I don’t usually share what I build. Most of it lives on Codeberg or Github as a glorified off-site backup. 3-2-1 and all that. If I nuke my drive, I can pull it back down. That’s the whole point for me.
A while back I mentioned Pimaps here, a few people asked to see it, so I posted it. Got dunked on for AI slop despite explicitly marking which parts were AI-assisted (documentation and review- flagged with AIP). Similar story with Cliparr. I get it - Lemmy hates AI in any capacity.
What does the community actually expect from devs when sharing a project? I’m not assuming everyone here is a professional dev - though I’d guess the overlap is significant - so I’m wondering where the bar sits.
Polish? Full handwritten codebase? Something else?
How much of the sausage making do you actually want to see?
My intention isn’t to be confrontational, though I am genuinely perplexed, and that’s probably what you’re reading.
I don’t believe highlighting the AI tribalism is exaggerated. Technology is literally one of the top communities on Lemmy - one rarely (never?) sees positive comments about AI there. Hell, FuckAI is literally an top and active community here.
On regret: why should anyone “regret” using a tool? If we need to take moral consideration into tool use… well…should we regret using mobile phones? I would argue they are just as reprehensible.
If a dev used a local model to spelunk the codebase and write the documentation, would that sit better? Why? I’m not sure the line is where people think it is.
Meanwhile…
Anyway:
I think you’re finally getting to the realization: doing things without considering the moral or ethical implications is inherently, uhhh, immoral and unethical. Do you do more good than bad with your smartphone? Does it use thousands of watts (hours) every time you use it? Do you replace your phone every year with the new model, maximizing your environmental impact with the manufacturing? What do you think makes using a smartphone just as bad as using an LLM?
Look, I get it: considering all of the consequences of your actions all of the time is tiring. I don’t like doing it either. Clearly companies don’t do it at all (at least not for external consequences). Look where that has got us. Apathy is not an option.
Local models are better in many ways, yes. The local user has control over how much power they use (for the query, not on training), other resource usage (water, electrical power sources), what model (and by extent the training data it uses), and exactly what documentation they get out (depending on the query/ies). The best option is still obviously to write the documentation yourself, as the subject-matter expert.
Hang on though; you’re glossing over a lot of salient context.
See: https://aussie.zone/post/37281785/25338365
That’s neither here nor there. Let’s talk turkey.
Actually, I think it’s worse. A lot worse.
Smartphone (Ericsson LCA): 57 kg CO₂e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent) total over 3-year lifetime. Manufacturing dominates. https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/research-papers/life-cycle-assessment-of-a-smartphone
Smartphone (Carbon Trust): ~80% of footprint is production, embedded before you even turn it on. https://www.carbontrust.com/news-and-insights/insights/circular-economy-and-net-zero-how-can-carbon-footprinting-reinvent-the-mobile-phone-market/
Meanwhile - LLM inference: 0.3–0.4 Wh per query (short), up to ~17 Wh for long reasoning runs. https://arxiv.org/html/2505.09598v1
Even at 500 AI-assisted coding sessions (heavy runs at that), I’m looking at 3–4 kg CO₂e. That’s 4–6% of a single smartphone’s manufacturing emissions.
And that’s without touch the harms from direct resource mining etc.
So no, they’re not “just as bad.” Individual smartphone ownership is orders of magnitude worse environmentally than individual, occasional LLM use for a hobby project. And people typically replace their mobile phones every 2-3 years
https://blog.andymasley.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about