The barriers to AI engineering are crumbling fast

I feel like I see this comment fairly often these days, but nonetheless, perhaps we need to keep making it - the AI generated image there is so poor, and so off-putting. Does anyone like them? I am turned off whenever I see someone has used one on a post, with very few exceptions.

Is it just me? Why are people using them? I feel like objectively they look like fake garbage, but obviously that must be my subjective biases, because people keep using them.

Some people have no taste, and lack the mental tools to recognize the flaws and shortcomings of GANN output. People who enthuse about the astoundingly enthralling literary skills of LLMs tend to be the kind of person who hasn't read many books. These are sad cases: an undeveloped palate confusing green food coloring and xylitol for a bite of an apple.

Some people can recognize these shortcomings and simply don't care. They are fundamentally nihilists for whom quantity itself is the only important quality.

Either way, these hero images are a convenient cue to stop reading: nothing of value will be found below.

> these hero images are a convenient cue to stop reading.

If you don't like such content. But I would say don't judge a book by its cover.

"GenAI" slop is a time-vampire.

In a world where anyone can ask an LLM to gish-gallop a plausible facsimile of whatever argument they want in seconds, it is simply untenable to give any piece of writing you stumble upon online the benefit of the doubt; you will drown in counterfeit prose.

The faintest hint that the author of a piece is a "GenAI" enthusiast (which in this case is already clear from the title) is immediate grounds for dismissing it; "the cover" clearly communicates the quality one might expect in the book. Using slop for hero images tells me that the author doesn't respect my time.

You state this as if it is general truth. Somehow the article gets attention on HN.

They very clearly were making a general claim, and stating their reasons too, rather than insinuating vague nothings like your comment. As I understood it:

  Premise 1 : anyone can get an LLM to churn out "content" in minutes.
  Premise 2 : reading "AI" slop is a poor way to spend one's time.
  Premise 3 : someone who thinks those images are ok is likely to have a poorly developed capacity to differentiate between actual expertise and confident-sounding blah-blah-ing.

  Conclusion : abort at the first sign that someone thinks that that vaguely confident-seeming world of half-truths and vibing is in any way acceptable.

It's a hard line, but I certainly can see the logic in it. One would be free to make exceptions in certain specific scenarios but the general thrust of the idea is excellent (for people who value their time, and want to read good things rather than feel-good things).

Your argument, on the other hand: it got traction on HN, therefore... something. Traction, or viewership, or ability-to-attract-attention, does not equate to value. And yes, I'm stating this as a general truth.