On Sat, May 30, 2026 at 5:32 AM Ludovic Courtès <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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.
Do you believe that this use "of genAI tends to demean human creativity, to discourage the learning and knowledge sharing processes"? And that this particular application "stifles individual autonomy at a fundamental level—replacing one’s ability to build up knowledge with a false sense of quick achievement, building up [cognitive debt—while also weakening communities and destroying labor power"? Or is it that these effects can only be seen in the aggregate? > > 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.?… ~30% of global carbon emissions come from the production of food but Guix still serves food at Guix Days. The Colossus-scale models have billions of global users. Guix has perhaps a few thousand? The analysis would be a speculative comparison of the per-capita energy use of the Guix project with and without the use of LLMs. > Do the other bullet points in “Motivation” resonate more with you? > > How would you narrow this section down? I think we should accept that LLMs do and will exist and look to adapt these amazing stuff generators to benefit our project and the free software community. > > 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? I perceive this in the general developer angst over generative AI. I don't agree that "the leading commercial genAI services ... achieve a concentration of power over the lives of people rarely seen before". I see AI as a tool for remixing the world, decentralizing control. Surely governments and oligarchs would prefer exclusive access to these technologies. > >> 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. I think many contributors and potential contributors would be receptive to new project workflows including using LLMs. What is the GCD 008 vision for "improving hackable tools and services to automate some of the package collection maintenance work"? Left unacknowledged here was Konrad's question on a path for achieving consensus. > > 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? This reference was to the GCD 008 discussion. LLM output falls under existing copyright law. > Besides, derogatory comments as found in your message have no place in > Guix communication channels; there’s a code of conduct here. I am puzzled as to what you find derogatory here.
