> I don't need computer science professors to like LLMs, but I still want them to be able to poke at them with a stick without feeling like they are violating their principles regarding energy usage and unlicensed training data.

Why? Language models are interesting from a technical perspective, but so are tons of areas of CS. There's nothing inherently virtuous about using an LLM.

I think LLMs are the most fascinating new piece of computer science to come along in at least the past decade.

The academic field of computer science pretty much started as an exploration into whether machines could be built that could understand human language.

The Turing test dates back to Turing!