Hi Greg, Greg Hogan <[email protected]> skribis:
> Large Language Models are clearly more than stochastic text > generators. That’s what they are technically: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model>. That doesn’t mean they cannot do amazing stuff: no argument here. > One > expressed concern for generative AI is over datacenter energy and > water use. The Guix project currently employs multiple large compute > clusters running tens of thousands of builds. Are you comparing ~50 GPU-less nodes worldwide (that I know of, but let’s imagine there are big secret Guix build farms and the figure is 1,000 nodes) to Colossus¹ & co.?… Do the other bullet points in “Motivation” resonate more with you? How would you narrow this section down? > GenAI may break free software but it need not break apart the free > software community. The purpose of free software was never > exclusivity, which is why permissive licenses and non-copyright works > are compatible with GNU. If we followed our principles this would not > be in question but it is human nature to want to compel the speech and > actions of others. It is “free” software, free as in speech. Where do you see exclusivity in the document? What would you change? >> 5. We acknowledge that the project’s sustainability depends on >> automation for all the mechanical, labor-intensive tasks such as >> package updates. We will keep **improving hackable tools and >> services to automate some of the package collection maintenance >> work**. > > Tools are important and used by agents as well as humans. This > proposed automation eventually leads to development of artificial > intelligence. What this item alludes to is that we already have tools and services to help us maintain the package maintenance (‘guix refresh’, ‘guix style’, the Data Service, the build farms) but we’re not using them as best as we could. The goal here is to acknowledge this situation and to work on improving it. > The discussion over licensing is highly reminiscent of Microsoft’s FUD > campaign over the “virality” of the GPL. Copyright is not required for > free software. Many have claimed “uncertainty” (the ‘U’ in FUD) but we > have yet to receive an explanation or description of the uncertainty > regarding inclusion of LLM output in free software. The “Motivation” section does touch on the copyright status of LLM output. What explanation are you missing? Besides, derogatory comments as found in your message have no place in Guix communication channels; there’s a code of conduct here. Ludo’. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)
