Generative AI Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is such a bad label lol

Just say GenAI-free; organic software (written by organic agents as opposed to silicon-based ones); or, literally anything that actually means what you wrote.

I admire you taking personal responsibility and actively refusing to support systems you see as wrong and harmful. But, echoing what others have said, as a vegan and previously vegetarian of many years, I think there's probably a better way to describe this than "AI Vegetarianism". Both so that people take it more seriously, and to avoid adding even more confusion to the already misunderstood topics of vegetarianism/veganism.

While you're at least trying to use the term in a positive light, it's not hard to imagine people using the same terms "AI vegan" and "AI vegetarian" in a disparaging way. The implication is "vegetarians/vegans are preachy/crazy/annoying/arrogant" and using that to describe someone who's anti-AI. E.g. "Oh don't listen to Bob, he's just an AI vegan" or "These annoying AI vegans keep protesting outside and blocking traffic". Now vegans/vegetarians are dragged into something they have nothing to do with, AND you've given detractors an easy way to mock you.

I know a lot of late-career people opting out. Just chilling and doing great work as usual, waiting a few years for this all to blow over. The ones who work where AI is mandatory are just setting aside some time every week to do the bare minimum token-spending needed to appease the AI metric gods.

If the AI boosters are wrong, it'll peter out in a bit, and we'll all be back to business as usual. If the AI boosters are right, and "not using AI" makes you unemployable, well, I guess we'll just either pick up the tools or retire.

Given the capabilities of upcoming LLMs, I suspect that by mid-2027, most competent companies, outside specific niches, will not hire and might fire any non-senior “generative AI vegetarian” software developer.

Note: I agree with others that another term should be used instead of ‘vegetarian’. “LLM vegetarians” do not hold the same moral values as vegetarians.

I personally wouldn't be so categorical - AI in useful capacity feels like was around just for a little while, certainly not long enough to have any conclusive long reaching effects like the claim.

It is also uncertain where this technology would land, because two years ago I wouldn't believe what is AI capable today.

I applaud your bravery but it sometime feels like sticking to kerosine lamp when electrification is happening, just because they got to fall some trees to build the lines.

I am not saying that this would be as impactful, but it the first thing over my lifetime which feels like it. And I lived through adoption of internet and handheld revolution. Life is changing so rapidly that fear of being left behind is very real. Especially seeing as much change as any person over 40, that is crazy.

Does this imply there's room for ethically-sourced AI? I've always thought that at some point there would be some sort of p2p-style way of people contributing their compute resources to training AI models that are distributed for everyone to use.

I like the idea, but it needs a better name. Vegetarianism already means something very specific. Maybe something like Sloppite. Sloppitism. Something like that.

The term "GenAI veganism" is deeply disingenuous, and simonw knew exactly what he was doing when he coined it.

In the broader context of most human societies treating meat consumption as a default, with thousands of years of precedent, it deliberately frames abstaining from the use of "GenAI" as an extreme perspective, suggesting that moderate or extensive usage of LLMs and their ilk is more intrinsically "normal". The "GenAI" tools in question have only existed for a few years- or perhaps months in more specific cases- and the unending marketing blitz around them notwithstanding, using them does not remotely represent an engrained cultural default.

The choice of terminology also casually devalues and denigrates the reasons many people have for being actual vegans. It's meant to sneeringly evoke negative stereotypes of vegans as annoying and irrational.

Attempting to carve out a "softened" version of this language with the "vegetarian" label is not descriptively useful.

I feel like people who loved writing software before ai Armageddon referred to our practice as a craft and themselves as craftsman. I think I still prefer that term.

Steam has mandatory disclosure of generative content used in games. Some got heat from gamers (Clair Obscur, The Finals).

As a vegetarian, i am a bit annoyed by this term as i do not want to be associated with AI moral panic.

Needs a catchy label.

To draw an incredibly stretched comparison to vegetarianism instantly tells me everything I need to know about the way you think. It's overwhelmingly sanctimonious.

I prefer "slop-free".

Example usage: "I met a fellow slop-free human. We decided to a baby together without asking chatgpt for advice. Are we crazy or what?"

Is it a bit ironic that, while I certainly believe the author did not use gen AI to create this post, it reads like the most mindlessly AI generated post ever?