[goku12]

Yes, even the ones you can run on your system. They're no different from proprietary OS and software you used to run on your system, whose design in which you had no say whatsoever. These 'free to run' models are hardly open source. You don't have the data that was used to train them. It's not just about the legality of those data. The dataset chosen may have extreme bias that you can never eliminate satisfactorily from a trained model.

As if that wasn't bad enough, these models cannot be trained on your regular home computer. But instead of striving to improve the energy efficiency of these models, those big corporations build and run massive gas guzzling data centers to train them. They ruin the quality of life for the neighbors through pollution, water depletion and electricity price rise. It also disproportionately affects the poor in the world by reducing supply of essential computing components like RAM (which are needed for medical devices, utility and manufacturing installations and every other aspect of modern life), and by aggravating the climate crisis, whose victims are the poorest.

They don't give you those models out of the goodness of their hearts. Those are just advertisements and trial pieces for their premium services. They also peddle the agenda of its creators. So yes, those models are empowering only in a very narrow sense without any foresight. They are still the money making engines for the rich that subject you to their benevolence, whims and fancies.