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.
Some unpolished thoughts from a recent conversation with other software engineers.
I’m willing to be practical, but I find the « tools » conversation needs to wait until we’ve addressed at least some of the political weaponization. Ironically, this is one of the good things about the tools conversation! An LLM cannot do my job, and we should stop allowing them to be weaponized as if they could.
[What is political weaponization?]
See, e.g., Cory Doctorow’s « an LLM can’t do your job, but a salesman can convince your boss it can » for examples in employment (esp. in tech; companies would love for us to be as low-status as your average retail worker); see Grok being used to spew Musk’s many -isms or generally any attempt to dismantle the notion of truth (epistemological crisis); see US v China (Deepseek); see “AGI: Probably Not 2027” for a rebuttal of the fantasy that swept up folks in our government; see Iris Meredith’s blog for some specifics on people and projects involved (I believe I got the phrase from them—site: search is probably useful to find relevant articles).
[When pushed on how long the conversation should wait]
I can see how [“we shouldn’t be talking about how this fits into our lives as developers as a tool until the weaponization stops”] is an interpretation of my statement. I suppose I mean: I find the tool conversation fascinating, but ultimately less urgent than systemic abuse.
Right now my preferred direction of energy is toward addressing such abuse. (Of course, much like we sometimes get markers from Amazon to make our protest posters, I can use a devtool to support addressing such issues.)
In all fairness, I think a lot of spaces I’m in (including this one) are having the tool conversation in good faith. But it sure didn’t feel that way at the start, and I still can’t wrap my head around one conversation often not acknowledging the other. But there’s so much going on in a giant intersection that it also seems entirely rational to focus in on small parts at a time, and it sure seems even harder to have an all-encompassing conversation! So I’m glad to try to focus and chat however it works out.
I also find that my stubborn streak encourages me to make strong claims and then fall back to something closer to moderation in practice, provided we agree that « moderation » requires acknowledging certain indelible lines, even if we disagree how to implement those lines.
Ambiguity is probably good for us like that.
« Engineering Rigor in the Age of LLMs » has certainly given me a newfound excitement about the potential, despite all of my concerns about the « LLMentalist effect » or about the replication of harmful social norms.
I think in particular it revealed a possibility of using the tool with discernment (« this use emphatically doesn’t matter »). I hold that such discernment is difficult and is helped by engagement with all the liberal arts, including sociology and feminist theory, etc.
[What are good directions for addressing such abuse?]
Simply (hah!): envision a better world and then work for it! A few caveats: of course that’s easier said than done. Ideally, we’d be directing our talents to serve folks already doing this hard work.
Broadly, I’m looking away from computing to find these opportunities. My energies are mostly directed at things like the following. The list is too long but feels deeply connected for me.