#just like i dont defend apple or microsoft or fast fashion

[lunas-a-little-looney]

I feel like people are really missing the point about why chatgpt is bad. Like people are focusing so much on the ai part and why they think everybody who uses chatgpt is lazy and making themselves stupider and it's like, that's not the issue. In a vacuum there's nothing wrong with generative ai, it's just a cool technology. The problem is that these models are created by greedy assholes who are stealing from the people who actually make their product valuable. Just like smartphones, computers, clothes, and everything in our society because AI IS NOT THE PROBLEM ITS CAPITALISM. Like you don't need to argue that LLMs have no legitimate uses in order to criticize chatgpt and the capitalist incentives that made it into what it is.

Actually it *is* cool that it can help you write emails, or find sources for research that you're doing. If you understand it's limitations it's actually an incredibly powerful tool just like every other technological advancement in history. People have been complaining that x new thing will stop young people from learning important life skills since the dawn of invention.

I'm a physics major. When handheld calculators became widespread there was serious concern among physicists and mathematicians that the new generation of students wouldn't learn how to do math properly because they could just have their calculators do it. That never happened because students aren't stupid. Neither are teachers. We all understand that it's super important to learn how to do the math without a calculator so you can understand what's going on in complex problems. So we learn to do the math with no calculator. Most of my work is done without a calculator. None of that diminishes the value of calculators. They can do amazing things and their existence does not invalidate our ability to learn important skills. What they actually do is make some really important things go a lot faster when you're just trying to solve a real world problem and they are vital to doing meaningful work in any modern stem field.