this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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Fuck AI

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"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"

A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.

AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.

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Inspired by a recent talk from Richard Stallman.

From Slashdot:

Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that "nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren't intelligent at all..." He makes a point of calling large language models "generators" because "They generate text and they don't understand really what that text means." (And they also make mistakes "without batting a virtual eyelash. So you can't trust anything that they generate.") Stallman says "Every time you call them AI, you are endorsing the claim that they are intelligent and they're not. So let's let's refuse to do that."

Sometimes I think that even though we are in a "FuckAI" community, we're still helping the "AI" companies by tacitly agreeing that their LLMs and image generators are in fact "AI" when they're not. It's similar to how the people saying "AI will destroy humanity" give an outsized aura to LLMs that they don't deserve.

Personally I like the term "generators" and will make an effort to use it, but I'm curious to hear everyone else's thoughts.

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[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I never liked the "just a word" defense. If any word can be made to mean anything else just because a government or corporation says so, what does that say for our shared reality?

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sure, I don't disagree. But what use is any of that if people don't know what exactly you are protesting? At what point do you abandon idealism in favour of pragmatism?

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It seems most people don't know what exactly is being protested now. And it seems to me that perpetuating a false narrative for the sake of convenience is helping those we claim to be against.

[–] its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And this is based on what exactly?

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Based on historical examples of situations when a false narrative was perpetuated for the sake of convenience, and it assisted the person or group who benefited from the perpetuation of the false narrative.

[–] its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

It's based on the fact that a false narrative is the dominant narrative... and y'all seem to approve.

I thought we left all that purity testing bullshit in the 2010s. We all hate AI. We haven't been convinced this issue in particular is the hill worth dying on.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

Gaming NPC behaviour decision trees that are even the slightest bit sophisticated have been called "AI" for decades. Nobody complained about a "false narrative" and nobody thought NPCs in games were like Data. It's just a word.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

There's nothing "pragmatic" about mass delusion.

[–] illi@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I get where you are coming from, but ultimately words and their meanings are social constructs. Words mean what society determine they mean.

If you need to distinguish them, we can use the already coined name of LLMs as that's what they actually are. Maybe let's use Large Image Models for those non-text ones? I feel like "generators" is too generic a term to work.

But I do agree that calling them AI gives them more power than they have.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 0 points 1 week ago

"generators" is too generic but "AI" isn't?