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The Ethics of LLMs
I’ve written about LLMs a few times recently, carefully dodging the issue of ethics each time. I
didn’t want to bog down the other posts with it, and I wanted some time to think over the issues. Now
I’ve had time to think, it’s time to remove my head from the sand. There are a lot of different angles
to consider, and a lot of it is more nuanced than is often presented. It’s not all doom and gloom, and
it’s also not the most amazing thing since sliced bread. Who would have thought?
If all you have is a hammer…
I presume everyone is familiar with the idiom “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail”. If not, well, there it is. It’s generally used pejoratively about being single-minded, but I
think it also gives a glimpse into something more interesting: mental and perceptual sets.
An app can be a ready meal
Three years ago I read “an app can be a home-cooked meal” by Robin Sloan. It’s a great article about
how Robin cooked up an app for his family to replace a commercial one that died. It’s been stuck in my
head ever since. It’s only recently that I’ve actually done anything like Robin described, though.
Part of the reason was my brain got too hung up on the family aspect: in my head, a home-cooked meal
is one where your family or friends all gather around to eat it with you (in much the same way as
Robin’s app is used in the article). It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that you can
apply all the same arguments to an app built just for you. And it doesn’t even have to be difficult.
In fact, it can be more like a ready meal than a family dinner.
