Issues of licensing and stolen code, potentially causing copyright problems which most open-source projects are poorly fit to resolve and may go down because of them
What, we care about licenses and copyright now?
Big tech has stolen all code and now everything it “open source”. You’re not going to get into legal trouble for using LLM generated code there’s no precedent for that. The only ones getting sued are the big tech companies who stole the code.
Environmental impact of model training, huge data centers threatening water supplies, producing tons of e-waste, creating noise pollution, increasing power demand, including one from unclean sources at the critical point when we should reduce it as much as possible
Sure but that’s mostly them training a gazillion new models. You could ban models from providers that are doing all these things and thus promote more efficient models.
Deterioration in skill level of human coders and lack of avenues for juniors to learn to code properly, which is likely to stay as an essential thing to have
Valid but understanding architecture and delegating writing the code and especially tests is becoming much more important than just artisan writing it these days.
Outside coding, there are many ethical issues around companies producing LLM models, as many have ties to the military and police, and are heavily misused to fuel fascist regimes
Like I said there’s local models as well. China puts out plenty of great open weight stuff like GLM5.3 which will likely have to run in the cloud but it’s still open weight.
I see your point. I don’t think China-made local models are panacea by any means though, even through it’s good they try to make it more efficient instead of just throwing gazillions and watching the world burn. It is still a very massive, very problematic operation.
Running LLMs locally, especially considering the pace of development, is just going to distribute the e-waste issue and make parts availability even worse, as I doubt your average hardware would be busy around the clock as it is in data centers (and so we’ll need much more of it). It is better for some things (like privacy or reliability or screwing with incentives of those turning the economy and the world upside down for a quick grift), but it doesn’t solve the others.
LLM’s can save tremendous time now. You see projects like C&C Generals running on a tablet, or Lego Racers on web which would require tonnes of manual labour and now they’re just a few LLM prompts. It’s gotten to the point these kind of projects which would have been multi-year undertakings in the past have become “unimpressive”
Yes they’re not perfect and they do make mistakes. That’s why understanding architecture is more important than ever. But manual coding is really becoming a thing of the past. Agentic coding progress over the last year has pretty much solidified that. It’s still not perfect but it’s really good now.
Any industry that throws billions of dollars into something will make progress and now that progress has been made there’s not much of a point in just resisting the tech itself. Therefore instead of pleading against all AI I believe it’s much better to plead for open weight or open source and efficient AI.
The problem is like with the Luddites that you don’t own the machine (AI) and the largest companies want to keep full control over them. It’s a problem with the system ruling you not with the technology itself.
The technology is undoubtedly good. All technologies are, if you ask me. The problem is about externalities, but they do matter and cannot be viewed separately.
Currently, as things stand, the development and, notably, use of the technology comes with a massive threat to several important areas. This is why many pieces of software that ban LLM contributions make a for now caveat.
Relying on it now, under current circumstances, is dangerous and damaging, even if sometimes it is a tremendous help. It may get better once we have truly efficient models and training, do not reinvent the wheel from scratch 20 times over, do not screw entire economy over it, put guardrails on the use of technology against people, and have a cheap, resource-efficient, and long-relevant hardware to run it. But we’re not there yet. We’re going to space with a gunpowder barrel here. Workable? I guess. Reasonable? No.
If the goal isn’t to oppose the technology but instead steer towards better use of the technology then that should be promoted. This blanket opposition means that we get fascists like DHH being the only ones to adopt LLM’s because for some reason the left has a hate boner for it.
What, we care about licenses and copyright now?
Big tech has stolen all code and now everything it “open source”. You’re not going to get into legal trouble for using LLM generated code there’s no precedent for that. The only ones getting sued are the big tech companies who stole the code.
Sure but that’s mostly them training a gazillion new models. You could ban models from providers that are doing all these things and thus promote more efficient models.
Valid but understanding architecture and delegating writing the code and especially tests is becoming much more important than just artisan writing it these days.
Like I said there’s local models as well. China puts out plenty of great open weight stuff like GLM5.3 which will likely have to run in the cloud but it’s still open weight.
I see your point. I don’t think China-made local models are panacea by any means though, even through it’s good they try to make it more efficient instead of just throwing gazillions and watching the world burn. It is still a very massive, very problematic operation.
Running LLMs locally, especially considering the pace of development, is just going to distribute the e-waste issue and make parts availability even worse, as I doubt your average hardware would be busy around the clock as it is in data centers (and so we’ll need much more of it). It is better for some things (like privacy or reliability or screwing with incentives of those turning the economy and the world upside down for a quick grift), but it doesn’t solve the others.
As per legal aspects, time will be our judge.
LLM’s can save tremendous time now. You see projects like C&C Generals running on a tablet, or Lego Racers on web which would require tonnes of manual labour and now they’re just a few LLM prompts. It’s gotten to the point these kind of projects which would have been multi-year undertakings in the past have become “unimpressive”
Yes they’re not perfect and they do make mistakes. That’s why understanding architecture is more important than ever. But manual coding is really becoming a thing of the past. Agentic coding progress over the last year has pretty much solidified that. It’s still not perfect but it’s really good now.
Any industry that throws billions of dollars into something will make progress and now that progress has been made there’s not much of a point in just resisting the tech itself. Therefore instead of pleading against all AI I believe it’s much better to plead for open weight or open source and efficient AI.
The problem is like with the Luddites that you don’t own the machine (AI) and the largest companies want to keep full control over them. It’s a problem with the system ruling you not with the technology itself.
The technology is undoubtedly good. All technologies are, if you ask me. The problem is about externalities, but they do matter and cannot be viewed separately.
Currently, as things stand, the development and, notably, use of the technology comes with a massive threat to several important areas. This is why many pieces of software that ban LLM contributions make a for now caveat.
Relying on it now, under current circumstances, is dangerous and damaging, even if sometimes it is a tremendous help. It may get better once we have truly efficient models and training, do not reinvent the wheel from scratch 20 times over, do not screw entire economy over it, put guardrails on the use of technology against people, and have a cheap, resource-efficient, and long-relevant hardware to run it. But we’re not there yet. We’re going to space with a gunpowder barrel here. Workable? I guess. Reasonable? No.
If the goal isn’t to oppose the technology but instead steer towards better use of the technology then that should be promoted. This blanket opposition means that we get fascists like DHH being the only ones to adopt LLM’s because for some reason the left has a hate boner for it.