On 2026-11-02 at 09:21, Adam Heath wrote: > First off, a little introduction. I am Adam Heath. I used to have > [email protected]. I missed the call out +10y ago, to continue as a > developer, so I'm more of just a user. > > I'm going to skip the entire free/non-free debate about what sort of > LLM-compilation is occurring, for this particular comment. > > Are you daft?
I certainly hope not. > You want *zero* automation, and want "agency" to be responsible for > running computer programs? I would say rather than I recognize the importance of agency in the subjective and human element of the situation - and that the question of where responsibility for a given action being taken falls appears to be at the center of this dispute. > We are building a *system*, not a series of people. Automation is > key. Of course it is. That's part of the point of the "computers are for automation" principle I mentioned, which is something I've advocated for very strongly for a long time myself. It's just that when a particular instance of automation leads to sufficiently severe negative backlash in the non-automated parts of the system, it may well be more worthwhile to drop or reduce that automation than to endure the consequences of maintaining it in the face of the backlash. The question is not of whether automating the task (of initiating LLM processing) would be directly preferable over doing it more manually. The question is of what the costs of having that task be automated are, relative to the alternatives, and whether those costs are worth paying. Those costs are almost certainly social and otherwise interpersonal, but that does not make them any less real - and if the decision is to be made that they *are* worth paying, IMO that decision should be made with a clear understanding of those costs, and of the alternatives, in mind. (This touches on something I've been noticing over years in more political arenas. There are three basic questions people disagree about in many types of debate: "what does and does not constitute a problem in need of solving? what courses of action will and will not be effective in solving that problem? what costs are and are not acceptable in exchange for having the problem solved?". If two people arguing over a given problem are not arguing about the same question, they will never be able to even clearly understand each other's positions, much less come to any real agreement. I find that it is almost always worthwhile, at least for intellectual-understanding purposes, to explicitly separate out those questions for any given debate.) -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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