*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil I'm with you on that hill.
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@neil Most writers and artists I know think the same, but the gap between those people and those who consume art and fiction - especially among programmers - is really depressing.
@rubyjones On the consumption side, I am absolutely in a fortunate position that I can afford to pay, and see value in paying, for books, to support authors, and so on (although I suppose that I see blogs as free-to-read). Perhaps there's a circle there.
Slop has no value to me, so I would not knowingly pay for it.
But perhaps someone who doesn't value creativity or human expression would not willingly pay for it anyway, so slop is attractive enough?
(Sorry, pondering aloud here.)
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Someone was posting here about preferring "AI news" because they said that it was unbiased.
Someone posted an AI-generated "summary" of something.
More websites are using AI-generated images.
Do you not see this kind of thing?
@neil I haven't seen such posts here at all. Tbh it sounds like a troll because AI generated content is anything but unbiased. And in my experience, people around here are well aware of this.
That said, at work and around the internet at large I see more and more people using AI. Some because they believe in the technology, others because they feel its the normal thing to do now.
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil That is not an unpopular opinion, not at all.
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@neil I find AI images a really strong flag that I'm not going to want to read an article.
I suspect at least part of the problem is that "experts" will tell you that a web page *has* to have an image to represent it (because that's what algorithms want), and people are panicked into finding *something* to fill that void.
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@neil I find AI images a really strong flag that I'm not going to want to read an article.
I suspect at least part of the problem is that "experts" will tell you that a web page *has* to have an image to represent it (because that's what algorithms want), and people are panicked into finding *something* to fill that void.
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil yes, you are not alone. 100%.
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@rubyjones On the consumption side, I am absolutely in a fortunate position that I can afford to pay, and see value in paying, for books, to support authors, and so on (although I suppose that I see blogs as free-to-read). Perhaps there's a circle there.
Slop has no value to me, so I would not knowingly pay for it.
But perhaps someone who doesn't value creativity or human expression would not willingly pay for it anyway, so slop is attractive enough?
(Sorry, pondering aloud here.)
@neil The thing is, there is more free fiction and art online than a person could ever need. I've actually found it hard to pull myself away from the safe, comforting arms of fanfiction, which gives me exactly what I want, for free, but I get frustrated that I can't pay the authors for their often spectacular works.
I agree with you - writing and art are communication - there's no point if there's no one on the other side communicating anything. And the fact that it's all stolen>
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil In principle I mostly agree, in practice entirely.
I would say with the top 92% I would read, I share the sentiment. *In principle*, I would be okay with looking up LLM-gens for the last 8% which would be checklists or how-to on changing a setting on something or listing a number of events. But it is mostly, or at least unpredictably, bullshit. If these models are built holding everything that is smart and good, why is there so much bullshit?
It does not reassure me for humanity that the machine that extracts the average of everything generally comes up with visually well-ordered feces.
So I arrive at your conclusion mostly, but not entirely, following the same route. -
@neil The thing is, there is more free fiction and art online than a person could ever need. I've actually found it hard to pull myself away from the safe, comforting arms of fanfiction, which gives me exactly what I want, for free, but I get frustrated that I can't pay the authors for their often spectacular works.
I agree with you - writing and art are communication - there's no point if there's no one on the other side communicating anything. And the fact that it's all stolen>
@neil >and relies on technology that is doing absolutely horrendous things to the environment, makes it absolutely unthinkable for me to partake.
And yet I have very old, very dear friends who seem to simply not care. Even after I have explained to them how bad it is for the world, and how hurtful to me.
I don't get it.
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil strong agree
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@stroobl I'd prefer documentation written by a human?
@neil the humans who made the software left and didn’t bother to write any. ;(
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil
I agree! -
*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil Quite.
I'm not opposed to machine learning; it's genuinely useful. I'm more ambivalent about LLMs, but that's more to do with the environmental impact, the way they were trained and the people involved in doing it than it is to do with the technology per se.
What profoundly offends me is the pretence that these things are capable of thought or creativity, of "generating" something that is actually going to be of interest to or provoke an emotional response in a human.
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@kimcrawley thanks for sharing you kind opinion.
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@amin In which case, perhaps I am not as isolated as I thought.
It doesn't surprise me that *some* other people have this perspective, but I wonder how common it is.
Add me to your list.
But I'd add: there is a space for texts that are read purely for information. Which would be something that could be machine generated. Unfortunately those texts require (a) correctness, and (b) transparency about sources. Both things a transformer cannot give, due to it's architecture.
So genAI fails completely for me.
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil You're not isolated, just normal.
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk Yes! I read to hear other people's ideas, not for cobbled together fragments of ideas from an AI's training data!
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil I’ll never post AI generated content on my blog because why would you expect/want someone to take the time to read something you didn’t even create?
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*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil I should apologise for my current avatar, to be honest. Someone made it for me and it seemed amusing, and, to be frank, close enough to reality. But I agree, trying to read AI writing is hard work.
I have read a few auto translated books, not sure if “AI”, but the writing style stays as the original author I think, just gets the gender pronouns messed up occasionally.
Reading the occasional AI C code is similarly tortuous even if it is “right”.
[avatar now changed]
