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I Am Tired of AI
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#652The most depressing thing for me is the feeling that I simply cannot trust anything that has been written in the past 2 years or so and up until the day that I die. It's not so much that I think people have used AI, but that I know they have with a high degree of certainty, and this certainty is converging to 100%, simply because there is no way it will not. If you write regularly and you're not using AI, you simply…
People like you, the author, and me all share this sentiment. It motivates us to seek out authentic voices and writing that’s associated with specific humans.
The commodity end of the writing market may well have been automated, but was that really the kind of writing you or the author or I ever sought out in the first place?
I can get mass-manufactured garments from Shein if I want, but I can also still find tailors locally if it’s worth it to me. I can buy IKEA or I can still save up for something made out of real wood. I can “shoot a cinematic digital film” on my iPhone but the cineplex remains in business and the art film folks are still doing their scrappy thing (and still moaning about its economics). I can lap up slop from an academic paper mill journal or I can identify who’s doing the thinking in a field and read what they’re writing or saying.
And the funny thing is that none of those human-scale options commands all that much of a premium in the scheme of things. There may be less human-scald work to go around and thus fewer small enterprises plying a specific trade, but any given one of them just has to put food on the table for a number of humans roughly proportional to the same level of output as always.
It seems to me that there’s no special virtue in the specific form that the mass publishing market took over the last century or however long: my local grocery store chain’s division producing weekly newspaper circulars probably employed more people than J Peterman has. But there was and remains a place for quality. If anything—as you point out—the AI schlock has sensitized us to the value we place on a human voice. And at some level, once people notice that they miss that quality, isn’t there a sense in which they become more willing to seek it out and pay for it if necessary?
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#653I would like to know how does AI help us in solving the climate crisis! I have read some articles about weather predictions getting better with the help of AI, but that is just the monitoring, I would like to see more actual solutions. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks!
Uhh... it makes it worse.
We don't have all of the data because in the US companies are not generally required by law to disclose their emissions. But of those who do, it's been disastrous. Google was on track to net zero, but its recent investment and push on AI has increased their emissions by 48%.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/tech/google-ai-greenhouse-gas...
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google didn't change it, it embodied it. The problem isn't AI, it's the pervasive culture of PR and advertising which appeared in the 50s and eventually consumed its host. Western industrial culture was based on substance - getting real shit done. There was always a lot of scammery around it, but the bedrock goal was to make physical things happen - build things, invent things, deliver things, innovate. PR and ad cul…
>Western industrial culture was based on substance - getting real shit done. There was always a lot of scammery around it, but the bedrock goal was to make physical things happen - build things, invent things, deliver things, innovate. For a very short period between 1945 to 1980 while the generation who remembered the great depression and WWII was in charge. It's been longer since that's not been the case. And it wa…
I'm not sure it isn't a reflection of the rise of neoliberalism.
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#655I would like to know how does AI help us in solving the climate crisis! I have read some articles about weather predictions getting better with the help of AI, but that is just the monitoring, I would like to see more actual solutions. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks!
It is doubtful AI will be a net positive with regards to climate due to how much electricity it uses.
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#656The most depressing thing for me is the feeling that I simply cannot trust anything that has been written in the past 2 years or so and up until the day that I die. It's not so much that I think people have used AI, but that I know they have with a high degree of certainty, and this certainty is converging to 100%, simply because there is no way it will not. If you write regularly and you're not using AI, you simply…
I was listening to an interview few months ago (forgot the name). He is a prolific reader/writer and has a huge following. He mentioned that he only reads books that are at least 50 years old, so pre 70s. That sounds like a good idea now. Even ignoring the AI, if you look at the movies and books that come out these days, their quality is significantly lower than 30-40 years ago (on an average). Maybe people's attenti…
> if you look at the movies and books that come out these days, their quality is significantly lower than 30-40 years ago (on an average)
I'm sorry but this is just nonsense.
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#657The most depressing thing for me is the feeling that I simply cannot trust anything that has been written in the past 2 years or so and up until the day that I die. It's not so much that I think people have used AI, but that I know they have with a high degree of certainty, and this certainty is converging to 100%, simply because there is no way it will not. If you write regularly and you're not using AI, you simply…
I was listening to an interview few months ago (forgot the name). He is a prolific reader/writer and has a huge following. He mentioned that he only reads books that are at least 50 years old, so pre 70s. That sounds like a good idea now. Even ignoring the AI, if you look at the movies and books that come out these days, their quality is significantly lower than 30-40 years ago (on an average). Maybe people's attenti…
Nassim Taleb famously argues that position, in his popular work Antifragile and elsewhere. I believe the theory is that time serves as a sieve: only works with lasting value can remain relevant through the years.
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#658here is where you are wrong about AI lacking creativitivy: AI Music is bland and boring. UNLESS IF YOU KNOW MUSIC REALLY WELL. As a matter of fact, it can SPAWN poorly done but really interesting ideas with almost no effort "What if curt cobain wrote a song that was then sung by johnny cash about waterfalls in the west" etc. That idea is awful, but when you generate it, you might get snippets that could turn into a w…
People often screw around over the piano keyboard, usually an octave or so about middle C until an idea occurs. Brahms likened this to a pair of hands combing over a garbage dump.
I think a creative person has no trouble generating interesting ideas without roving over the proverbial garbage heap. The hard (and artistic) part is developing those ideas into an interesting work.
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#659> It has gotten so bad that I, for one, immediately reject a proposal when it is clear that it was written by or with the help of AI, no matter how interesting the topic is or how good of a talk you will be able to deliver in person.
I am sympathetic to the sentiment, and yet worry about someone making impactful decisions based on their own perception of whether AI was used. Such perceptions have been demonstrated many times recently to be highly faulty.
Re: I Am Tired of AI
#660Earlier quoted context omitted.
Writing a text of decent quality used to constitute proof of work. This is now no longer the case, and we haven't adapted to this assumption becoming invalid. For example, when applying to a job, your cover letter used to count as proof of work. The contents are less important than the fact that you put some amount of effort in it, enough to prove that you care about this specific vacancy. Now this basic assumption h…
Great opportunity to get ahead of all the lazy people who use AI for a cover letter. Do a video! Sure, AI will be able to do that soon, but then we (not lazy people, who care) will come up with something even more personal!
A blowjob, I assume.