Post #339152
2026-02-17 23:11 UTC
There's tremendous value to being a strict LLM Abstentionist in the current political climate, whether or not there are any "valid use cases for LLMs" (there are—not nearly as many as most people think, but sure, more than zero) or the LLM was "created ethically" (to my knowledge no such model exists, but yeah, it's technically possible that someone has or will eventually build one).
Tech workers especially who refuse to interact with this technology are telling their coworkers and employers that ethics and morality are more important to some people than convenience and profit. This is a bold stance to take during good times—and downright foolhardy in the current job market—but the more people who draw the line here, the better the outcomes will be for literally everybody on the whole planet (except, perhaps, for some billionaire investors).
Replies (1)
-
@eamon@social.coop 2026-02-17 23:22
I'll try to put this succinctly: when you participate in a system that does harm, you bear some responsibility for that harm. Yes, "it's complicated"—we are all compelled to participate in various harmful systems even if we'd rather not, and the people who derive the most benefit or exert the most control over these systems are most responsible for their harms. But when you opt in to a harm-machine that nobody is forcing you to use, you're disgracing yourself. And the system that created all of the actual existing LLMs that people are using is a tremendous harm-machine.