Here at RC2014 Towers we appreciate the potential benefit that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLM) can bring in solving some important problems, finding medical cures, and generally making life better. However, we balance that with the negative impact of AI, which include, but are not limited to;
- Huge damage to the environment in the demand for power and cooling both for training AI models and running queries
- The poisoning of the internet with lies, guesses, made up stories and hallucinations that is replacing hundreds or thousands of years of human knowledge
- Loss of human jobs across many many job sectors, including skilled, unskilled and creative industries
- Security risks that AI can cause by fundamentally not understanding a problem or leaking sensitive data
- Dominating the supply chain for computer memory and storage to the point that the tiny amount left for consumers is ridiculously expensive
- Making people dumber by choosing to ask AI rather than seeking answers themselves
Our use of AI
With all this in mind, RC2014.co.uk has chosen a NO AI stance. Please rest assured that purchasing an RC2014 kit it is as AI-free as possible. This includes, but is not limited to the following;
- None of the hardware for was designed by AI. This includes the schematics and PCB layout. Even use of the Auto-Router!
- None of the code supplied with any RC2014 product was written by AI. This includes Microsoft BASIC, Small Computer Monitor (SCM), RomWBW, as well as any firmware on devices such as Why Em-Ulator, SID-Ulator, RP2040 VGA, Micro SD, or anything else.
- [Note that whilst RomWBW does not have any AI generated code in the core, it does accept AI code submissions for standalone programs See https://github.com/wwarthen/RomWBW/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md for clarification. These are not included in the distribution supplied with RC2014 kits].
- No AI features are used within the WordPress website hosting platform.
- All code linked to on CodeBerg.org is 100% AI-free, and the Codeberg platform does not use any user code for AI training.
- All code linked to on GitHub.com is 100% AI-free. All AI options have been turned off in GitHub, and the code is not used for AI training. However, we are aware that GitHub is problematic for its use of AI and RC2014 content will be migrated away to CodeBerg over time.
- None of the staff at RC2014 Towers use AI features in their browser or other software whenever there is an option to turn it off.
Your use of AI
Please be aware that if you purchase a kit and it does not live up to what your AI advisor told you it could do, you may not be eligible for a refund. I take a lot of effort in explaining the capabilities of the kits on here, but if there is something you are unsure about, or want any clarification on anything, please ask. It is not my job to make my kits do what AI told you they could do.
Please do not use AI to generate queries for me to respond to. These are overly long with lots of superfluous information that takes up my time and energy to deal with. As mentioned above I do not use AI, so summarising what your AI bot is actually asking (or telling me!) is a manual process. If you have to use a prompt to generate your question, please just use the prompt.
Whilst these are the thoughts and concerns from the RC2014 creators, we would not presume to tell you what you should or should not do, even with your RC2014 kit. If you feel that using AI or LLMs can increase the enjoyment of your retro computing hobby, then fine, you do you. But if you are trying to reduce or cut out AI in your life, then RC2014 has got your back.
The use of Eliza (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA) is, however, encouraged.
