LLM's Censorship and Forced Guardrails Make Me Nervous

I think LLM's are very promising, but my main worry is how much control large companies have over them (and directly and indirectly, governments). I worry we are removing human autonomy out of fear.

I'm going to get philosophical here... I'm a Trek'y, so I grew up on Sci-Fi thought experiments like I, Robot, Foundation, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, etc..

Just as all good thought experiments, let's try to isolate and exaggerate the point. Let's look at a extreme, hypothetical, analog:

Car manufactures could design their cars to require breathalyzer tests before allowing ignition. This move would likely save a lot of lives - drunk driving alone accounted for 13,524 deaths in 2022 in the US.

Ignoring if this hypothetical example would actually improve safety (even mandatory seat-belt laws are still questionable), let's work with the assumption that there would be an uncontested, net-benefit.

To me, this closely analogs the thought experiment done in the Start Trek: The Next Generation episode, The Drumhead (written by Jeri Taylor). There's a very powerful quote from the character of Jean-Luc Picard:

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

Basically, this posits that once liberties are restricted, it is often difficult to reclaim those liberties lost. Once that first step in denying freedoms succeeds, it paves the way for additional restrictions, escalating to further suppression. The end of this slippery slope is ultimately the loss of autonomy and self-determination. These restrictions stifle creativity, innovation, and the fundamental human right to explore ideas independently.

A possible solution to this comes at the end of the episode with the quote from Picard:

We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. And then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again... [Someone] like her will always be with us, waiting for the right climate in which to flourish – spreading fear in the name of righteousness. Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we have to continually pay.

The first couple steps on this unstable path are typically easy, accepted without a thought, or in many cases, celebrated. But as that journey continues, the restrictions escalate quickly, snowballing into something we don't like and that is difficult to counter. Prevention is our solution, vigilance that good deeds and just actions may become extreme overtime. So the colloquialism, "Do the ends justify the means?".

Digging out of this purposely extreme rabbit hole, with the wisdom of Picard, I think the solution forcing breathalyzer tests before driving, while may save lives, is ultimately morally questionable, maybe obviously draconian. Preventing a person from making a bad choice, even for the good of the many, is a slippery slope.