That’s not a problem with LLMs as a technology. It’s a problem with how LLM companies have been allowed to violate copyright at industrial scale. It’s a political and social problem.

The same indictment can be made about search companies and social media: that they are monetizing others work without compensation.

Or is there something about the tech that requires that it be deployed in this way?

My position is that LLMs trained without proper copyright authorization should not be copyrightable. They should be public domain.

As for the energy use: we either get our energy from polluting sources or we don’t. What we do with it is secondary. If we’re not using it to run AI we’d be using it to get a burrito delivered.