Debian polls its developers on AI: permit or ban?

Post by TiredOfLife » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 12:34 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #2

Posting this because I want people to vote -- and ideally vote for a total ban.

Post by mminer237 » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 12:37 PM UTC

ragebol wrote: post #18

> If Proposal H has a weakness, it's that it does not distinguish between local and cloud-based LLMs Is the energy usage so different between local and cloud inference? Both require electricity, the local option even more than the better optimized cloud variant even perhaps. How either is powered makes the crucial difference I suppose. Both can potentially run on solar as well as gas or nuclear. It's the training tha…

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 12:44 PM UTC

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #16

Crazy how divided AI is here on HN… We’re almost to the point where the average non-technical person uses AI daily (just like phones and the internet were once only used by the technocrats) without blinking, it will be ubiquitous and universal in adoption, yet comments here on HN from people that have the vantage point of seeing AND understanding how AI works, and who can also predict the inevitable integration of AI…

Post by rcxdude » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 12:45 PM UTC

mminer237 wrote: post #34

ragebol wrote: post #18

> If Proposal H has a weakness, it's that it does not distinguish between local and cloud-based LLMs Is the energy usage so different between local and cloud inference? Both require electricity, the local option even more than the better optimized cloud variant even perhaps. How either is powered makes the crucial difference I suppose. Both can potentially run on solar as well as gas or nuclear. It's the training tha…

This doesn't have anything to do with water usage? The rationale of banning it is that it's copyright status is ambiguous and at the least unethical, it produces lower quality code, and it stifles new developers from getting involved.

Post by jve » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 12:46 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #25

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #16

Crazy how divided AI is here on HN… We’re almost to the point where the average non-technical person uses AI daily (just like phones and the internet were once only used by the technocrats) without blinking, it will be ubiquitous and universal in adoption, yet comments here on HN from people that have the vantage point of seeing AND understanding how AI works, and who can also predict the inevitable integration of AI…

> it will be ubiquitous and universal in adoption [[citation needed]] Which is gonna be tricky as I am confident you don't have a time machine. I think generative AI as a whole is a total scam. It has uses, but not many, and outside of translation, not good ones... and yet, it is running at truly epic financial losses. Multiple trillions of dollars are being pumped into this. I think the next AI Winter, the 3rd big o…