was mere "neoliberal purity culture".

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

@skyfaller @correl

I'm not ignoring that context, it is *entirely irrelevant*, because I am *not* using some prospective, as-yet-to-be-trained LLM to check punctuation on my laptop. I am using an *actual, existing* LLM.

So if your argument is, "If you did something that's not the thing you've done, that would be bad," my response is, "Perhaps that's true, but I have no idea why you would seek to a stranger to discuss that subject."

[komali_2@mastodon.social]

@flesh @tante @osma Realistically, will rag tag groups of progressives on mastodon and bluesky refusing to use LLMs do anything to stop LLM proliferation? I mean even if we could dent openai MRR, there's still the PRC models to consider.

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

@elle @dhd6 @tante @simonzerafa

"You used the wrong open model because I don't like the company that made it" is the actual definition of nonsense purity culture.

[avadoll11@mastodon.social]

@tante That’s a lot of big words! I just want to use tech without feeling guilty. But yeah, being respectful is always good—even online.

[claralistensprechen3rd@friendica.myportal.social]

@skyfaller @pluralistic @tante @FediThing @correl Chiming in to state that it's routine to re-state and re-re-state principles that get lost in long reads and long threads such as this one, where any late-comer needs to skim because of the tl;dr factor. There's a long standing principle based on this phenomenon: tell them in short what you're saying, explain what you said, then tell them in summary what you said.

[claralistensprechen3rd@friendica.myportal.social]

@tante @komali_2 Dear anarchist: the confusion you feel is due to the fact that the only people you see are "leftists" "liberals" and "anarchists". None of those are real everyday people. Because the political parties in the U.S. don't recognize real everyday people as voters, real everyday people are fed up and disgusted with partisan loyalties, especially and including anarchists.

[pluralistic@mamot.fr]

@claralistensprechen3rd @skyfaller @tante @FediThing @correl

I don't know what this has to do with someone stating "you haven't clarified" something, when you have.

Also, I have reposted the paragraph in question TWICE this morning.

[shoshin@buzz.cicadas.surf]

@tante

thanks for writing and sharing your mindful critique of this argument.

[komali_2@mastodon.social]

@pluralistic capital murder on the timeline

[vansice@infosec.exchange]

@liquor_american @tante Agreed. The thing I don't get is embracing something so inefficient. Like, there are other, existing technologies that do the work he described *better*.

[denisbloodnok@mendeddrum.org]

@Colman @Life_is @tante I'll always remember him having a right go at some woman working at a coffee stand at the most recent London Worldcon. I intervened because I wanted coffee and I wasn't sure if he was there for the five minute argument or the full half hour, and he flounced off.

[bazkie@beige.party]

@pluralistic I gave it a good thought, and you know what, I'm gonna argue that yes, for me there is a degree of unethical-ness to that lack of permission!

the things that makes me not mind that so much are a variety of differences in method and scale;

(*btw just explaining my personal reasons here, not arguing yours)

- every word in the OED was painstakingly researched by human experts to make the most possible sense of it

- coming from a place of passion on the end of the linguists, no doubt

- the ownership of said data isn't "techno-feudal mega-corporations existing under a fascist regime"

- the OED didn't spell the end of human culture (heh) like LLMs very much might.

so yeah. I guess we do agree that, on some level, the OED and an LLM have something in similar.

it's the differences in method and scale that make me draw the line somewhere in between them; in a different spot from where you may draw it.

and like @zenkat mentioned elsewhere, it's the whole thing around LLMs that makes me very wary of normalizing anything to do with it, and I concede I wouldn't mind your slightly unethical LLM spellchecker as much, if we didn't live in this horrible context. :)

I guess this has become a bit of a reconciliatory toot. agree to disagree on where we draw the line, to each their own, and all that.

[loathsome_dongeater@toots.matapacos.dog]

@tante your writing is great. Thanks for articulating what I couldn't.

[komali_2@mastodon.social]

@simonzerafa

> AI bubble bursts

For about ~30k I can run deepseek on a rig in my apartment, forever. That's pennies for a startup. How do you envision this bubble bursting such that LLMs are gone?

[twifkak@mas.to]

@pluralistic @simonzerafa @tante I hate to dive into what is clearly a heated debate, but I want to add an answer to your question with a perspective that I think is missing: the power consumption for inference on your laptop is probably greater than in a datacenter. The latter is heavily incentivized to optimize power usage, since they charge by CPU usage or tokens, not watt-hours. (Power consumption != environmental damage exactly, but I have no idea how to estimate that part.)

[komali_2@mastodon.social]

@algernon @pluralistic @clintruin @simonzerafa @tante

Ok, sure. But you won't stop that train by purity testing other leftists. So what's the plan to stop openai ddosing all our blogs?

[karl@infosec.exchange]

@tante The original strawman was somewhat acceptable ("if you refuse to use things touched by evil completely you can't use computers, so we all draw a line somewhere and this is where I draw mine" yadda yadda), but what follows is a pristine example of "man slips on a slippery slope, and slips a lot". :D

[linc@phpc.social]

@tante It's why I'm (lately) preternaturally cautious around "very loud" voices. Part of their ability to formulate & disseminate their contrarian view is dismissing some views & focusing on core principles. If you don't keep counterbalancing voices close, it's extraordinarily easy for that methodology to abruptly send you far off the path.

See also: DHH

[linc@phpc.social]

@tante These days, I generally follow people inclined to selectively & thoughtfully retweet folks like that than to drink from those particular fire hoses directly.

[vansice@infosec.exchange]

@mallory @tante Reposting as the thread got broken: While I would not make fun of someone whose disability was incontinence, or disfigured, or big on general principle, the lack of accountability leaves us with inadequately giving back what that individual has sent out. I don't find that immoral and I'll die on that hill. If someone spent their time and platform to disparage others for their appearance, disabilities or weight, they absolutely can have that back, especially when said speaker is so physically repugnant to begin with. trump had no business judging others on any of those qualities, being so grotesque himself. I think the criticism of Cory's stance on LLMs is valid, picking at him for describing a man as he is is not.