[anonymous_sorry]

Informally, "this thing can solve all your problems" vs "for each of your problems there is a thing that can solve it".

I suppose the argument is that LLMs are not a solution to any problem, they are a complex tool which might be used to find a solution, with non-zero effort.

As an example of non-zero effort: I spent a fair amount of time the other day trying to get chatGPT to advise how to effectively deal with a grey squirrel problem. It was more interested in telling me that squirrels should be treated humanely, to the extent that it suggested doing things that are illegal in my country (releasing a captured grey squirrel). I asked why and it told me all animals had a right to dignity and respect. I couldn't resist getting side tracked by this. After some light trolling I asked it about how it had come to hold these values and it told me that as an LLM it didn't have values, but then restated its position anyway.

In the end I got some more sense out of it with a new prompt where I specifically said I was interested in effective, legal methods of control without any moralising.

If you're concerned, I haven't killed any squirrels and almost certainly won't.

[jameshart]

Right, but this seems like strawmanning to me. The vast majority of useful technology ever developed has been "a complex tool which might be used to find a solution, with non-zero effort".

The complaint here seems to be about the existence of marketing.