Hi, Moritz! you raise various important questions and arguments, but unfortunately this is somewhat spoiled by subtle misrepresentations of things I wrote, stifling discussion based on your expressed lack of interest, and even suggesting that people stating a certain opinion may act maliciously in this. Given that, I don’t think it makes sense for me to comment on your arguments in detail.
All the best, Wolfgang Am Di 14.07.2026 10:17 schrieb Moritz Angermann: > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 2:59 AM Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote: > > > On Saturday, 11 July 2026, 06:15 Moritz Angermann wrote: > > > > > I think it [the draft LLM policy] ignores the English as a Second > > > Language part. If a contributor uses LLM tools to improve/rephrase > > > documentation they write to use more natural, idiomatic and > > > clearer English, I’d be very happy for them to do this. > > > > Note, though, that such LLM use carries the risk that people just > > delegate the work of improving their texts to LLMs and thus don’t > > train themselves to write better texts. > > That argument seems to come up again and again. You always have a > choice to learn or not. Don’t use a calculator you won’t be able to > do simple math in your head anymore. Don’t use computers to write > letters your handwriting will degrade. > > This is imo gatekeeping. Don’t use X because you should really do it > yourself by hand. We’d rather you stay away than use assistive > technologies. Don’t use cars to travel, learn to ride a horse > properly. > > > > “LLM-generated code will contain different mistakes than code > > > written by humans does while the results often look very similar > > > on the first glance.” If we make such a claim, we need to put > > > substance to it; this needs a source. > > > > Good insight can come from a multitude of understanding, experience, > > and reflection, while scientific studies on complex topics carry the > > risk of oversimplifying matters. A good human judgement may be more > > valuable than quoting a source. > > Fair, so this is meant to only be a neutral observation? We should > remove the implied: LLMs make worse mistakes than humans from it then. > While I agree that LLMs may make different mistakes to humans, I find > implying that LLM mistakes are worse than human made mistakes > (especially when assuming that a human used the tool only assistive, > and fully owns the result), to be highly questionable if not outright > malicious. > > > > where does attribution start? Am I going to add assisted by: vim, > > > emacs, vscode, macros, stack overflow answers, snippets libraries? > > > > No, it is only about LLMs. 🙂 The functionality of editors and > > macros is understandable by the user, the behavior of LLM systems is > > not. > > Here we disagree; but this would likely end up splitting hairs on what > the meaning of understanding behavior is and I have no interest in > debating that. > > > > If I use an LLM to instantiate a for loop for me, auto complete an > > > identifier, execute a macro, …? > > > > Why would you want to use an LLM for this? Doesn’t this make your > > life harder, at least in the long run? > > This is pretty much the usecase for copilots auto complete. Basically > a souped up version of intellisense like autocomplete + a snippets > expansion. Just AI driven to get better context sensitive > autocomplete. > > Again the argument missives the point. Why do I want to restrict > other people in their freedom and prescribe them what and how to use > things? Who am I to (a) assume I know better, and (b) dictate others > what to do? > > > > I feel a lot of these policies feel like they try to > > > prescribe/dictate some behavior instead of leading and focusing on > > > the intended outcome. > > > > The outcome cannot be separated from the behavior that led to it. > > Sure, there can be a lot of freedom regarding how people arrive at > > their outcomes, but LLM systems are fundamentally different from > > normal tools and thus using them may result in outcome of a > > different kind. > > Okay then, no one is forcing anyone to use an LLM on the other hand > there seem to be a significant number of people who think it is fine > to try to force others not to use LLMs (for now; who knows what we’ll > end up prohibiting next? Maybe using emacs because lisp is too > powerful?). > > The asymmetry of the argument and perceived lack of self reflection in > this discussion is what irritates me. > > If you are so against LLMs, and feel threatened by others using LLMs, > please bring concrete receipts of LLM usage (on GHC), that directly > impacts you and your freedom. I’m more than happy to engage in > constructive factual and grounded arguments how to prevent abusive and > freedom restricting behavior (not necessarily limited to LLMs even). > I am not willing to continue arguing about hypothetical, ethical, > sociological, philosophical or similar topics loosely relating to > LLMs. > > Best, > Moritz _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
