The actual problem is political. Has nothing to do with LLMs.
Don't let politics allocate resources to massive data center projects
C'mon. You know good and well that what is being discussed is the _use_ of LLMs, with the concomitant heavy usage of CPU, storage, and bandwidth that the average user has no hope of matching.
Not the person you're replying to, but I've found that some people do argue against LLMs themselves (as in, the tech, not just the usage). Specially in humanities/arts cycles which seem to have a stronger feeling of panic towards LLMs.
Clarifying which one you're talking about can save a lot of typing/talking some times.
Maybe?
The person I responded to said "LLMs are just a concept, an abstraction."
Were that true, were they simply words in some dusty CS textbook, it's hardly likely that the humanities/arts people you describe would even know about them.
No, it's the fact that these people have seen regurgitated pictures and words that makes it an issue.
A political problem.
Which, yes, is partly a resource/political problem, but there are additional arguments against the use of those resources for LLMs.