@ehashman @foolishowl
To begin with your last point, the goal. It is, in my mind, for Debian to take a principled stance, and base that on its existing values and ethics. It's not up to Debian if LLM's continue to see use in society at large, just as it's not up to Debian if people keep using non-free alternatives. But Debian can make a difference, and I'd argue that Debian does so every day. Debian *is* different from many other distributions. One only needs to look at the social contract to see that, and Debian goes to great lengths to uphold it. Debian is important partly because it puts its values first.
As for my objections, at this point it's hard to differentiate between the technology of LLMs and the harms that stem from the usage of them, mostly because those making said technology encourage harmful usage. Workers rights, a complete disrespect and active undermining of free software licenses, contributions to completely destroying the web by flooding it with nonsense and the environmental impact of training, are among my objections. I would say it's near impossible to use one in any kind of ethical way at this stage.
If Debian accepts contributions made with LLMs, then I would argue Debian is contributing to the negative effects I list above, partly by legitimizing them.
That said, If a model that respects licenses of the works it uses, a high bar it seems, has all of its training data, weights and other software licensed under a free software license, and is trained without significant environmental impact and without abuse of workers - then yes, that might be something that I could see be acceptable for contributions to Debian.
I'll also accept that there might still be LLM contributions being made, but without disclosure. But that doesn't erase the impact of taking a principled stance.
I don't need Debian to change the world on its own. But I don't prefer Debian on technical grounds alone, just like I don't write free software just because I need a particular piece of software myself.
