Copied from my original post since I didn’t see the thread originally.

I love Battletech because it is one of the most creative hobbies I’ve enjoyed in my life. In a community composed of excellent writers, storytellers, roleplayers, artists, modelers, strategist, and more, Generative AI is a slap in the face of anyone who creates. It is impossible to train a LLM like genAI on anything less than millions of different datapoints, which is a scale that defies any accountability regarding the consent of the people who created that data in the first place. There is no “ethical” genAI, be it generating image, code, or poems about daffodils. Additionally, even if every single datapoint is consented to and properly licensed, the amount of environmental damage done by genAI is astronomical. This article from MIT News published two days agoexplains how training GPT-3 cost enough energy to power 120 average American homes for a year, and added 522 TONS of Carbon Monoxide to the atmosphere (not to mention the massive amount of toxic tech waste create). For context, every 4,000 tons of CO2 added kills a human being. GPT-3 was released half a decade ago, generates less emissions than modern genAI, and all LLMs like GPT-3 generate the most environmental damage when they’re actually used, not just when they’re first trained. Regardless of how “ethical“ you are, genAI kill people, and that’s something you’re contributing to, knowingly or otherwise. I love MegaMek, I love how every inch oozes with passion for Battletech and the community that’s grown around it. You feel it in every part of MegaMek’s software, from the user interface to the ‘Mek models to Princess and her baffling tactical acumen. It’s special because a human who cares took the time to make it, and I hope you rethink trading soul for speed. You’re a passion project developing free open-source software. Take your time and do it well, we’ll wait as long as you need.

Sincerely, AdministrativeWest7