People routinely upload private and sensitive medical, financial, business, and even customer data to ChatGPT and other cloud LLMs. Once uploaded to a cloud system, it can potentially be accessed by hackers or just inadvertently shared publicly. It might be subject to court orders preserving the data. Once uploaded, it is no longer private. You should not submit private data to public cloud systems.

Worse, the data you upload may not be considered. There is no guarantee that in generating an answer to a question you pose about your uploaded data that the cloud LLM can actually access it or is actually using it. There is no audit trail to show you whether it has. It may very well be making up an answer without even considering the private data you have uploaded.

Even worse, if considered, the data you upload may not be effective in formulating a response. LLMs do not analyze or think. They generate answers one random best-enough token at a time, quite similar to how you might have played the autocomplete “game” on your phone. If your data doesn’t linguistically steer the completion algorithm to an answer, it will be ineffective.

• My Mmojo Server LLM server runs on your PC or laptop without sending any data to any other computer.
• My Mmojo Knowledge appliance offers an LLM server for use on your private network that does not leak your cues, completions, questions, or answers outside your network.

In April, 2025, a 16 year old named Adam Raine, from my old home town of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA, took his own life after 7 months of using ChatGPT. For several months, the chatbot helped Adam ideate his suicide and appears to have encouraged him to commit the act. Adam’s family has sued OpenAI, the creator of the near ubiquitous ChatGPT. OpenAI’s response and defense is that Adam bypassed “safety” mechanisms and violated the terms of service. There are surviving members of at least 6 other families with similar lawsuits against OpenAI at this time.

This is absurd. Chat is an abomination. There is no reason that anyone has to pretend to have a back and forth conversation to get information from an LLM. Chat isn’t just an engaging, even dangerously addictive, mode of interaction. It is a cheap illusion enabled by stop words that creates authority that does not exist, subjugating users as a price of admission.

You do not have to cosplay with a fake computer character to access knowledge contained in an LLM. You look like a dork doing it, and if you are particular vulnerable to the illusion, it can drive you to do horrible harm to yourself and others.

Side note: Minor children should not use any system employing generative algorithms without direct, attentive parental supervision. It does not matter whether these systems have chat or completion user interfaces. Your kids should not use them without *you*, their parent, present and attentive.

Side note: Your kids shouldn’t be subjected this chatbot garbage in school either.

• My Mmojo Complete user interface, part of Mmojo Server and the Mmojo Knowledge Appliance, is a powerful completion style UI that doesn’t require you to role play.

If you understand how the completion algorithm works — generating one best enough random token at a time — you know what it does not do. It does not think. It does not reason. It does not generate “correct” answers. It cannot pursue “truth”. It does not write production quality code. It makes your LinkedIn posts look mid, at best, and only that good because lots of other mids are using AI to write their posts too. It cannot replace a thinking, conscientious human being.

When a “manager” or “leader” proclaims that AI will replace any workers or make workers more efficient, the manager or leader is stupid or he’s lying. I have the confidence to say that, believe that, and back it up because I know how these systems work. I want regular people to be that confident because they too know how these systems work. Being bullied by smart people is unfortunate. Being bullied by idiots is inexcusable.

Empirical evidence is gathering that optimistic AI boosters have been unable to get these systems to do what they promised the systems would do. We now have plenty of data to support the contention that most of AI hype isn’t just wrong. It’s intellectually dishonest. It’s also tacky, and it just lacks requisite chill.

That said, we need to find and embrace applications where GenAI is appropriate and useful. These include creating prototypes intended to be thrown away, visualization, and scenario building. I describe what GenAI can do as solving the blank page problem. You have a blank page. You need something — anything — to fill it. You describe what you’d like. GenAI fills the blank page with a plausible enough answer. Not necessarily or even likely a correct answer, but one that does the job of filling the blank page better than ipsum lorem boilerplate.

• Writing custom, relevant stories for your kids who are learning to read has that requisite chill where LLMs shine. Each new story is a new rep for them. Each new story can feature their favorite characters, pets, and people doing interesting things! There is no “wrong” answer.
• I identify my writing on this site with the #MeWriting hashtag. Although I rarely publish generated writing, I identify it as such. I note the source of pictures, and if they are generated.