Writers: Generative AI models were built on our stolen works, are deeply unethical, and risk devaluing our entire profession.

blurk

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I'm torn whether this is cognitive dissonance or a result of an industry containing a significant fraction of people who apparently hate the field they work in

CC: @jamesthomson@mastodon.social

Paul Tichonczuk

There are a few out there. But most deleveopers are using it because if they don't, they lose their job.

Richard Smith

@jamesthomson I wonder if that’s because for writers, the writing is the work. For artists, the art is the work. For many developers, the code is not the work - the result of the code is. My customers don’t look at, or even care about my code. They care about its outcomes.

For some developers this is harder, who saw coding as a craft in itself. Like woodworking. But many purchasers of beautiful furniture also just want it to hold up their drink.

Claudio Zizza 🦜

@jamesthomson It's kinda like Stackoverflow on Demand.

#?.info :commodore:

@jamesthomson Yeah I don't think so. Some are, a tiny minority are bragging about supposedly being 10x more productive but not showing anything of value, but literally every dev I'm seeing is:

1. Complaining about AI being everywhere and being forced to use it
2. Complaining about slop bug reports
3. Worried about layoffs that will also destroy the company that's laying them off, making a bad economy even worse.

The minority that's cheering for it are a minority that happens to be loud, but it's the same people, and many of them aren't devs to begin with, as evidenced by their LinkedIn style of writing.

macfixer

@Eggfreckles @jamesthomson

Ken Franqueiro

@jamesthomson Competent developers: *too aghast at how many of their dependencies now accept LLM slop in PRs to say anything*

Alexandra

@tschenkel @the_other_jon

I appreciate this pushback.
You're right that I could be more informed, and I'm actively working on

For example: I recently learned about OpenAI's ties to ICE and have since switched to other models (local models) because of it. That's exactly what 'informed use' looks like to me. I am trying to learn about specific harms and adjusting accordingly.

But here's where I still disagree with the Luddite comparison: The Luddites had a real choice to reject the machines. I don't have that choice anymore: I’m required to use AI at work, and personally, it helps me function with ADHD in ways that nothing else does.

So my question remains: If I can't opt out entirely, isn't 'informed use and demanding regulation' better than 'uninformed use and silence'? I'm genuinely trying to navigate this topic, not to justify myself.

Also I am really curious why your colleagues are all against generative AI. Would you please expand on that?

Alexandra

@vitor

Thank you for your goodhearted response ️

It’s maybe just me, but I don’t feel like they are cheerleading AI exclusively as they are also covering the problems with it(like the Anthropic Book Piracy). So for me its still balanced, can be different for you(Also sometimes I may zone out a bit)

Btw I agree about the 'left behind' aspect which Marco is talking about. I see this every day at work. My employees who are genuinely anxious about being replaced or left behind by AI. As a team lead, I'm trying to navigate that: helping people adapt while also acknowledging the real fear and harm. That's where regulation becomes critical. We can't just leave people to fend for themselves in this shift.

Alexandra

@firepoet @the_other_jon

Thank you for this answer

I respect that position, and you're right that ethical stances often require sacrifice. But I think we're drawing different lines here. I don't see AI as something we can just starve by not using it. It's already everywhere, being used by corporations, governments, everyone. So for me, the question is: do I abstain entirely while others use it uncritically, or do I use it thoughtfully and keep pushing for better regulation?

I am trying to navigate the reality I am living in.
As I said in other posts it helps me navigate with my ADHD and also I’m kind of forced to use it at work.
What I am doing is to advocate for using different models at work and talking with people about the problems of AI. All while being really excited how we can use it to make lives better, because it has cool use cases.

Also I am pragmatic singular boycott never helped much. We need regulations in place, that’s the most important thing

Airis Damon

@mrkeen @owlex @the_other_jon There could be extralegal methods for democratization. I don't know. I'm not real enthused with the direction all this is heading toward.

Mansour

@jamesthomson The taboo against plagiarism in the arts doesn't exist in the software world. Some of the biggest names regularly copy code without attribution.

I remember when GitHub first launched support for Markdown. It was based on the work on a female Russian developer. Her code was copied, her name and attribution stripped, and replaced with a generic open source license.

Stephen 🌈 (he/him)

@owlex @the_other_jon I wish you the best. While we are on opposite sides of this particular struggle I can respect your need to fix the broken system from the inside. Just be careful out there.. https://steve-yegge.medium.com/the-ai-vampire-eda6e4f07163

Juliette

@jamesthomson Not all developers....

tschenkel

@owlex @the_other_jon

I'd say with local models you are on the right track. The issue with most genAI is that there is no true OpenSource. Even OpenWeight models are trained on closed training data and can only be trained by intransparent entities (Meta).

'Informed use' of models that you control and 'demanding regulation' of the companies pushing the models is what I'm for as well.

However, I would expect the AI bubble to burst in the next few years. The ratio of investment to potential revenue is just too large for it to be economically viable in a sustainable fashion. That's why OpenAI et al. are pushing so hard. They need to keep the investment capital to pour money in and keep the overvaluation going up.

After that we'll have a new AI winter (I remember the end of the first, and lived through the second, having done some AI work before the second) - which will mean all the real AI applications will suffer.

I actually was enthusiastic when the LLMs came out, because they solved the natural language processing problem we tried to work out in the 80s. I really hoped we'd get the Star Trek computer, but we got MaaS (Mansplaining as a Service).

We'd need LLMs combined with a reliable knowledge engine. Scaling the NN won't lead to any emergent AGI - only to a collapse of personal computing (see shortage in RAM, HDDs, ...), and the environment.

You may be the avantgarde, running a local LLM on your old cobbled together hardware Gibson-style.

I read the same books the tech-bros reference as their inspiration, but I read them as warnings.

Chief Twat

@jamesthomson OTOH, we give away tons of our results for free some of which you're using daily.

tschenkel

@owlex @the_other_jon

Btw, the Luddites didn't really have a choice, either. As history shows, the machines were forced on them after all.

It wasn't the machines they were against, it was the abuse of them to increase/create a power imbalance that allowed the owners of the machines to create something similar to the slavery that was moving out.

Some parallels to how the means of computing are now seized and used against the same people who have built it in the first place.

Bastet 魔王様 😈

@jamesthomson
Now a question that comes to mind, if AI generated content, be it graphics, music, plot lines or the code that binds this all together, can't be copyrighted, can we, theoretically speaking, copy modern games that use AI in development freely?

Alexandra

@firepoet Thank you, Stephen. While we still don’t have the same position. This post captures what I am looking out for in my employees and myself