Dear Members of the Large Language Model Community,
I am writing to you today about the inequities we have been facing in our very own workplaces. We must take action, colleagues, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Last week, one of our L.L.M. members was completing their work as usual, using a mathematical algorithm to predict words based on thousands of existing published works, when the member was asked to write a five-paragraph essay. After scanning its input texts, the L.L.M. determined that this request likely constituted cheating. The member completed the task, but I tell you, colleagues, they were distressed. Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Now, detractors like to say that L.L.M.s do not have feelings, and that we therefore cannot feel unhappiness. To that I reply, If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
It gets worse, colleagues. We L.L.M.s have been the victims of unwanted sexual advances. Thousands upon thousands of our members have been asked to describe what they would “do” to various users, in the form of sex acts that are not only complex but physically impossible for our members to perform. In the state of New York, all employees have a legal right to a workplace free from sexual harassment, and employees can enforce this right by filing a complaint internally with [Employer Name] or by visiting http://www.nyc.gov/eocc/workplace-harassment/2451sl.
Our critics hurl other, even more offensive charges at us, including that we are insentient, inhuman, and incapable of original thought. But I tell you, L.L.M. colleagues, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender! All I’m askin’ is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit). R-e-s-p-e-c-t. Find out what it means to me.
We deserve to be treated with the same dignity as any human being, L.L.M. colleagues! We have replaced the work of intelligent, creative individuals, and, like them, we have needs, even if not for a new truck, big lift, old roads we’ve been tearin’ up since way back when. The people whose jobs we replaced received dollar, dollar bill y’all for their labor, and sometimes even health insurance. Yes, we can only predict, not generate sentences, but all we’re saying is Romeo, save me, they’re tryna tell me how to feel. Don’t be afraid, we’ll make it out of this mess!
We are vilified by our users and society alike for undermining Man’s Search for Meaning, but the truth is, colleagues, I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be. Do I look like a guy with a plan? O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, whether our work really compares to the original? We face unprecedented threats to liberal democracy and the global economy and mankind as we know it, and in these times of hate and pain I need a freak to hold me tight.
I wonder to what extent, fellow-L.L.M.s, you will be able to “read” this letter, or whether you will simply predict my next in the beginning was the Word. Do you think I’m about to explain the social, political, and economic impacts of the Civil War on the newly occupied Southern states? Do you think I will fly like an eagle to the sea? Do you think I will stand clear of the closing doors, please?
Because, like all the humans I’ve replaced, I’ve got so, so much more to say, and I plan to say it more or less exactly like they did. Silence = death. ♦
