>> with the rest providing reasoning difficult to refute

> It's literally just an opinion.

The definition of "refute"[0] is:

  to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous

0 - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refute

But it's also difficult to prove it correct by argument or evidence. "Refute" is typically used in a context that suggests that the thing we're refuting has a strong likelihood of being true. This is only difficult to prove incorrect because it's a summary of the author's opinion.

Thanks for the dictionary link, here's one for you too: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/opinion

You may notice that opinions are like assholes: everyone has theirs. They're literally just "thoughts and feelings". They may masquerade as arguments from time to time, much to my dismay, but rest assured: there's nothing to "refute", debate, or even dispute on them. Not in general, nor in this specific case either.

Consider:

"This show is shit. The pacing is terrible, and the writing is cringe. Nobody should watch this garbage."

A reasoning most difficult to refute indeed. It's shit, because the person thinks it's shit, just in two other, more specific ways. And nobody should watch it, because they think it's shit, and (presumably) think that shit shows shouldn't be watched. A most terrific derivation of all times for sure.

Thinking an opinion can be refuted is analogous to thinking that definitions can be proven false. Which is to say, utterly misguided and plain wrong. They (opinions) are assertions of belief, with any use of logic in them just being rhetorical garnish, if not outright a diversion.

But definitions can and are proven false. I hate it, mind you, but I can’t ignore it. For example, the usage of “literally” as an intensifier, e.g. “I literally died of laughter.”

Logical statements can be proven true/false. Definitions are not logical statements, they do not have truth values, therefore cannot be proven neither true, nor false. These are mathematical logic basics.

Yes. However, in some cases (though probably not the ones relevant here) a definition can be proven to be incoherent (or, to presuppose something false), which is vaguely similar to “being false”.

It would be difficult for a definition to make any presuppositions. You could have a definition that defines some set in which a contradiction is involved ("an integer is special if it is both prime and divisible by 4"), but then you'd say that the set so defined is empty, not that the definition is incoherent.

It is quite common for a lemma to be needed to ensure that a definition is well-defined. The term “defi-lemma” exists for a reason.

As a simple example, suppose X is a set and r is a relation on X. If I define Y := X/r , the set of equivalence relations with respect to r, this implicitly assumes that the relation r is an equivalence relation.

But that is their whole point -- as much as you want to make the definition something else, you can't. And this is a perfect example of that.

> You may notice that opinions are like assholes: everyone has theirs.

Maybe. There's a known condition in pigs that prevents them from forming one.

There are three possible explanations for the published policy I can identify. If there are others, please feel free to share them.

  1 - Publicity stunt

  In an effort to get more attention for the Gentoo project,
  the maintainers created an outlandish policy to drive
  traffic.  This would seem unlikely due to the policy
  decision being voted upon over a year ago.

  2 - Fear of LLM's replacing Gentoo maintainers

  This appears to not be the case based on the Gentoo minutes[0] provided:

  Policy on AI contributions and tooling
  ======================================

  Motion from the email thread:
  > It is expressly forbidden to contribute to Gentoo any content that has
  > been created with the assistance of Natural Language Processing
  > artificial intelligence tools.  This motion can be revisited, should
  > a case been made over such a tool that does not pose copyright, ethical
  > and quality concerns.

  The vote was 6y/0n/1a (all present members voted yes).

  sam noted as obiter dicta that the mail also mentioned:
  > This explicitly covers all GPTs, including ChatGPT and Copilot, which is
  > the category causing the most concern at the moment.  At the same time,
  > it doesn't block more specific uses of machine learning to problem
  > solving.

  Several council members noted that we will revisit the policy if and
  when circumstances change and that it isn't intended to permanent,
  at least not in its current form.

  3 - Experience with LLM-based change requests

  If the policy is neither a publicity stunt nor fear of
  LLM's replacing maintainers, then the simplest explanation
  remaining which substantiates the policy is maintainers
  having experience with LLM use and then publishing their
  decisions therein.

0 - https://projects.gentoo.org/council/meeting-logs/20240414-su...

Was this meant in response to what I wrote or did you mean to post this elsewhere in the thread? If the former, I'm not sure what am I supposed to do with this.

> Was this meant in response to what I wrote or did you mean to post this elsewhere in the thread? If the former, I'm not sure what am I supposed to do with this.

You wrote:

  You may notice that opinions are like assholes: everyone 
  has theirs. They're literally just "thoughts and feelings". 
  They may masquerade as arguments from time to time, much to 
  my dismay, but rest assured: there's nothing to "refute", 
  debate, or even dispute on them. Not in general, nor in 
  this specific case either.

I provided analysis supporting my position that the project maintainers most likely did not make this policy based on "literally just 'thoughts and feelings'" and, instead, made an informed policy based on experience and rational discourse.

I am not a Gentoo maintainer so cannot definitively state possibility #3 is what happened. Maybe one or both of the other two possibilities is what transpired. I doubt it, but if you have evidence refuting possibility #3, please share so we may all learn.

An informed opinion is still an opinion. Voting itself is an expression of opinion, which they participated in - if it merely followed logically, it wouldn't have needed to be voted upon. Mind you, the "experience and rational discourse" is not presented, not in the policy, not in the excerpts and link you just provided.

In order to "refute" their entire position, if we accept that to even make sense (I do not), I'd need to either prove them wrong about what their opinions are (nonsense), or show evidence they were actually holding a different opinion that ran contrary to what they shared (impossible, their actual opinion is known only to them, if that). There's very little "logical payload" to their published policy, if any. It's a series of opinions, and then a conclusion. Hence my example with the person not liking a given TV show, but stating their distaste as a fact of the world.

> I doubt it, but if you have evidence refuting possibility #3, please share so we may all learn.

Why am I being rhetorically coerced into engaging with something from a false set of options of your imagination, exactly?

> I provided analysis supporting my position that the project maintainers most likely did not make this policy based on "literally just 'thoughts and feelings'" and, instead, made an informed policy based on experience and rational discourse.

That position would look better if they hadn't relied so heavily on feelings to justify the announcement:

>> Their operations are causing concerns about the huge use of energy and water.

>> The advertising and use of AI models has caused a significant harm to employees [which ones?] and reduction of service quality.

>> LLMs have been empowering all kinds of spam and scam efforts.

There is no experience or rational discourse involved there.

You're missing a very important reason

4 - There is a very active anti-LLM activist movement and they care more about participating in it than they care about free software.

For example, see their rationale, which are just canned anti-LLM activist talking points. You see the same ones repeated and memed ad nauseam if you lurk on anti-AI spaces.

> You're missing a very important reason

> 4 - There is a very active anti-LLM activist movement ...

All I can say to this is that my position is Large Language Models (LLM's) are a combination of algorithms and data.

As as such, for me they do not qualify as anything to be either "pro" or "anti", let alone a participant of an activist movement.

They were not talking about LLMs being participants of anything, but people who are against LLMs in whatever capacity. Surely people can be participants of a movement.

>> All I can say to this is that my position is Large Language Models (LLM's) are a combination of algorithms and data.

>> As as such, for me they do not qualify as anything to be either "pro" or "anti", let alone a participant of an activist movement.

> They were not talking about LLMs being participants of anything ...

Clearly I was referencing LLM's being something to foment "an activist movement" in an attempt to de-escalate the implication of there being some kind of "anti-LLM activist movement."

> ... but people who are against LLMs in whatever capacity. Surely people can be participants of a movement.

At this point your replies to my posts appear to be intentionally adversarial.

> Clearly I was referencing LLM's being something to foment "an activist movement" in an attempt to de-escalate the implication of there being some kind of "anti-LLM activist movement."

Well, no, that really wasn't clear to me at all. I don't think it was clear in general either.

> At this point your replies to my posts appear to be intentionally adversarial.

Not my actual intention, apologies, although I 100% understand if at this point that is not at all believable.

> in an attempt to de-escalate the implication of there being some kind of "anti-LLM activist movement."

Are you trying to imply that there isn't an anti-LLM activist movement? There certainly is

you can just google it

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=anti%20llm%20activist%...

a subreddit dedicated to the anti-AI movement

https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/

"what is the goal of the so-called anti-ai movement"

https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/1mn3hh8/what_is_the...

"how do we build an anti-ai movement"

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtistHate/comments/1hk3wuj/how_do_...

"The New Luddites Aren’t Backing Down

Activists are organizing to combat generative AI and other technologies—and reclaiming a misunderstood label in the process."

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/02/new-l...

"Anti-AI Explained: Why Resistance to Artificial Intelligence Is Growing

As AI tools become more advanced, a growing chorus of critics is raising alarms about job loss, misinformation and other societal risks. Learn what’s fueling the anti-AI movement."

https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/anti-ai

"together against AI"

https://togetheragainstai.com/

and on and on

I invite people to become familiar with the movement and their arguments and compare them to the Gentoo rationale.