Here's a thought experiment.

[reay@beige.party]

@sjn @cstross I understand some publishers are now marking AI-made books with a mention/logo(?) inside the cover.

Guess who’s got two thumbs and won’t be buying AI generated books.

[restlesshead@dice.camp]

@sjn While my assumption is that AI products will be of lower quality in some (not always obvious) fashion, I think that would not be the reason to avoid such a product.

Provenance matters! An exquisitely cut gemstone with a "blood diamond" tag on it just isn't as appealing as its quality would suggest

[cruiser@expressional.social]

@sjn you omitted the option 'completely useless if not for propaganda' here, sorry

[binford2k@hachyderm.io]

@gisgeek @sjn you’re missing the point. The question isn’t whether #AI will help generate better code or not, it’s what effect the presence of a “made with AI” badge would have on perceived quality.

Yes, a skilled programmer can absolutely use AI to generate even better code, for every one of them there are at least ninety-nine other goobers gleefully churning out slop as fast as their slop churning machine will go.

This means that when I see a “made by AI” badge, there’s a 1% chance it’s quality and 99% chance it’s slop.

[ulf@mastodon.nz]

@sjn
I’m torn, because although in general I’d assume the “made with AI” suggested lesser quality, I have seen a lot of tat made by humans where quality was not a consideration at all…

[jwo@mastodonczech.cz]

@sjn

I have chosen “LOWER”, since many products can have undisclosed or unclear additional requirements.

When it's a product that is bought/acquired/provided with expectation of further interactions with that (computer hardware, an application, both off-line and SaaS etc., etc.), then I can expect further requirements that are frequently not completely clear from the product description – such as need for powerful hardware for local processing (quite painful when the product is just SW without the HW), need to use 3rd-party data processing services or services provided by the manufacturer (may stop being provided in few months/years, privacy-related issues, …) and also many others, including increased environmental load/damage (mostly related to SaaS products, dedicated HW tends to be designed to be ± fine and efficient with this).

[hiisikoloart@writing.exchange]

@sjn
AI stamp means it was made with stolen art, excessively used resources, greed, and money of billionare facists. It is void of all meaning, effort, or human element. It is so deep below anything human made that the closest word that I can think of for that place is "abyss" and even that is too kind.

Anyone with a soul and human desency should avoid it and trash that slop the second they see it. Support human artists - always.

[cavanholi@kind.social]

@sjn heck, if the made with AI product is cheaper, I'm still getting the other one.

just like I get books from bookstore.org even when they are more expensive than amazon's

[cavanholi@kind.social]

@gisgeek @sjn mildly agree with this. though humans can make poor products, llm cannot make good ones.
so it is a choice of either 'mediocre to rubbish' from AI, or, 'good to mediocre to rubbish' from a human.

and lets not forget at the end of the day, it is a human pushing the product forward, either human or AI made, and it is a human profitting from it.

but if it is AI made, then the one profitting does not care about the wasted resourcers and possible misuse of intellectual property (...)

[cavanholi@kind.social]

@gisgeek @sjn (...) possible misuse of intellectual property.
I will not help said human profit if it is up to me.

in the end, it is not as much as 'made with AI' marks it as poor.
it is that it marks the product as Not good

[noisecolor@toot.community]

@sjn
That's a silly and pointless poll. Of course it's not the same quality. It's like asking if people think a 5k€ suit worked on by a tailor for two weeks is the same, better or worse quality than a 50€ from HM .
What do you think?

Point of automatization is producing products at speed and price for the quality that is good enough. Not quality alone.

[lapizistik@social.tchncs.de]

@sjn

This is multi-dimensional. Quality itself is not one-dimensional and “higher” quality is not the only reason to choose what to buy.

Than AI is much more than using generative LLMs. For example cancer detection with machine learning based image evaluation has very high success rates, so I would very much follow its advise (if used by a domain expert). And even generative AI used by an expert as a tool can be great. On the other hand I may want to pay an artist but not an AI company for some image of same “quality”.

And then there is: if an AI can produce it its value will not increase in time while it is from a famous artist it may (see →Benjamin, aura).

There is all the ethical aspects. And…

And this only got me started.

[michaelharley@infosec.exchange]

@sjn gosh I think there's not nearly enough nuance here and everybody is going to assume the absolute worst or best scenario in their head.

Did a developer, using Claude in their IDE, carefully guide it to build something, with attention to detail and corrections?

Or are we just talking about AI slop, where someone who doesn't really know what they're doing told Claude to build something and whatever was spit out is what they got and they had not clue or idea about development?

I think AI can make good devs better. I think lazy devs will still make shit. IMO

[muhanga@mastodon.social]

@sjn which one would I buy?
The quality of the product do not equate to using AI or not using it.
But using AI equate to labor exploitation on the bigger scale. And quite probably signal about other unethical practices of the people in the management (or other) chains of the product.
So given the choice I would spend my money on the one without the sticker.

[trianderror@kanoa.de]

@sjn
“When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions,” he said. [...]
“We tested the effect across eight different product and service categories, and the results were all the same: it’s a disadvantage to include those kinds of terms in the product descriptions,” Cicek said.

https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2024/07/30/using-the-term-artificial-intelligence-in-product-descriptions-reduces-purchase-intentions/

[woozle@toot.cat]

@sjn I put "no difference" because it would depend a lot on the context and how I'm evaluating "quality" -- but I think in today's environment and in most contexts, I would tend to be significantly more leery of something where the maker thinks "made with AI" is a selling-point. If it was more, say, honesty in advertising (e.g. a future where this is a required disclosure), then my evaluation would depend much more on other factors (though for now, it's still a flag against).

[ohennig@mastodon.nu]

@sjn i wouldn’t necessarily say lower quality as much as ”if you can’t bother putting an effort in making this, why would I bother paying attention?”

[mcr314@todon.nl]

@sjn The one with the "Made with #AI" mark has no copyright, so you can just make as many copies as you like. It has no value, thus any price on it is nonsense.

[jrdepriest@infosec.exchange]

@sjn

At this point in the discourse "Made with AI" is more is a dogwhistle than a mark of good or bad quality. I wouldn't want to give my money to someone proud of using genAI at this point in the timeline.

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@gisgeek @sjn It says a lot about you. That nothing you say is worth anything.