I actually really love machine learning. I trained my own language models back in the late 201Xs, and at my previous company I worked on image classification for a smaller photography platform they were developing. I’m not an ML expert, but it’s easy to see the bullshit that the “AI” companies are selling as bullshit when you know the foundations of the tech. A little like how you don’t need to be a surgeon to call bullshit on someone saying that they performed open heart surgery and brain surgery on themselves simultaneously.

You’re already in their cloud. Yes, unfortunately. There was a time when I was a lot more naïve and way less critical. People change. This is what “radicalised” me. I know that a story like that is just daily life in the U.S., but despite my cynicism I thought things were better here.

You probably use GitHub. I don’t. I self-host everything that I can, and make careful choices with what I choose not to. I’ve left what I had on GitHub on there, and I’ll probably use it as a mirror whenever I release a FOSS project, because I’m OK with Microsoft paying the hosting costs for me, if they’re going to try and scrape my shit anyway. You know, just like GNOME is doing.

caring on one hand and not on the other means nothing.

I don’t really agree. This is the same idiotic take as “if you hate capitalism so much, why are you partaking in it?” You’re also speaking directly through your sphincter as you’ve no idea what my life is like, what choices I’ve made, and so forth; you don’t know me.

Would I prefer to never have to engage with a payment processor or a bank again? Absolutely. That however, is sadly impossible in my society. LLMs aren’t integral to society yet, and I’d see them continue that way.

I’ll continue farming out bullshit tasks to AI while I play with my cat and prepare for the next round of layoffs, rather than giving my soul to a company who doesn’t actually care about me.

Not a fan of the LLM part, but I love the overall sentiment. Fuck the corporations, your time and energy is better spent on the people you love. I hope things work out for you.

~Animals are people too. Lots of love to your cat.~

~I love cats.~