As preamble:
1) Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs https://blog.codeberg.org/protecting-our-floss-commons-from-llms.html 2) Science Direct Summary https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661316300985 But this is the main driver for this post: 3) The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.17397 I think the Codeberg hypothesis (and stance) about one-off code provides a clear foil for disambiguating what code/software actually *is*. There's a difference between collaboratively developed code and "interpretable" methods. It seems like 2 subtly different meanings of the word "open". Codeberg is (effectively, if not purposefully) saying they are not a "repository" in the sense of, say, https://vivli.org/. Now, I'm a fan of opinionated tech. But Codeberg's stance seems a bit reactionary to me. I mean, it's fine. It's their site, their hardware, etc. So I'm not objecting ... simply processing. But if we move on to Duede et al (3), the paper irritates me because I like to believe I have an empirical bent. I'm having trouble formulating their model such that its premises are backed by data and that it makes testable predictions. It's my problem, I'm sure. But even in the abstract, they say "researchers will become more selective about what they publish". I feel like they should have prefaced that with "if our model validates" or "analysis of our model argues that" ... or somesuch. IDk. Inside the paper, their assertions are softer and more palatable ... but they still seem to be reifying. I've included (2) because, from my perspective the LLMs are a fairly straightforward advancement in the lineage of the pencil, or the printing press, or the internet. We imbue our talisman(s) with our hopes and fears, then ratchet our thinking up and never look back (until someone slips a hero dose of LSD into our drink at the party). A large proportion of us will be catastrophically damaged if our ratcheted scaffolds collapse. (Some scaffolds are so robust no amount of truth or fact will collapse it at all.) But at least some subset of dorks will always be fascinated by little details like manually selected fonts or assessing whether some modeling assumption is *actual* as opposed to convenient. We're each free to offload whichever homunculus we find irritating. But I find myself in awe of those who relish irritation as a grounding to reality. -- ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
