The anti-AI sentiment in the free software communities is concerning.
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.
I won't rehash the arguments around "AI" that others are best placed to make.
My main issue is AI as a term is basically a marketing one to convince people that these tools do something they don't and its causing real harm. Its redirecting resources and attention onto a very narrow subset of tools replacing other less intensive tools. There are significant impacts to these tools (during an existential crisis around our use and consumption of energy). There are some really good targeted uses of machine learning techniques but they are being drowned out by a hype train that is determined to make the general public think that we have or are near Data from Star Trek.
Addtionally, as others have said the current state of "AI" has a very anti FOSS ethos. With big firms using and misusing their monopolies to steal, borrow and coopt data that isn't theirs to build something that contains that's data but is their copyright. Some of this data is intensely personal and sensitive and the original intent behind the sharing is not for training a model which may in certain circumstances spit out that data verbatim.
Lastly, since you use the term Luddite. Its worth actually engaging with what that movement was about. Whilst its pitched now as generic anti-technology backlash in fact it was a movement of people who saw what the priorities and choices in the new technology meant for them: the people that didn't own the technology and would get worse living and work conditions as a result. As it turned out they were almost exactly correct in thier predictions. They are indeed worth thinking about as allegory for the moment we find ourselves in. How do ordinary people want this technology to change our lives? Who do we want to control it? Given its implications for our climate needs can we afford to use it now, if so for what purposes?
Personally, I can't wait for the hype train to pop (or maybe depart?) so we can get back to rational discussions about the best uses of machine learning (and computing in general) for the betterment of all rather than the enrichment of a few.
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.
One of the main things that turns people off when the topic of "AI" comes up is the absolutely ridiculous level of hype it gets. For instance, people claiming that current LLMs are a revolution comparable to the invention of the printing press, and that they have such immense potential that if you don't cram them into every product you can all your software will soon be obsolete.
Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!
Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.
No, it is because people in the Linux community are usually a bit more tech-savvy than average and are aware that OpenAI/Microsoft is very likely breaking the law in how they collect data for training their AI.
We have seen that companies like OpenAI completely disregard the rights of the people who created this data that they use in their for-profit LLMs (like what they did to Scarlett Johansson), their rights to control whether the code/documentation/artwork is used in for-profit ventures, especially when stealing Creative Commons "Share Alike" licensed documentation, or GPL licensed code which can only be used if the code that reuses it is made public, which OpenAI and Microsoft does not do.
So OpenAI has deliberately conflated LLM technology with general intelligence (AGI) in order to hype their products, and so now their possibly illegal actions are also being associated with all AI. The anger toward AI is not directed at the technology itself, it is directed at companies like OpenAI who have tried to make their shitty brand synonymous with the technology.
And I haven't even yet mentioned:
how people are getting fired by companies who are replacing them with AI
or how it has been used to target civilians in war zones
or how deep fakes are being used to scam vulnerable people.
The technology could be used for good, especially in the Linux community, but lately there has been a surge of unethical (and sometimes outright criminal) uses of AI by some of the worlds wealthiest companies.
...this looks like it was written by a supervisor who has no idea what AI actually is, but desperately wants it shoehorned into the next project because it's the latest buzzword.
Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don't become obsolete.
I don't get it. How Linux destops would become obsolete if they don't have native AI toolsets on DEs? It's not like they have a 80% market share. People who run them as daily drivers are still niche, and most don't even know Linux exists. Most ppl grown up with Microsoft and Apple shoving ads down their throat, using them in schools first hand, and that's all they know and taught. If I need AI, I will find ways to intergrate to my workflow, not by the dev thinks I need it.
And if you really need something like MS's Recall, here is a FOSS version of it.
You can't do machine learning without tons of data and processing power.
Commercial "AI" has been built on fucking over everything that moves, on both counts. They suck power at alarming rates, especially given the state of the climate, and they blatantly ignore copyright and privacy.
FOSS tends to be based on a philosophy that's strongly opposed to at least some of these methods. To start with, FOSS is build around respecting copyright and Microsoft is currently stealing GitHub code, anonymizing it, and offering it under their Copilot product, while explicitly promising companies who buy Copilot that they will insulate them from any legal downfall.
So yeah, some people in the "Linux space" are a bit annoyed about these things, to put it mildly.
Edit: but, to address your concerns, there's nothing to be gained by rushing head-first into new technology. FOSS stands to gain nothing from early adoption. FOSS is a cultural movement not a commercial entity. When and if the technology will be practical and widely available it will be incorporated into FOSS. If it won't be practical or will be proprietary, it won't. There's nothing personal about that.
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.
There are already a lot of open models and tools out there. I totally disagree that Linux distros or DEs should be looking to bake in AI features. People can run an LLM on their computer just like they run any other application.
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
[Citation needed]
Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS AI models so that we don’t become obsolete.
And this mentality is exactly what AI sceptics criticise. The whole reason why the AI arms race is going on is because every company/organisation seems convinced that sci-fi like AI is right behind the corner, and the first one to get it will capture 100% of the market in their walled garden while everyone else fades into obscurity. They're all so obsessed with this that they don't see a problem with putting in charge a virtual dumbass that is constantly wrong.
just a historical factoid that a lot of people don't realize: the luddites weren't anti technology without reason. they were apprehensive about new technology that threatened their livelihoods, technology that threatened them with starvation and destitution in the pursuit of profit. i think the comparison with opposition to AI is pretty apt, in many cases, honestly.
Maybe we'd be warmer towards AI if it wasn't being used as a way for big companies to steal content from smaller creative types in order to fund valueless wealth generators.
Big surprise that a group consisting of people rather than corporations is mad about it.
Gnome and other desktops need to start working on integrating FOSS
In addition to everything everyone else has already said, why does this have anything to do with desktop environments at all? Remember, most open-source software comes from one or two individual programmers scratching a personal itch—not all of it is part of your DE, nor should it be. If someone writes an open-source LLM-driven program that does something useful to a significant segment of the Linux community, it will get packaged by at least some distros, accrete various front-ends in different toolkits, and so on.
However, I don't think that day is coming soon. Most of the things "Apple Intelligence" seems to be intended to fuel are either useless or downright offputting to me, and I doubt I'm the only one—for instance, I don't talk to my computer unless I'm cussing it out, and I'd rather it not understand that. My guess is that the first desktop-directed offering we see in Linux is going to be an image generator frontend, which I don't need but can see use cases for even if usage of the generated images is restricted (see below).
Anyway, if this is your particular itch, you can scratch it—by paying someone to write the code for you (or starting a crowdfunding campaign for same), if you don't know how to do it yourself. If this isn't worth money or time to you, why should it be to anyone else? Linux isn't in competition with the proprietary OSs in the way you seem to think.
As for why LLMs are so heavily disliked in the open-source community? There are three reasons:
The fact that they give inaccurate responses, which can be hilarious, dangerous, or tedious depending on the question asked, but a lot of nontechnical people, including management at companies trying to incorporate "AI" into their products, don't realize the answers can be dangerously innacurate.
Disputes over the legality and morality of using scraped data in training sets.
Disputes over who owns the copyright of LLM-generated code (and other materials, but especiallly code).
Item 1 can theoretically be solved by bigger and better AI models, but 2 and 3 can't be. They have to be decided by the courts, and at an international level, too. We might even be talking treaty negotiations. I'd be surprised if that takes less than ten years. In the meanwhile, for instance, it's very, very dangerous for any open-source project to accept a code patch written with the aid of an LLM—depending on the conclusion the courts come to, it might have to be torn out down the line, along with everything built on top of it. The inability to use LLM output for open source or commercial purposes without taking a big legal risk kneecaps the value of the applications. Unlike Apple or Microsoft, the Linux community can't bribe enough judges to make the problems disappear.
I don't like AI because it's literally not AI. I know damn well that it is just a data scraping tool that throws a bunch of 'probably right' sentences or images into a proverbial blender and spits out an answer that has no actual comprehension or consistency behind it. It takes only an incredibly basic knowledge of computers and brains to know that we cannot make an actual intelligent program using the Von Neumann style of computer.
I have absolutely no interest in technology being sold to me based on a lie. And if we're not calling this out for the lie it is, then it's going to just keep getting pushed by people trying to make money off the concept at the stock market.
There are important AI technologies in the past for things like vision processing and the new generative AI has some uses like as a decent (although often inaccurate) summarizer/search engine. However, it's also nothing revolutionary.
It's just a neat peace of tech
But here come MS, Apple, other big companies, and tech bros to push AI hard, and it's so obv that it's all just a big scam to get more of your data and to lock down systems further or be the face of get-rich-quick schemes.
I mean the image you posted is a great example. Recall is a useless feature that also happens to store screenshots of everything you've been doing. You're delusional if you think MS is actually going to keep that totally local. Both MS and the US government are going to have your entire history of using the computer, and that doesn't sit right with FOSS people.
FOSS people tend to be rather technical than the average person, so they don't fall for tech enthusiast nonsense as much.
As someone whose employer is strongly pushing them to use AI assistants in coding: no. At best, it's like being tied to a shitty intern that copies code off stack overflow and then blows me up on slack when it magically doesn't work. I still don't understand why everyone is so excited about them. The only tasks they can handle competently are tasks I can easily do on my own (and with a lot less re-typing.)
Sure, they'll grow over the years, but Altman et al are complaining that they're running out of training data. And even with an unlimited body of training data for future models, we'll still end up with something about as intelligent as a kid that's been locked in a windowless room with books their whole life and can either parrot opinions they've read or make shit up and hope you believe it. I'll think we'll get a series of incompetent products with increasing ability to make wrong shit up on the fly until C-suite moves on to the next shiny bullshit.
That's not to say we're not capable of creating a generally-intelligent system on par with or exceeding human intelligence, but I really don't think LLMs will allow for that.
tl;dr: a lot of woo in the tech community that the linux community isn't as on board with
One of the critical differences between FOSS and commercial software is that FOSS projects don't need to drive sales and consequently also don't need to immediately jump onto technology trends in order to not look like they're lagging behind the competition.
What I've consistently seen from FOSS over the 30 years I've been using it, is that if a technology choice is a good fit for the problem, then it will be adopted into projects where relevant.
I believe that there are use cases where LLM processing is absolutely a good fit, and the projects that need that functionality will use it. What you're less likely to see is 'AI' added to everything, because it isn't generally a good solution to most problems in it's current form.
As an aside, you may be less likely to get good faith interaction with your question while using the term 'luddite' as it is quite pejorative.
The first problem, as with many things AI, is nailing down just what you mean with AI.
The second problem, as with many things Linux, is the question of shipping these things with the Desktop Environment / OS by default, given that not everybody wants or needs that and for those that don't, it's just useless bloat.
The third problem, as with many things FOSS or AI, is transparency, here particularly training. Would I have to train the models myself? If yes: How would I acquire training data that has quantity, quality and transparent control of sources? If no: What control do I have over the source material the pre-trained model I get uses?
The fourth problem is privacy. The tradeoff for a universal assistant is universal access, which requires universal trust. Even if it can only fetch information (read files, query the web), the automated web searches could expose private data to whatever search engine or websites it uses. Particularly in the wake of Recall, the idea of saying "Oh actually we want to do the same as Microsoft" would harm Linux adoption more than it would help.
The fifth problem is control. The more control you hand to machines, the more control their developers will have. This isn't just about trusting the machines at that point, it's about trusting the developers. To build something the caliber of full AI assistants, you'd need a ridiculous amount of volunteer efforts, particularly due to the splintering that always comes with such projects and the friction that creates. Alternatively, you'd need corporate contributions, and they always come with an expectation of profit. Hence we're back to trust: Do you trust a corporation big enough to make a difference to contribute to such an endeavour without amy avenue of abuse? I don't.
Linux has survived long enough despite not keeping up with every mainstream development. In fact, what drove me to Linux was precisely that it doesn't do everything Microsoft does. The idea of volunteers (by and large unorganised) trying to match the sheer power of a megacorp (with a strict hierarchy for who calls the shots) in development power to produce such an assistant is ridiculous enough, but the suggestion that DEs should come with it already integrated? Hell no
One useful applications of "AI" (machine learning) I could see: Evaluating logs to detect recurring errors and cross-referencing them with other logs to see if there are correlations, which might help with troubleshooting.
That doesn't need to be an integrated desktop assistant, it can just be a regular app.
Really, that applies to every possible AI tool. Make it an app, if you care enough. People can install it for themselves if they want. But for the love of the Machine God, don't let the hype blind you to the issues.
As long as AI is advertised as being a unique selling point, I'm not interested.
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.
Yes. There a problems with the Gnome desktop environment. Without looking at the issue tracker, I can assure you that AI is not the solution to any of them. Even if AI may be a possible solution to a problem, it would probably not be the best one.
Half the reason I switched to Linux almost a year ago was to avoid Microsofts forced invasive Ai bullshit. Seeing stuff like Recall has only cemented my decision.
I could go on a long rant about what I consider "right & wrong" when it comes to Ai but I'm just some dude and wanna use my own computer in the way I want to.
i think firefox shows that ai can be used right, to help with accessibility.
i think the problem with ai is when companies use it as a buzzword instead of actual innovation by just cramming a bunch of ai into their product to do a bunch of niche things.
Imo you immensely overestimate the capabilities of these models. What they show to the public are always hand picked situations even if they say they dont
personally im fine with machine learning, what I don't like is "AI", a new marketing buzzword that justifies every shitty corporate exec decision and insane company evaluations.
yeah i see that too. it seems like mostly a reactionary viewpoint. the reaction is understandable to a point since a lot of the “AI” features are half baked and forced on the user. to that point i don’t think GNOME etc should be scrambling to add copies of these features.
what i would love to see is more engagement around additional pieces of software that are supplemental. for example, i would love if i could install a daemon that indexes my notes and allows me to do semantic search. or something similar with my images.
the problems with AI features aren't within the tech itself but in the surrounding politics. it’s become commonplace for “responsible” AI companies like OpenAI to not even produce papers around their tech (product announcement blogs that are vaguely scientific don’t count), much less source code, weights, and details on training data. and even when Meta releases their weights, they don’t specify their datasets. the rat race to see who can make a decent product with this amazing tech has made the whole industry a bunch of pearl clutching FOMO based tweakers. that sparks a comparison to blockchain, which is fair from the perspective of someone who hasn’t studied the tech or simply hasn’t seen a product that is relevant to them. but even those people will look at something fantastical like ChatGPT as if it’s pedestrian or unimpressive because when i asked it to write an implementation of the HTTP spec in the style of Fetty Wap it didn’t run perfectly the first time.
There is a this app called upscale, that uses an ML model to upscale images. It's
Quite good at what it does, it's useful. I use it frequently. So, there are AI stuff in linux. Just not your myopic view of AI (LLMs).
And your analogy with printing press is extremely wrong. Other than human errors, printing press didn't have have remotely as many errors as LLMs. LLMs have not evolved to the point of causing a a revolution. So linux has plenty of time to see if the bandwagon sinks or sprints.
People who consciously use and support F/LOSS usually do it because they look at software with a very critical eye. They see the failures of proprietary software and choose to go the other way. That same critical view is why they are critical of most "AI" tools -- there have been numerous failures attributed to AI, and precious little value that isn't threatened by those failures.
I think most of the hostility is in regards to shilling of certain sites and services. Local self hosted AI is not likely to get as much flack I feel. Another aspect of hate is people generating images and calling it art, which...it is but, it's the microwave equivalent of art. Such negative sentiments can be remedied by actually doing artistic shit with whatever image they generate, like idk, put the image into Photoshop and maybe editing the image in a way that actually improves it, or using said image as a canvas to be added onto or some other shit.
Edit Addendum: also the negative perception of AI has mostly been engendered by some of its more unpleasant supporters, who think of it as a way to make "irrelevant" certain groups they don't like, and to take some sorta sick schadenfreude in the "replacement" of these people, which they think may be a way of reducing the power of these people (politically, socially, etc), and that's kinda fucked up.
I think conceptually AI is very useful and interesting, and as a general technical thing. But when we start talking about OpenAI and others, their methods for data collection, respect of licenses etc is where I (and I believe others) take issue
Testing AI (knowledge system) was the first job out of college for me in the '90s (I used to be a programmer). I'm not against it, but I don't like it in my feet either. I like using the operating system all by myself, or generating things on my own. Especially now that I'm an artist, I like painting on paper. I even dislike digital art (I find it flat), let alone generative art.
As I mentioned in another comment we have an example of something like an ai-less desktop anology wise. gui-less installs. They are generally called server version of the distro and are used in datacenters but im 100% sure there are individuals out there running laptops with no gui. Im find with FOSS ai and there are LLM's licensed as such. That being said they are still problematic since the training requires large amounts of data that companies are not exactly strigent with collection.
I'd argue that if you exactly call the model you refer to by their actual name, you'll get much different reactions. For instance, expert systems have been around for a long while.
AI may be useful in some cases (ask Mozilla) but it is not like what you said in the middle part of your post. Seeing the vote rate makes me feel a tiny bit better about this situation.
I imagine it might happen one day. But at present, I don't really think that most computers are at a point where they can utilize it without the use of proprietary cloud technologies that aren't considered to be ethical nor financially sustainable. And even if people's computers could fully handle things themselves, there would still need to be a group of developers with enough knowledge to actually implement it.
Consumer AI has always been pretty limited in most Linux desktops. Heck, I'm still waiting for a Desktop Environment to one day have a nice implementation of Speech-to-text like Windows and macOS.
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.
AI isn't a magic bullet. Sure it has it's uses, but you have to weigh it's usefulness to the ideology behind a project and it's creators. Just because a software developer or community doesn't embrace AI doesn't mean they will be "obsolete."
AI is the current trend that is being shoehorned into everything. I mean literally everything. I don't think we need AI touching everything.
I don't want or need AI crammed into my desktop environment. And I surely don't want it interjecting into my filesystem with my data. It is a privacy concern. And many of other people will feel the same or similarly as I do.
AI is a tool, and with all tools: use the appropriate tool for the job.
I think we should be chasing all the trendy trends to become competitive with the competition. That's the only way to push those numbers up (that need to be pushed up). That's how a winner wins.
You're getting a lot of flack in these comments, but you are absolutely right. All the concerns people have raised about "AI" and the recent wave of machine learning tech are (mostly) valid, but that doesn't mean AI isn't incredibly effective in certain use cases. Rather than hating on the technology or ignoring it, the FOSS community should try to find ways of implementing AI that mitigate the problems, while continuing to educate users about the limitations of LLMs, etc.
AI has a lot of great uses, and a lot of stupid smoke and mirrors uses.
For example, text to speech and live captioning or transcription are useful.
"Hypothetical AI desktop" "Siri" "copilot+" and other assistants are smoke and mirrors. Mainly because they don't work. But if they did, they would be unreliable (because ai is unreliable) and would have to be limited to not cause issues. And so they would not be useful.
Plus, on Linux they would be especially unusefull, because there's a million ways to do different things, and a million different setups. What if you asked the ai "change the screen resolution" and it started editing some gnome files while you are on KDE, or if it started mangling your xorg.conf because it's heavily customized.
Plus, every openai stuff you are seeing this days doesn't really work because it's clever, it works because it's huge. Chatgpt needs to be trained for days of week on specialized hardware, who's gonna pay for all that in the open source community?
You're mid right, the when something AI based is announced this is really criticized by some people and there are almost right. When something new pops, like windows recall, it is certain that this "new" feature is really not what AI is capable, and asks really important questions about privacy.
But you're right on the fact that Linux should be a bit more interested on AI and tried to made it the right way! But for now there's no really good use cases of AI inside a distro. LLMs are good but do not need to be linked to user activities. Image generators are great but do not need to be linked to user activities... As exemple when Windows tried Recall and failed. Apple iOS 18 wants to implement that, and this should be surely a success inside the Apple minded people. But here where FOSS, privacy and anti Big-Techs guys are the main people that's absolutely sure that every for-profit "new AI" feature would be really hated. I'm not against this mind just giving facts
I agree. However, I think it is related to Capitalism and all the sociopathic corporations out there. It's almost impossible to think that anything good will come from the Blue Church controlling even more tech. Capitalism have always used any opportunity to enslave/extort people - that continues with AI under their control.
However, I was also disappointed when I found out how negative 'my' crowd were. I wanted to create an open source lowend AGI to secure poor people a descent life without being attacked by Capitalism every day/hour/second, create abundance, communities, production and and in general help build a social sub society in the midst of the insane blue church and their propagandized believers.
It is perfectly doable to fight the Capitalist religion with homegrown AI based on what we know and have today. But nobody can do it alone, and if there's no-one willing to fight the f*ckers with AI, then it takes time..
I definitely intend to build a revolution-AGI to kill off the Capitalist religion and save exploited poor people. No matter what happens, there will be at least one AGI that are trained on revolution, anti-capitalism and building something much better than this effing blue nightmare. The worlds first aggressive 'Commie-bot' ha! 😍
[Sarcastic 'translation'] tl;dr: A lot of people who are relatively well-placed to understand how much technology is involved even in downvoting this post are downvoting this post because they're afraid of technology!
Just more fad-worshipping foolishness, drooling over a buzzword and upset that others call it what it is. I want it to be over but I'm sure whatever comes next will be just as infuriating. Oh no, now our cursors all have to change according to built-in (to the cursor, somehow, for some reason) software that tracks our sleep patterns! All of our cursors will be obsolete (?!??) unless they can scalably synergize with the business logic core to our something or other 😴