Within the last few months I have noticed a troubling trend from men* in, and adjacent to, electronic freedom and free software who are well on their way to becoming the next elder statesmen of these communities. All at once, they all have begun engaging in tepid endorsements for the minor use cases of large language models (AI**) they discovered. When broached with criticism, they get extremely defensive.

It is undeniable that any motivated person or team can find the proper nails to direct a particular fit-for-purpose hammer at. What these advocates are missing is that people are directing their ire towards them because when they lend their reputation for the handful of appropriate cases, they are helping to paper over the various maledictions of Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, etc., and the evils the leaders of AI companies are ushering into the world are not small. This year we have had their tools powering the bombing of a school full of children, motivating people to suicide, reports on how these data centers are poisoning the water of agricultural communities and causing elevated rates of cancer, automated CSAM generation, and more. We are but three mere months into this year, and weekly the tragedies escalate.

I fully believe that it might be irksome for people generally excited about technology to be shouted at when they find a use case. Figuring out where and how a tool works brings on an incredible euphoria, and being shouted at definitely harshes the vibe. Sometimes, by virtue of your position, you must forgo euphoria because you are held to a higher standard. That standard and the expectation to meet it are not purity culture, though; that is the price of wearing the crown.

I have no doubt that the notable people and leaders of these communities have worked their asses off to be in the position to influence policy, get invited to give speeches around the globe, be paid for work they seem to enjoy, and generally get to rest in the shade of the orchard they tended. The implicit deal is that these figures are expected to hold the line against the regressive forces on behalf of everyone else in the community. At first blush, this may seem unfair because I very much believe that deal was not what any of these folks were working towards, but if one wants to brandish their leftist credentials or fly the flag of allyship, it requires acting in solidarity even if that means giving up something of yourself.

The technologies as they exist today pose significant danger, and as a result, the elites within these communities must have the humility to refrain from talking about their clever uses. Not because our community elites lack the capability to pull off cool stunts but because the hazard of them opening up their reputation as a laundromat for evil is too great.

In this moment, we would be better served by lesser-known people quietly doing the work of “repurposing the master’s tools.” That is a better path forward for two reasons. The first is that by prominent people refusing to spend any time selling the master’s tools, the masters must do it themselves. The energy that was previously spent threading the cursed needle can now be directed into showcasing the tools and systems that are already oriented towards enriching people’s lives and do not require the work of reconfiguration. Should the repurposed tools prove pro-social, word will get out without our most decorated community members taking up the mantle.

The second reason this serves the moment better is that, unlike our more esteemed community members who will surf IRC or gaze into an esoteric forum like it’s the Necronomicon, the AI boosters do not care to roll about in that muck with the people who actually toil over technology***, but they do read and pay attention to advocates and figureheads that have risen above the teeming masses.

When the most visible members of our communities discuss their positive experiences, no matter how deep between the cushions they couch their caveats, the boosters immediately chamber that bullet and fire it into the crowd of people resisting their designs. When we express anger at the prominent figures of the community, it might be in part us asking them to refrain from using the tool, but the more crucial thing we are asking for here is that you stop manufacturing ammunition for the opposition.

* Any denizen of the web could probably guess to whom I refer, but this is about multiple people and likely applies to some I have never encountered. I have intentionally excluded their names because, at the end of the day, I have learned from and deeply respect many of these people. I hope someone flags this for them to read because it appears that despite making it to the top, they still think themselves the underdog, and the responsibilities to the community they actually hold haven’t been fixed in their minds.

** The marketing term has consistently beat out the more useful specific terms in popular discussion across the decades. I think it’s important to use the specific term, else the boosters subsume technologies that existed long before they came around as their own.

*** There is a reason that all the optimization in this space is coming from either open source folks or countries facing export controls and not the companies seeking trillions of dollars in investment.