Replying to a post on nord.pub
I do understand and share people’s hatred of corporate-owned, centralised cloud AI.
I understand (though share to a lesser degree) people’s ethical concerns about how these models were trained (copyright has been broken for a while now, this just exacerbates it).
But this level of outrage about using local models on an opt-in basis strikes me as hysterical.
Feel free to change my mind.
Replying to @_Nemo_@lemmy.ml
It reads as especially hysterical in this context, because Paperless is an automatic document categorization system, and I’m really sure what they think the automatic part of that is if it’s not “AI” of some broad description. Paperless, Papermerge et al are basically wrappers for machine learning tools and have been for as long as they’ve existed. LLMs are a natural and obvious fit for the kind of work these applications exist to do.
This just feels like someone reading “Improved AI pathfinding” in the patch notes for a video game and screaming “OH MY GOD IS NOWHERE SAFE?!”
Replying to @Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
True, although we must concede there is a difference between the simple machine learning already present in paperless and LLMs where, depending on quantization, CPU-based inference doesn’t get you very far.
Replying to @_Nemo_@lemmy.ml
Absolutely there’s a difference. LLMs, when it comes to this specific task, are better. That’s why they’re being used here. It’s a job they are uniquely well suited to. They do indeed come with high hardware requirements, which is why you’re not forced to use them, and why they provide the option to offload the work to a cloud service.
Personally I would absolutely not want to ever feed my documents into an off-device model, but the point of self-hosted software is that it does what you tell it to and they absolutely should include letting you make bad decisions.
Replying to @Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
Personally I would absolutely not want to ever feed my documents into an off-device model, but the point of self-hosted software is that it does what you tell it to and they absolutely should include letting you
make bad decisions.decide what’s right for you.
FTFY (although I share your judgment). No disagreement about the rest.