Probably a shallow response …

But I always figured AI/LLMs are basically apocalyptic for all sorts of individualistic values in computing (including privacy but also independence and diversity).

Whether they’re good or useful etc, I just struggle to see how they will ever be justifiable against these sorts of values.

Sure, local models and our hardware will get better … but better than the state of the art from the big labs and providers? Given that data and training are the big bottlenecks on quality … I struggle to see how AI isn’t a complete feudal capturing of information computing and processing. Not to mention what happens to the pipeline that produces information content if everyone is only consuming it through the models that train on it.

So for me the big question is, what’s our call on a possible (likely even?) future where we are forever stuck using cloud provided AI along with all of its negatives, in the same way that basically all of us has been and still is stuck using MS windows, Google and the big-social-media hellscape?

For me, I baulk at this.