There should be a way to acknowledge two things being true at the same time, but that way was never discovered on Lemmy.
“AI is mostly bad” and “AI can be useful at times” are both true statements. You sacrifice nothing by acknowledging both, and thinking you have to pick between the two is, ironically, mentally lazy af.
Most people agree that there are legitimate applications for LLM technology, like in the medical field. This comes up every single thread.
Then you have trillions of dollars of investment on the promise of eroding worker power, and letting capital enunciate itself without labour. That’s what it’s essentially all for.
The “legitimate” uses of the technology are not even a passing concern for investors except insofar as they can point to it to excuse their grift.
Rightrightright, I mean they can help with that stuff by churning though large sets of data or by statistical analysis to look for early signs of cancer, etc.
I’m not a researcher and I don’t use them myself, but I know a thing or two about how LLMs work. Could be you could school me though if you know a lot.
I’m just saying the models used in medical imaging and protein folding, to use your examples, are not LLMs, but very different dedicated medical imaging models or protein folding models. Still falls under the overarching umbrella of AI/ML, but not really any more relevant to language models. LLMs also aren’t a very relevant tool for big data or statistical analysis. Even with an agent harness, they could be used to write scripts that a human could also write, but couldn’t directly do any sort of reliable statistical analysis.
Oh OK I wasn’t aware of that. Actually I wondered as I was writing my comment how an LLM would compare to more tightly fitted model.
Well there goes my one example. Is there anything they’re legitimately good for? I’ll admit they seem good at finding “fuzzy” connections, and their text and image generation capabilities are impressive even if they aren’t my cup of tea—mostly because of the externalities.
You say most people believe this, but I see many people every day for weeks now claiming Linux is vibecoded now. Why? Three stories: 1) months ago LLM use was not outright banned in kernel development 2) Linus admitted to using LLMs in an experimental branch to find and patch bugs 3) a recent shift in attitude happened, toward LLM-driven PRs because there were too many, and the reaction from Linus and the other maintainers was to raise the bar for submitting PRs to reduce the chance of slop wasting people’s time.
All of this was a series of level headed responses and course corrections which at no time was indicative of anything more than LLMs are useful sometimes. Yet people all over Lemmy are saying shit like “Linux is all in on vibecoding”. Besides that issue, I’ve seen and been involved in many conversations where idiots will say that any use of AI is super unethical and unacceptable. The binary thinking on this issue is strong on here.
Ah well I agree I would Linux love maintainers to take a more principled stance against LLM contributions given all the negative externalities of the technology as it exists today.
there’s a strong case to be made that there is no way to use the current “frontier” models ethically because of how they were trained and who their patrons are. I would love to see that acknowledged.
You thought you were being subtle but if your response to an extremist viewpoint is “yes they make a good point” you’re not getting it but you do seem to want to definitely take a side.
“I’m just being objective but your point isn’t worth addressing while the thought process you take issue with is totally valid”
I’m not trying to be subtle, I’m trying to be open. Clearly we’ve each got our opinions and I think I’ve been very upfront with mine. You’re right I don’t think being against this technology qualifies as an “extremist” position anymore then being against cloud computing or Nvidia are extreme takes.
Anyway you didn’t even try me. I’m elsewhere in this thread talking about the legitimate uses for LLMs. Not everything is as black vs white, clanker vs luddite, as you’re making it.
Yes being so against a technology that you will spread lies about it makes one an extremist. Siding with that… Whatever. Have fun with that. I won’t be seeing anymore of this from you.
“Asbestos is extremely toxic” and “asbestos can be useful and irreplacable at times” are both true. So are “lead is poisonous” and “tetraetillead is an effective anti-knocking agent, lead in solder stops tin whiskers from forming, and lead paint is pretty”.
Also that’s how racism got normalized again, after getting closer to putting it back into the cemetery of history. And so is every LGBTQ±phobia you can name. Or even better: the tobacco industry, the alcohol industry, and the gambling industry all promote “responsible use” of their products.
I think LLM is more like weed though, if we are making an apt metaphor.
MJ is useful in many ways, has medically recognized therapeutic benefits, is fun recreationally. But, it is unadvised to habitually use it all day, and can be harmful if you do.
For both LLMs and marijuana it’s not the use of it that is bad, because there are positives, it’s the over use and abuse of it.
But utilitarianism is a moral system. How can it be amoral…? Its by definition a moral system. You could put fort the argument that it can sometimes reach immoral conclusions, but calling it amoral is just… mixing things up at best and being disingenuous at worse.
There should be a way to acknowledge two things being true at the same time, but that way was never discovered on Lemmy.
“AI is mostly bad” and “AI can be useful at times” are both true statements. You sacrifice nothing by acknowledging both, and thinking you have to pick between the two is, ironically, mentally lazy af.
Most people agree that there are legitimate applications for LLM technology, like in the medical field. This comes up every single thread.
Then you have trillions of dollars of investment on the promise of eroding worker power, and letting capital enunciate itself without labour. That’s what it’s essentially all for.
The “legitimate” uses of the technology are not even a passing concern for investors except insofar as they can point to it to excuse their grift.
What is the legitimate use for LLMs in the medical field?
Like medical research, discovering drugs, folding proteins. There’s also evidence they can be used to help analyse x-rays.
LLMs don’t do those things. Do you know what an LLM is?
Rightrightright, I mean they can help with that stuff by churning though large sets of data or by statistical analysis to look for early signs of cancer, etc.
I’m not a researcher and I don’t use them myself, but I know a thing or two about how LLMs work. Could be you could school me though if you know a lot.
I’m just saying the models used in medical imaging and protein folding, to use your examples, are not LLMs, but very different dedicated medical imaging models or protein folding models. Still falls under the overarching umbrella of AI/ML, but not really any more relevant to language models. LLMs also aren’t a very relevant tool for big data or statistical analysis. Even with an agent harness, they could be used to write scripts that a human could also write, but couldn’t directly do any sort of reliable statistical analysis.
Oh OK I wasn’t aware of that. Actually I wondered as I was writing my comment how an LLM would compare to more tightly fitted model.
Well there goes my one example. Is there anything they’re legitimately good for? I’ll admit they seem good at finding “fuzzy” connections, and their text and image generation capabilities are impressive even if they aren’t my cup of tea—mostly because of the externalities.
You say most people believe this, but I see many people every day for weeks now claiming Linux is vibecoded now. Why? Three stories: 1) months ago LLM use was not outright banned in kernel development 2) Linus admitted to using LLMs in an experimental branch to find and patch bugs 3) a recent shift in attitude happened, toward LLM-driven PRs because there were too many, and the reaction from Linus and the other maintainers was to raise the bar for submitting PRs to reduce the chance of slop wasting people’s time.
All of this was a series of level headed responses and course corrections which at no time was indicative of anything more than LLMs are useful sometimes. Yet people all over Lemmy are saying shit like “Linux is all in on vibecoding”. Besides that issue, I’ve seen and been involved in many conversations where idiots will say that any use of AI is super unethical and unacceptable. The binary thinking on this issue is strong on here.
Ah well I agree I would Linux love maintainers to take a more principled stance against LLM contributions given all the negative externalities of the technology as it exists today.
there’s a strong case to be made that there is no way to use the current “frontier” models ethically because of how they were trained and who their patrons are. I would love to see that acknowledged.
So you are on the side of binary thinking, in the end. Cool.
What makes you think that? I am on no side. I’m just trying to be objective. Everything I said is factually borne out afaik.
Also
Lol now you’re just playing with me, very funny ;p
You thought you were being subtle but if your response to an extremist viewpoint is “yes they make a good point” you’re not getting it but you do seem to want to definitely take a side.
“I’m just being objective but your point isn’t worth addressing while the thought process you take issue with is totally valid”
I’m not trying to be subtle, I’m trying to be open. Clearly we’ve each got our opinions and I think I’ve been very upfront with mine. You’re right I don’t think being against this technology qualifies as an “extremist” position anymore then being against cloud computing or Nvidia are extreme takes.
Anyway you didn’t even try me. I’m elsewhere in this thread talking about the legitimate uses for LLMs. Not everything is as black vs white, clanker vs luddite, as you’re making it.
Yes being so against a technology that you will spread lies about it makes one an extremist. Siding with that… Whatever. Have fun with that. I won’t be seeing anymore of this from you.
“Asbestos is extremely toxic” and “asbestos can be useful and irreplacable at times” are both true. So are “lead is poisonous” and “tetraetillead is an effective anti-knocking agent, lead in solder stops tin whiskers from forming, and lead paint is pretty”.
Also that’s how racism got normalized again, after getting closer to putting it back into the cemetery of history. And so is every LGBTQ±phobia you can name. Or even better: the tobacco industry, the alcohol industry, and the gambling industry all promote “responsible use” of their products.
I think LLM is more like weed though, if we are making an apt metaphor.
MJ is useful in many ways, has medically recognized therapeutic benefits, is fun recreationally. But, it is unadvised to habitually use it all day, and can be harmful if you do.
For both LLMs and marijuana it’s not the use of it that is bad, because there are positives, it’s the over use and abuse of it.
Are you seriously considering people on the internet should start acknowledging nuance? Smh.
I just want to be angry and right - and personally insult you; even though I know nothing about you outside of a sentence or two that I just read.
It is sad that your comment’s second half is 100% accurate for seemingly most users
I know right? Get a load of that guy. Nuance. psh, shaw. This is the internet! We only do extremes and horny posting round these parts!
Because utilitarians are amoral. In fact, the AI ethics “intellectuals” are usually utilitarians, as seen with “Longtermism” and “Effective Altruism.”
You need to realize that your stance is not going to be enough.
But utilitarianism is a moral system. How can it be amoral…? Its by definition a moral system. You could put fort the argument that it can sometimes reach immoral conclusions, but calling it amoral is just… mixing things up at best and being disingenuous at worse.
While funny, the hero could have done both: save them and register them as organ donors.
And let them push even more booze and junk food through those precious organs??
Because it’s not about persons or beings, it is about accounting towards a goal.
Pointing to a moral horizon in the future where things “balance out” is a tool to dismiss moral distinctions in the current, lived context.
Just because someone making such an argument identifies as a utilitarian doesn’t mean all utilitarians make flimsy arguments.
That’s true, but it’s my answer to the question about how it can be amoral. That’s how.
Using it as a tool to speed up your own work is completely different from passing off its work as yours or using it to do someone else’s work
Right… do you think I disagree?
Just additive