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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[–] ZDL@lazysoci.al 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Speaking about AI, Stallman warned that "nowadays, people often use the term artificial intelligence for things that aren't intelligent at all..."

Ah... Something just dawned on me.

Didn't he … I think I'll just quote Wackypedia for this:

In 1971, near the end of his first year at Harvard, he became a programmer at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory …

In 1971 there was nothing that was intelligent at all in the world of computing. (And, as is normal, in 99.44% of humanity. This is a constant. 😉) It's almost as if the term "Artificial Intelligence" has never meant, you know, actual intelligence. And it goes on:

He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left the program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory.

[…] in September 1983. Since then, he had remained affiliated with MIT as an unpaid "visiting scientist" in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Until "around 1998", he maintained an office at the Institute that doubled as his legal residence.

That's an awful lot of "not intelligent at all" places he's worked for or been affiliated with that use the term artificial intelligence...

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

Yeah "AI" was always a marketing term to drum up grant money and investor interest.

It was always and only meant to trick people into thinking that it meant "actual intelligence"