Claude for Chrome

I don’t know if this will make anything better.

Internet is now filled with ai generated text, picture or videos. Like we havent had enough already, it is becaming more and more. We make ai agents to talk to each other.

Someone will make ai to generate a form, many other will use ai to fill that form. Even worst, some people will fill millions of forms in matter of second. What is left is the empty feeling of having a form. If ai generates, and fills, and uses it, what good do we have having a form?

Feel like things get meaningless when ai starts doing it. Would you still be watching youtube, if you knew it is fully ai generated, or would you still be reading hackernews, if you know there not a single human writing here?

Some of us won’t. But a majority probably will.

Even more important, the kids of today won’t care. Their internet will be fully slopped.

And with outdoor places getting more and more rare/expensive, they’ll have no choice but to consume slop.

I was just talking about this same thing with someone. It's like emails. If, instead of writing an email, I gave AI some talking points and then told it to generate an email around that, then the person that I sent it to has AI summarize it.... What's the point of email? Why would we still use email at all? Just either send each other shorter messages through another platform or let LLMs do the entire communication for you.

And like you said, it just feels empty when AI creates it. I wish this overhyped garbage just hadn't happened. But greed continues to prevail it seems.

> And with outdoor places getting more and more rare/expensive, they’ll have no choice but to consume slop.

What does this mean? Cities and other places where real estate is expensive still have public parks, and outdoor places are not getting more expensive elsewhere.

They also have numerous other choices other than "consume whatever is on the internet" and "go outside".

I don't think anyone benefits from poorly automated content creation, but I'm not this resigned to its impact on society.

I've had this conversation a couple of times now. If AI can just scan a video and provide bullet points, what's the point of the video at all? Same with UI/UX in general. Without real users, then it starts to feel meaningless.

Some media is cool because you know it was really difficult to put it together or obtain the footage. I think of Tom Cruise and his stunts in Mission Impossible as an example. They add to the spectacle because you know someone actually did this and it was difficult, expensive, and dangerous. (Implying a once in a lifetime moment.) But yeah, AI offers ways to make this visual infinitely repeatable.

That is kids choice then, I just want to live with my own choice. I missed the day when you have no doubt about the person sending a message to you is a human

It’s wild to me that people see this as bad.

The point of the form is not in the filling. You shouldn't want to fill out a form.

If you could accomplish your task without the busywork, why wouldn’t you?

If you could interact with the world on your terms, rather than in the enshitified way monopoly platforms force on you, why wouldn't you?

And yeah, if you could consume content in the way you want, rather than the way it is presented, why wouldn’t you?

I understand the issue with AI gen slop, but slop content has been around since before AI - it's the incentives that are rotten.

Gen AI could be the greatest manipulator. It could also be our best defense against manipulation. That future is being shaped right now. It could go either way.

Let's push for the future where the individual has control of the way they interact.

I am starting to see this age of internet-for-robots-by-robots as our second chance to detach from those devices and start living irl again.

Communication by e-mail is for when you need a human decision. AI can't help with that.

> Just either send each other shorter messages through another platform

Why would you use another platform for sending shorter messages? E-Mail is instant and supported on all platforms.

> make this visual infinitely repeatable

I'm quite sure that was how people thought about record players and films themselves.

And frankly, they were correct. The recording devices did cheapen the experience (compared to the real thing). And the digitalization of the production and distribution process cheapened it even more. Being in a gallery is a very different experience than browsing the exact same paintings on instagram.

Lots of people really prefer watching videos. I'm very grateful that tools exist for those of us who don't.

on the commercial web, consuming content is labor and the cheapest there is ... seeing it being replaced by AI is exactly what is expected.

> If you could accomplish your task without the busywork, why wouldn’t you?

There's taking away the busywork such as hand washing every dish and instead using a dishwasher.

Then there is this where, rather than have any dishes, a cadre of robots comes by and drops a morsel of food in your mouth for every bite you take.

> I understand the issue with AI gen slop, but slop content has been around since before AI - it's the incentives that are rotten.

Everyone says this, and it feels like a wholly unserious way to terminate the thinking and end the conversation.

Is the slop problem meaningfully worse now that we have AI? Yes: I’m coming across much more deceptively framed or fluffed up content than I used to. Is anyone proposing any (actually credible, not hand wavy microtransaction schemes) method of fixing the incentives? No.

So should we do some sort of First Amendment-violating ultramessy AI ban? I don’t want that to happen, but people are mad, and if we don’t come up with a serious and credible way to fix this, then people who care less than us will take it upon themselves to solve it, and the “First Amendment-violating ultramessy AI ban” is what we’re gonna get.

It's true that AI makes the slop easier.

That's actually a good thing.

Slop has been out there and getting worse for the last decade but it's been at an, unfortunately, acceptable level for most of society.

Gen AI shouts that the emperor has no clothes.

The bullshit busywork can be generated. It's worthless. Finally.

No more long winded grant proposals. Or filler emails. Or Filler presentations. Or filler videos. or perfectly samey selfies.

Now it's worthless. Now we can move on.

Just the pesky matter of figuring out what humans will do for money, and then we'll be free to run in the meadows like we were meant to

Does your analogy mean that you'd like to stop someone from owning that cadre of robots? Or is this just a personal preference?

You can have your dishwasher and I'll take the robots. And we can both be happy.

And therein is the problem - if your robots take up so many resources I can't have my dishwasher, is that your right? Is your right to being happy more important than others?

A more detailed analogy would be if you owning the robots meant that all food is now packaged for robots instead of humans, increasing the personal labor cost of obtaining and preparing food as well as inflating the cost of dinnerware exponentially, while driving up my power bill to cover the cost of expanding infrastructure to power your robots.

In that case, I certainly am against you owning the robots and view your desire for them as a direct and immediate threat against my well being.

The subtext is the one technology capable of potentially rallying, unifying, and mobilizing the working class across the globe is lost in this design. Probably intentionally. A shame we couldn't rise up and do something about wealth distribution before the powers that be that maintain the world's status quo locked it down.

you are getting this from the wrong perspective. I agree what you say here, but things you are listing here implies one thing;

"you didnt want to do this before, now with the help of ai, you dont have to. you just live your life as the way you want"

and your assumption is wrong. I still want to watch videos when it is generated by human. I still want to use internet, but when I know it is a human being at the other side. What I don't want is AI to destroy or make dirty the things I care, I enjoy doing. Yes, I want to live in my terms, and AI is not part of it, humans do.

I hope it is clear.

I really wish, but I doubt that. I will definitely move to that direction though. I am a professional software engineer, and seriously considering doing another job.

not because AI can take over my job or something, hell no it can't, at least for now. but day by day I am missing the point of being an engineer. problem solving, building and seeing that it works. the joy of engineering is almost gone. Personally, I am not satisfied with my job as I used to do, and that is really bothering.

Maybe in the short term, but I think ultimately there are lots of things Humans want (AI or no AI), and that means there's a lot of value to create in the world still. Which means there will still be jobs, just maybe not as much in the churning-out-websites-and-"content"-business.

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to flippant about the potential for destroyed value here. Many industries (like journalism*) really need to figure this out faster, the advertising model might collapse very quickly when people lose trust that they're reading Human created and vetted material. And there will be broader fallout if all these bonkers AI investments fail to pay off.

[*] Though for journalism specifically it feels like we as a society need to figure out the trust problem, we're rapidly approaching a place of prohibitively-difficult-to-validate-information for things that are too important to get wrong.

I think the future is probably that basically everything gets linked to an ID either directly or indirectly. If you get caught out using bots or spamming you'll end up ID banned from services.

LLMs are basically only useful when they can utilise public information. They are great for answering questions because the answer to your question can be pulled from wikipedia and reddit. They are completely useless for writing emails because they don't have any more info than you give them. The only thing they can do is fluff them out with nothingness, when the receiver is than AI summerising to strip out.

Because email is spammed with marketing. If you send me an email at work there is a good chance I won't see it because I got 20 emails from every SaaS product news letter flooding the inbox. If you send me a message on slack there is a 100% chance I will see it.

The only solution I see is taxes going to fund outdoor in person spaces. As a society we very easily can afford these spaces, it's just that the people who need them most are the ones least able to pay for things.

Banning social media for kids alongside funding free or subsidised in person environments will be a huge benefit to society.

Oh come on, are you 12? Real life doesn’t have narrative arcs like that. This is a real problem. We’re not gonna just sit around and then enjoy a cathartic resolution.

I don't agree with this for two different reasons.

First: I don't think the analogy holds.

Recording a performance is not the same as generating a recording of a performance that never happened. To be abundantly clear, I'm not making an oversimplification generalization of the form "Tool-assisted Art is not Art actually", but pointing out that there's a lot of nuance in what we consume, how we consume it and what underlying assumptions we use to guide that consumption. There's a lot of low effort human created art, that IMO is in a similar bracket, but ultimately to me, Art that is worth spending my time consuming usually correlates with Art that has many many hours of dedicated labor poured into it. Writing a prompt in a couple minutes that generates a 20 minute podcast has a lower chance of actually connecting with me, so making that specific use-case easier is a loss for me. Using AI in ways that simplify the tedious bits of art creation for people who nevertheless have a strong opinion of what they want their artpiece to say, and are willing to spend the effort to fine tune it to make it say that, is a very valid, very welcome use-case from my perspective.

Second: Even if your premise that digitization devalued art is true, it doesn't necessarily imply it's something actually bad.

I have no intention to see the Mona Lisa in person, I'm glad I can check it out on the internet and know that I'm uninterested in it. You might think it has devalued it for me, and you'd be technically correct, but I'm happier for it. People have access to more art, and more information, that allows them to more accurately assess what they truly connect with. The rarity of the experience is now less of a factor in deciding the worth of it, which is a good thing because it draws me towards the qualities of it that matter more: the joy it could potentially provide, and the curiosity it could potentially satiate. Instead of potentially being railroaded into going to the circus because everyone seems to be raving about it, yet I have no idea what they do beyond what people say about it.

Of course there's a huge element of filtering bias on social media, because people still want their experiences to look and sound AMAZING after the fact. But at least with more information you have the potential to make a more informed decision.

> ultimately to me, Art that is worth spending my time consuming usually correlates with Art that has many many hours of dedicated labor poured into it

It might be true for you. But I highly doubt average people have any idea about how many or few hours were poured into the content they consume.

I've seen weebs who insists anime never utilizes rotoscope because "Japanese don't take shortcuts." My aunt questioned how anyone can make money from photo editing when a cousin of mine got married and had their wedding photos edited by a professional, because she thought it's just a few click on computer. People just don't know and they can be far off the marks in both ways.

That can be avoidable. For example by using a different adress for inter-personal communication.

I’m definitely watching less YouTube because so much of my feed is now AI generated garbage. I only watch new videos from known human creators. My exploration of new creators is way down.

I'm interested in computers. What's the point of meadows without computers.

Sure, but I did choose my words precisely for that reason. That's why I said it usually correlates with hours. Hours of labor put in is not the metric that makes art worth it to me, it's more a question of a skilled artist ensuring their message comes through, in the highest "resolution" possible, which requires a high amount of attention to detail, and usually requires a good amount of labor for the output to be interesting.

(Maybe skip the mini-insults & make the site nicer for all?)

Anyway I think GP has a point worth considering. I have had a related hope in the context of journalism / chain of trust that was mentioned above: if anyone can produce a Faux News Channel tailored to their own quirks on demand, and can see everyone else doing the same, will it become common knowledge that Stuff Can Be Fake, and motivate people to explicitly decide about trust beyond "Trust Screens"?

Physical crafts and some niche software still. Once robots are given opposable thumbs and large motion models get enough data, there will be nothing left. The tech is already there, just the matter of time. I'm counting on the human race to keep direct funding to software slop and delay that future, but damn China.

> If AI can just scan a video and provide bullet points, what's the point of the video at all?

Maybe, just maybe, the video format is being abused. Blogs are much more time-efficient. Frankly, every time I see some interesting topic linked to a video, I just skip it. I don't have the time or will to listen to some "content creator" blabbering to increase their video length/revenues. If I'm REALLY interested, I just use some LLM to summarize it. And no, I don't feel bad for doing this.

AI kills the mobile, kills the social networks, maybe killing humans in the process :).

The problem of resource distribution is solved by money already.

If I can't pay for the robots, I am not getting them. And if I buy my robots and you only get a dishwasher then you can afford two nice vacations on top while I don't.

You don't lose anything if I get robots.

What do you think incentivized the mass production this "slop"? Why do you think LLMs will end the incentives to continue creating it?

I feel this disregards of scarcity economics.

Let's say we have a finite amount of cheap water units between us. After exhausting those units, the price to acquire more goes up. Each our actions use up those units.

If restrictions on water use do not exist, you can quickly use up those units and, if you can easily afford more units, which makes sense as you have enough for robots, you are not concerned with using that cheap water up.

I can't even afford to "toil" with my dishwasher now.