this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
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It's not possible to be racist toward inanimate objects. Computers are not a race. LLMs are not people.
It’s possible to leverage the same human quality called “hate,” which underpins racism. It’s the same ugly human behavior. You can call it whatever you want, it’s still ugly
Humans have been hating software since the dawn of computing. Do you get upset when people say bad things about Windows? And if not, why is it different with LLMs?
Fair point
eye of the holder or some shit
We have a word for the concept you're thinking of. It's called bigotry. Racism is race-based bigotry. Anti-AI bigotry is reasonable and awesome, and is just called bigotry.
No, you can't have bigotry against software. At least, not currently.
Maybe in the future somebody will figure out how to make a sapient AI, like you see in science fiction, and then you can say that somebody is bigoted against it. We don't have sapient AI, though, so this is simply prejudice.
OK well thanks for the chat bye now
Yet
LLMs will never be people. Computers might be, one day in the very distant future. But literally every piece of the current AI hype train is just hype. LLMs could, maybe, at best, be a single piece of a much larger puzzle for bringing consciousness into being. But the "Just Add More Compute Bro!" mantra is just tech bros doing their market hype thing. It has as much chance of giving rise to consciousness as my PC has whenever I add another hard drive.
Boy oh boy, you're not gonna like this one bit: https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution
(To be clear, I understand you think you covered this with "computers may be" but my point is different: the law is often dumb and you would be amazed at what politicians who don't understand tech - or get paid not to understand it - will pull off)
Edit: Downvotes from people who missed the point. You can't say "LLMs will never be people" because you simply can't guarantee your/our lawmakers won't be that stupid.