A professor's principled refusal to use LLMs: Exploitation, resources, and human flourishing
By
Brent A. Yorgey
The kind of bagel that ruins lesser bagels for you.
Summary
The author, addressing their students, states a firm refusal to use Large Language Models (LLMs) for any purpose. While acknowledging the technical fascination of LLMs, the author argues they are built on exploitation of human labor, consume scarce resources excessively, and are not genuinely beneficial for many applications. Even when technically competent, the author questions whether LLM use contributes positively to human flourishing.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledI do not and will not use LLMs, in any form, for any purpose.
Although LLMs are fascinating from a purely technical perspective, I refuse to participate in or contribute to such systems that are built on massive exploitation of human labor and make profligate use of scarce resources.
Even in cases where LLMs are technically good at a task, that does not necessarily mean their use for that task contributes positively to human flourishing.
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