barefootstache @barefootstache@qoto.org

LLMs are yew berries of technology

After going through a big portion of the discussions, it is wild how many driveby arguments on unclear assumptions are happening and the majority rely on the idea that

> LLMs are "fruits of the poisoned tree"

Source: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/ @pluralistic

My take is that we have all pipelines in our daily lives for various tasks that give us meaning and purpose. Sometimes we have the fortune to replace parts of the pipeline with better pieces. Other times we have to make due with the resources we have.

Shunning people for their decisions in their circumstances, because one has different and usually subjectively better circumstances is sad, because such individuals do not see their own bias in their opinion.

Thus, questioning the outcomes of the shunning with "Are we better off without the fruits of their labor or worse?" Gives substinence to what the goal is behind the portrayal of one's opinion. Are we here to make a better future where ideation of the many is permitted or do we only want a filtered down future based off of a subjective paradigm.

In the end, one can question if using a local LLM on a laptop is the best tool for the job of spell and grammar checking. It probably is for the current circumstances of #pluralistic and it is inevitable to change in the future. Until then, I don't think it makes sense to shun Cory Doctorow for the pipeline he has set forth in his creative process in his current circumstances. I feel the cost of silencing creative individuals is greater than the tools they are using, because it steals from others the ability to innovate off their ideas.

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On a side note, villianizing the LLMs due to their production vel history without considering their potential innovative solutions on humankind can be compared to knives in a hyperbolic manner. Although knives were initially designed for survival, the countless amount of lives that have been lost due to their existence is unfathomable. But can we say that human prosperity would be better off without them? I would argue that humans wouldn't exist. So LLMs might currently cause a lot pain and suffering for people, but we are already seeing how their downstream innovations are leapfrogging science e.g. aiding doctors in diagnosis process of tumours or the protein folding protein.