Joel Caris

As regular readers here know well, large language models (LLMs) -- the technology falsely labeled "artificial intelligence" by flacks in industry and media -- have managed to evoke the testier side of my personality. I've banned LLM-written text from this journal and my blog, and stomped hard from time to time on attempts to divert conversations into rhapsodies about the supposed wonders of the technology or the equal and opposite rhapsodies about how LLMs will surely destroy us all.

Partly, my reaction is driven by the sheer dishonesty of the "AI" label. LLMs are not intelligent. They possess no consciousness, no understanding, no capacity for reflection. All they do is produce strings of words (or other coded responses) that are statistically likely to be associated with each other. In effect, they're simply much more complicated equivalents of those automated text generators so many of us had fun with a few years back, which would produce plausible-sounding gobbledygook imitating, say, postmodern scholarship. 

All this came to a head, in a certain sense, when one of my readers asked yesterday how the word "AI" ought to be pronounced, and suggested "Aaaaiiiieeeee!"  While a case can be made for that bloodcurdling possibility, my immediate reaction was, "They're not artificial intelligences, they're just large language models" and to try to figure out how "LLM" would be pronounced. 

That was when I achieved enlightenment. Okay, it was a very small and rather silly enlightenment, but I'll take what I can get. 

Say "LLM" out loud. If you've ever heard a recording of JRR Tolkien reading a certain selection from The Hobbit, you'll know instantly what you're saying. You're saying the sound that gave one of Tolkien's characters his name. You're saying "Gollum" -- or, more precisely "goLLuM." 

Imagine these programs slinking around in the dark places of the internet, muttering something about "My Precious."  Makes sense, doesn't it? And of course a lot of the people who get obsessed with LLMs show definite Gollum-esque characteristics. So I think from now on we should start referring to these programs as goLLuMs. What do you think? 

Note 1: I should probably add: goLLuMs, not golems. The golem in Jewish legend and folklore is capable of doing useful work. I'm far from sure that this is actually true of goLLuMs. 

Note 2: An online thinker who goes by Korobochka has posted a very thoughtful piece on the cataclysmic economic fallout that's likely to be caused by the current goLLuM mania, which you can read here.  It seems uncomfortably possible that these goLLuMs, like the one in Tolkien, will undergo a sudden plunge in due time, and bring the Mordoresque landscape of the modern speculative economy crashing down in ruins...