Junk Drawer
For all those little papers scattered across your desk
Junk DrawerFor all those little papers scattered across your desk
I stand for the Constitution, for due process, and for community that takes care of each other.
Say the hard things.
I’ve previously written some of my own criticism and signal-boosted others, so let’s tie a few more threads together.
Ed Zitron famously writes about the AI bubble these days. I’ve just read Baldur Bjarnason’s comparison to the financial bubble and Icelandic nationalism, wherein he mentions “accountability sinks” (a phrase I’ve mostly learned from Cory Doctorow). And finally, Ron Jeffries of Agile and XP fame leads with “tools of the oppressor”.
When I said “the development and use of LLMs consistently harms along the axes which I care more about,” these are the axes I mean. Politically, economically, and socially, LLMs chain us to the whims of oppressors, fascists, and monopolists who seek to enshrine their right to cheat us of ours.
“Rights for me, not for thee.”
Gross. I don’t want that world: remember when we had some protection from all the scams? Consumer harms? Plague? Those shields weren’t perfect, but to see folks now twist the very real history of racism in all aspects of this society to argue that the protections were the problem is horrific.
I may not trust the government to make the best decision for me, but I sure as hell don’t trust oppressors, fascists, and monopolists either. In a functioning democracy backed by experts, at least I stand a chance of making a good decision and being protected from the worst harms.
According to the Wall Street Journal article “Florida Seeks to End Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren” (2025 September 3rd), Michael Ramey said
Parents are capable of making these [vaccination] decisions, and will by nature safeguard the best interests of their children.
This is no lie1. Yet it is absurd to claim that, in this era of misinformation and epistemological crisis, any one of us can reliably sift through all the information we need to make a reasonable-enough judgement to keep ourselves and our families safe.
But that’s what we’re required to do when we fire all the experts and poison the wells of knowledge.
Isn’t that what the LLM bubblers are clamoring for?
Except when it is: parents abuse children. According to the National Children’s Alliance, 76% of substantiated abuse charges in 2022 fell on a parent or guardian. ↩