The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful • Hacker News Board

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#21

Post by arnon » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #19

Chinjut wrote: post #9

AI-esque blog post about how infinite AI content is awful, from "a co-founder at Paid, which is the first and only monetization and billing system for AI Agents".

This didn’t seem AI-generated to me, although it follows the LinkedIn pattern of “single punchy sentence per paragraph”. LinkedIn people wrote like this long before LLMs. I do love the irony of someone building a tool for AI sales bots complaining that their inbox is full of AI sales slop. But I actually agree with the article’s main idea, and I think if they followed it to its logical conclusion they might decide to…

You're right - it isn't

This is just how I write in the last few years

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#22

Post by lazide » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 1:58 PM UTC

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #13

alexpotato wrote: post #8

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens fame [0], has a great quote (paraphrasing): Interviewer: How will humans deal with the avalanche of fake information that AI could bring? YNH: The way humans have always dealt with fake information: by building institutions we trust to provide accurate information. This is not a new phenomenon btw. In democracies, this is often either the government (e.g. the Bureau of Labor Statistics) or…

> by building institutions we trust to provide accurate information Except those institutions have long lost all credibility themselves.

This was done intentionally, over decades, to try to push ‘trust’ closer to where it can be controlled. Religion, family ties (through propaganda), etc.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#23

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

arnon wrote: post #18

throwmeaway307 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

move fast and break things! nevermind if the things are people or their lives!!

build things """"people"""" want

People want dopamine hints, gamification, addictive distractions, and a culture of competitive perma-hustle.

If they didn't, we wouldn't be having these problems.

The problem isn't AI, it's how marketing has eaten everything.

So everyone is always pitching, looking for a competitive advantage, "telling their story", and "building their brand."

You can't "build trust" if your primary motivation is to sell stuff to your contacts.

The SNR was already terrible long before AI arrived. All AI has done is automated an already terrible process, which has - ironically - broken it so badly that it no longer works.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#24

Post by miloignis » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:02 PM UTC

tetris11 wrote: post #15

I needed to get some builder quotes for my home. It did not enter my mind to go online to search for any. I just reached out to my family for any trustworthy builders they've had, and struck up conversations with some of my fancier neighbors for any recommendations. (I came to the conclusion that all builders are cowboys, and I might as well just try doing some of this myself via youtube videos) Using the internet to…

When we needed some work done, we asked family and friends too, and ended up with a cowboy. When the work needed to be re-done, we looked up local reviews for contractors, and ended up with someone who was more expensive but also much more competent, and the work was done to a higher standard.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#25

Post by dkdcio » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:03 PM UTC

arnon wrote: post #14

Chinjut wrote: post #9

AI-esque blog post about how infinite AI content is awful, from "a co-founder at Paid, which is the first and only monetization and billing system for AI Agents".

So I can't have opinions? Also, this is entirely hand-written ;)

this is a funny phenomenon that I keep seeing. I think people are going through the reactionary “YoU mUsT hAvE wRiTtEn ThIs oN a CuRsEd TyPwRiTeR instead of handwriting your letter!1!!”

hopefully soon we move onto judging content by its quality, not whether AI was used. banning digital advertisement would also help align incentives against mass-producing slop (which has been happening long before ChatGPT released)

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#26

Post by drakythe » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:03 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #7

Doesn't matter. We must keep building more and more technology no matter the cost. Have an idea for a business? Build it. Does your business make the lives of people worse? Doesn't matter, keep pushing. Could some new technology ruin the lives and relationships that people have? Doesn't matter, just build it. We always need more, need to do more. Every experiment is valid, every impulse must be followed. More complex…

Turns out the Torment Nexus was just democratizing Venture Capital's desire for infinite growth.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#27

Post by AtlasBarfed » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:09 PM UTC

alexpotato wrote: post #8

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens fame [0], has a great quote (paraphrasing): Interviewer: How will humans deal with the avalanche of fake information that AI could bring? YNH: The way humans have always dealt with fake information: by building institutions we trust to provide accurate information. This is not a new phenomenon btw. In democracies, this is often either the government (e.g. the Bureau of Labor Statistics) or…

The New York Times.

Wall Street, financier centric and biased in general. Very pro oligarchy.

The worst was their cheerleading for the Iraq war, and swallowing obvious misinformation from Colin Powell at face value.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#28

Post by nsxwolf » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:14 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #12

alexpotato wrote: post #8

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens fame [0], has a great quote (paraphrasing): Interviewer: How will humans deal with the avalanche of fake information that AI could bring? YNH: The way humans have always dealt with fake information: by building institutions we trust to provide accurate information. This is not a new phenomenon btw. In democracies, this is often either the government (e.g. the Bureau of Labor Statistics) or…

The problem is that too many people just don't know how to weigh different probabilities of correctness against each other. The NYT is wrong 5% of the time - I'll believe this random person I just saw on TikTok because I've never heard of them ever being wrong; I've heard many stories about doctors being wrong - I'll listen to RFK; scientific models could be wrong, so I'll bet on climate change being not real etc.

COVID ended my trust in media. I went from healthy skepticism to assuming everything is wrong/a lie. There was no accountability for this so this will never change for me. I am like the people who lived through the Great Depression not trusting banks 60 years later and keeping their money under the mattress.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#29

Post by bee_rider » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

What I get from the article is that, proving that a company will stick around for a while after you’ve subscribed is hard now, because anybody can AI generate the general vibe of the marketing department of a big established player. This seems like it’ll be devastating for companies whose business model requires signing new users up for ongoing subscriptions.

Maybe it could lead to a resurgence of the business model where you buy a program and don’t have to get married to the company that supports it, though?

I’d love it if the business model of “buy our buggy product now, we’ll maybe patch it later” died.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#30

Post by Applejinx » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

symfoniq wrote: post #16

bgwalter wrote: post #5

It is becoming unbearable. YouTube now has "AI" slop ads for Freenow (Lyft brand in the EU) with fake cars that move without the wheels turning and "AI" "actors" that look like plastic. This of course means that Freenow is now on the personal blacklist. People should not engage with companies who advertise with "AI" slop.

Agreed. I’m increasingly using the presence of AI slop as a primary signal about whether to avoid a company and its products.

Which suggests the next human dirty trick will be to put out AI slop 'supporting' a company and its products just to make 'em deny it was them making it :)