Whenever AI is mentioned lots of people in the Linux space immediately react negatively. Creators like TheLinuxExperiment on YouTube always feel the need to add a disclaimer that “some people think AI is problematic” or something along those lines if an AI topic is discussed. I get that AI has many problems but at the same time the potential it has is immense, especially as an assistant on personal computers (just look at what “Apple Intelligence” seems to be capable of.) Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don’t become obsolete. Using an AI-less desktop may be akin to hand copying books after the printing press revolution. If you think of specific problems it is better to point them out and try think of solutions, not reject the technology as a whole.
TLDR: A lot of ludite sentiments around AI in Linux community.
I dont think the community is generally against AI, there’s plenty of FOSS projects. They just don’t like cashgrabs, enshittification and sending personal data to someone else’s computer.
sending personal data to someone else’s computer.
I think this is spot on. I think it’s exciting with LLMs but I’m not gonna give the huge corporations my data, nor anyone else for that matter.
I don’t see anyone calling for cash grabs or privacy destroying features to be added to gnome or other projects so I don’t see why that would be an issue. 🙂
On device Foss models to help you with various tasks.
You are, if you’re calling for Apple like features.
You might argue that “private cloud” is privacy preserving, but you can only implement that with the cash of Apple. I would also argue that anything leaving my machine, to a bunch of servers I don’t control, without my knowledge is NOT preserving my privacy.
You might argue that “private cloud” is privacy preserving
I don’t know since when “on device” means send it to a server. Come up with more straw men I didn’t mention for you to defeat.
On device Foss models to help you with various tasks.
Thankfully I really really don’t need an “AI” to use my desktop. I don’t want that kind of BS bloat either. But go ahead and install whatever you want on your machine.
It is quite a bloat. Llama3 7B is 4.7GB by itself, not counting all the dependencies and drivers. This can easily take 10+ GB of the drive. My Ollama setup takes about 30GB already. Given a single application (except games like COD that takes up 300GB), this is huge, almost the size of a clean OS install.
I’ve yet to see a need for “AI integration ✨” in to the desktop experience. Copilot, LLM chat bots, TTS, OCR, and translation using machine learning are all interesting but I don’t think OS integration is beneficial.
Time 💫 will ✨ prove 💫 you ✨ wrong. 💫
not every high tech product or idea makes it, you don’t see a lot of netbooks or wifi connected kitchen appliances these days either; having the ability to make tiny devices or connecting every single device is not justification enough to actually do it. i view ai integration similarly: having an llm in some side bar to change the screen brightness, find some time or switch the keyboard layout isn’t really useful. being able to select text in an image viewer or searching through audio and video for spoken words for example would be a useful application for machine learning in the DE, that isn’t really what’s advertised as “AI” though.
i don’t really think anyone would be against the last two examples to be integrated in dolphin, nautilus, gwenview… either.
Changing the brightness or WiFi settings can be very useful for many people. Not everyone is a Linux nerd and knows all the ins and outs of basic computing.
maybe, but these people wouldn’t own a pc with a dedicated gpu or neutral network accelerator.
I think the biggest problem is that ai for now is not an exact tool that gets everything right. Because that’s just not what it is built to do. Which goes against much of the philosophy of most tools you’d find on your Linux PC.
Secondly: Many people who choose Linux or other foss operating system do so, at least partially, to stay in control over their system which includes knowing why stuff happens and being able to fix stuff. Again that is just not what AI can currently deliver and it’s unlikely it will ever do that.
So I see why people just choose to ignore the whole thing all together.
Luddites were not as opposed to new technology as you say it here. They were mainly concerned about what technology would do to whom.
A helpful history right here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/?lens=little-brown
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Reminder that we don’t even have AI yet, just learning machine models, which are not the same thing despite wide misuse of the term AI.
Have you mentioned that in gaming forums aswell when they talked about AI?
AI is a broad term and can mean many different things, it does not need to mean ‘true’ AI
That’s just nitpicking. Everyone here knows what we mean by AI. Yes it refers to LLMs.
Reminds me of Richard Stallman always interjecting to say “actually its gnu/Linux or as I like to say gnu plus Linux”…
Well no Mr Stallman its actually gnu + Linux + Wayland + systemd + chromium and whatever other software you have installed, are you happy now??
As someone who frequently interacts with the tech illiterate, no they don’t. This sudden rush to put weighed text hallucination tables into everything isn’t that helpful. The hype feels like self driving cars or 3D TVs for those of us old enough to remember that. The potential for damage is much higher than either of those two preceding fads and cars actually killed poeple. I think many of us are expressing a healthy level of skepticism toward the people who need to sell us the next big thing and it is absolutely warranted.
The potential for damage is much higher
Doubt it. Maybe Microsoft can fuck it up somehow but the tech is here to stay and will do massive good.
So when we actually do have AI, what are we supposed to call it? The current use of the term “AI” is too ambiguous to be of any use.
Honestly what we have now is AI. As in it is not intelligent just trys to mimic it.
Digital Intelegence if we ever achive it would be a more accurate name.
Look, the naming ship has sailed and sunk somewhere in the middle of the ocean. I think it’s time to accept that “AI” just means “generative model” and what we would have called “AI” is now more narrowly “AGI”.
People call videogame enemies “AI”, too, and it’s not the end of the world, it’s just imprecise.
I’m not against AI. I’m against the hoards of privacy-disrespecting data collection, the fact that everybody is irresponsibility rushing to slap AI into everything even when it doesn’t make sense because line go up, and the fact nobody is taking the limitations of things like Large Language Models seriously.
The current AI craze is like the NFTs craze in a lot of ways, but more useful and not going to just disappear. In a year or three the crazed C-level idiots chasing the next magic dragon will settle down, the technology will settle into the places where it’s actually useful, and investors will stop throwing all the cash at any mention of AI with zero skepticism.
It’s not Luddite to be skeptical of the hot new craze. It’s prudent as long as you don’t let yourself slip into regressive thinking.
