Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
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Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
> we also dislike AI slop. this is why we’re using AI to generate code, not content.
It's a philosophical distinction but one I feel like I don't get. Maybe it's because I like livecoding, etc, and see code itself as a form of art. Is AI code *not* slop in a way that feed content is?
And will vibecoded apps with Attie be likely to insert AIgen content?
Folks seem to think AI is bad for something they actually understand, but great for something they barely understand.
It might be coincidence that there's so much overlap between AI boosters and the dunning-keuggerand (crypto) crowd, but probably not?
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I think game developers especially (and I do game dev sometimes, sometimes even for work) tend to perceive code and art as interrelated and intertwined things. I find it unlikely that they can be easily separated.
I suppose some may see form vs function, but I personally see form *as* function.
I think there's a material difference — with a big caveat. AI slop "content" is (nominally at least) meant for direct human engagement: reading, watching, listening. Code is means to an end — the end user sees the app or web ui or whatever, not the code directly.
But the caveat is: well, except, for developers working with a team. And _especially_ in open source. There, code _is_ communication, human-to-human communication. (Which, of course, is why LLMs can generate code _at all_.)
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@cwebber Also that! Apparently though components of it use smaller, purposed models that are not Claude? I don't know what the thinking is here, other than an unshakeable belief that generative code must be the way to do things now, and all other reasoning walks backwards from that starting position.
@mttaggart @cwebber the existence of "open" models is really just an excuse to use proprietary models /now/: The open weight models will always be "almost good enough" so you can keep using the stuff the big boys are using.
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Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
> we also dislike AI slop. this is why we’re using AI to generate code, not content.
It's a philosophical distinction but one I feel like I don't get. Maybe it's because I like livecoding, etc, and see code itself as a form of art. Is AI code *not* slop in a way that feed content is?
And will vibecoded apps with Attie be likely to insert AIgen content?
@cwebber > … see code itself as a form of art.
When Knuth started his magnum opus about code, he very deliberately chose the title to be “The Art of Computer Programming”.
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@mttaggart @cwebber the existence of "open" models is really just an excuse to use proprietary models /now/: The open weight models will always be "almost good enough" so you can keep using the stuff the big boys are using.
@tante @mttaggart @cwebber And that's still ignoring how the "open" models are trained to begin with.
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@tante @mttaggart @cwebber And that's still ignoring how the "open" models are trained to begin with.
@ainmosni @mttaggart @cwebber yeah. You know my position. Actually open LLMs do not exist outside of a few lab settings and they don't perform well
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I think game developers especially (and I do game dev sometimes, sometimes even for work) tend to perceive code and art as interrelated and intertwined things. I find it unlikely that they can be easily separated.
I suppose some may see form vs function, but I personally see form *as* function.
@cwebber I think this is one of those things where in my open source work a significant fraction of the code I write is art, while in my corporate day job there's a fraction of it that's craft and artistry and a fraction that's basically mechanical
The code I wrote a couple of weeks ago to iterate a table, join on a different table, and backfill the first table with the data? That's not art. It's this intermediate ground between boilerplate and "actual" code; it's toil. And even more so, that was temporary.
And in corporate work you end up with so much that falls into these categories; so much that's boring gluing stuff together, and the library teams that are supposed to reduce the amount of boilerplate in that are often underfunded or don't exist.
When we're building stuff for ourselves, even as a part of a research project like Spritely, it can be very different. Heck, because you're an engineering driven organisation I'm sure it's very different -
@cwebber I think this is one of those things where in my open source work a significant fraction of the code I write is art, while in my corporate day job there's a fraction of it that's craft and artistry and a fraction that's basically mechanical
The code I wrote a couple of weeks ago to iterate a table, join on a different table, and backfill the first table with the data? That's not art. It's this intermediate ground between boilerplate and "actual" code; it's toil. And even more so, that was temporary.
And in corporate work you end up with so much that falls into these categories; so much that's boring gluing stuff together, and the library teams that are supposed to reduce the amount of boilerplate in that are often underfunded or don't exist.
When we're building stuff for ourselves, even as a part of a research project like Spritely, it can be very different. Heck, because you're an engineering driven organisation I'm sure it's very different@cwebber (I think there are lots of sources of toil in this world. For example, "this protocol contains a bunch of TLV data where the TLVs are only described in box diagrams and not in any intentionally machine readable form") -
Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
> we also dislike AI slop. this is why we’re using AI to generate code, not content.
It's a philosophical distinction but one I feel like I don't get. Maybe it's because I like livecoding, etc, and see code itself as a form of art. Is AI code *not* slop in a way that feed content is?
And will vibecoded apps with Attie be likely to insert AIgen content?
@cwebber the medium is the message they said
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@cwebber (I think there are lots of sources of toil in this world. For example, "this protocol contains a bunch of TLV data where the TLVs are only described in box diagrams and not in any intentionally machine readable form")@cwebber certainly though I think the more you abstract yourself from the code the more potential for problems there is. If the tool is writing code in your editor and it produces something that's 95% of the way there, you can just go and tweak the last 5%. If it's sending PRs straight to GitHub or whatever, you're much more likely to let that little bit slide because it's so much more effort to fix. And if you're not looking at all, well, you're running blind
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@cwebber I've got the feeling that some pro-AI folks recently have started to try to make their pill easier to swallow by denouncing "AI slop" and acting like the stuff they do is somehow "AI not-slop it's actually useful we swear". Seen that at DuckDuckGo and Kagi and even Microsoft now
Code must reliably, transparently and efficiently put into concrete form the ideas and intentions of the coder, whether they be creative or mundane.
When AI writes code, things can go wrong in all the same ways as with human coders, plus a few more; When it does, who is responsible?
Every line of AI-generated code and documentation needs to be examined, verified and certified by a real person. Over time we'll find out when this saves work and when it doesn't.
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@mttaggart @cwebber the existence of "open" models is really just an excuse to use proprietary models /now/: The open weight models will always be "almost good enough" so you can keep using the stuff the big boys are using.
@tante @mttaggart @cwebber That said, have you tried the new ones from China? https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/02/17/these-are-chinas-new-ai-models-that-have-just-been-released-ahead-of-the-lunar-new-year
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Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
> we also dislike AI slop. this is why we’re using AI to generate code, not content.
It's a philosophical distinction but one I feel like I don't get. Maybe it's because I like livecoding, etc, and see code itself as a form of art. Is AI code *not* slop in a way that feed content is?
And will vibecoded apps with Attie be likely to insert AIgen content?
@cwebber this remind me of conversations and books I read in college about if graphic design is an art or not. It can be art and artistry is often needed but graphic design is really focused on being a tool for companies to communicate and that goal often supersedes a more artistic decision. Basically there no clear line and it can be one or both, or neither if you try hard enough.
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Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
> we also dislike AI slop. this is why we’re using AI to generate code, not content.
It's a philosophical distinction but one I feel like I don't get. Maybe it's because I like livecoding, etc, and see code itself as a form of art. Is AI code *not* slop in a way that feed content is?
And will vibecoded apps with Attie be likely to insert AIgen content?
@cwebber not to mention theres high levels of concern surrounding how solid the foundation of any vibecoded project is, and if it is able to withstand any level of net traffic in the long term...
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@tante @mttaggart @cwebber That said, have you tried the new ones from China? https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/02/17/these-are-chinas-new-ai-models-that-have-just-been-released-ahead-of-the-lunar-new-year
@rocky1138 @mttaggart @cwebber those are "open weight" which is far from what "open source" is supposed to mean. They are /freeware/.
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@rocky1138 @mttaggart @cwebber those are "open weight" which is far from what "open source" is supposed to mean. They are /freeware/.
@tante @mttaggart @cwebber excuse my ignorance. Total newbie
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Been thinking about this: https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3micpg7z2h22g
> we also dislike AI slop. this is why we’re using AI to generate code, not content.
It's a philosophical distinction but one I feel like I don't get. Maybe it's because I like livecoding, etc, and see code itself as a form of art. Is AI code *not* slop in a way that feed content is?
And will vibecoded apps with Attie be likely to insert AIgen content?
@cwebber Slop doesn't cease to be slop because it's invisible, just means the flaws are better hidden.
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@cwebber it's definitely art, but also, I think anybody that respects their craft, whether that be coding, music, writing, or anything else that takes human skill, would be ok handing some large chunk of it to generative AI
meanwhile, people that just want the result (including money)? usually the ones in favour of genAI
@OctaviaConAmore shouldn't that first paragraph be "wouldn't be okay"?
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@OctaviaConAmore shouldn't that first paragraph be "wouldn't be okay"?
@obfusk oops, thank you
(there we go, corrected 
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@cwebber i can only read that statement as an outrageous troll. or at least i hope it's an outrageous troll, because otherwise it's the most misguided thing i've ever read about AI and programming. "we also dislike AI slop. which is why we use AI to generate choreography, not dancing" "which is why we use AI to generate sheet music, not musical performance" "which is why we use AI to generate blueprints, not buildings" "which is why we use AI to generate plots, not novels" etc
@aparrish @cwebber an emerging norm among people who believe they can save money by using LLMs is "AI use is okay as long as it's not noticeable in the final product". Have a human go back and fix the glitches that make your "placeholder" stable diffusion image, now it's "no longer slop". They notice that they only get yelled at when people can specifically detect the problem and conclude the issue is therefore whether the problem is *visible*.
