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Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#11

Post by embedding-shape »

fnoef wrote: post #7
mmarian wrote: post #5

Sounds like you're getting burned out by too much hype-chasing. Follow your interests, and you'll always discover something that AI hasn't solved by itself. And keep in mind that people have always had these concerns whenever something new came along - photography, computers, etc.

This is different. AI is not a "personal computer" or a "digital camera". AI is a change in perspective of our entire society, how it works, and what we define to be human or human-made creation. The end goal of AI is to abolish all work possible. In a world where there is no work for the common man, I'm afraid to imagine what is left there.

> AI is a change in perspective of our entire society, how it works, and what we define to be human or human-made creation.

There are two things you're mixing here.

One is how others use AI, the other is how you use AI. No one forcing you to consume content made by AI that you think suck, just turn it off if you don't like it.

Seems really doomsday-like to proclaim "The end goal of AI is to abolish all work possible" when that's not realistically feasible, regardless of what the AI-hypers say. Don't listen so much, and think more.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#12

Post by ml_visoft »

Imho there are still tasks that can't be done by AI good enough. Wouldn't let clawbot handle my personal relationships. Not even scheduling a football [or dota2] game. Yet alone navigate job. So, maybe level up the goal post? Try do something not-easily-done by AI? Select from your fringe interests [if core is AI powered already]. Anyway, it is a relevant question these days.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#14

Post by worldsavior »

People still appreciate human art. People don't appreciate AI art because it's fake. If you enjoy AI art, you're probably fake and have no appreciation. That's my take.

Just remember that AI can not create art, it can only remember art. AI is not a human, AI is a probabilistic function.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#15

Post by fnoef »

embedding-shape wrote: post #10
fnoef wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get it. You, and I, are in the minority. How do you expect authors to keep writing, when the market will be, eventually, flooded by AI generated slop? It's the same with coding: I no longer see point to write OSS by hand, as every day, 10 projects appear on HN front page, that are 95.9% AI generated. Becoming a successful writer / musician, is already hard. With software, it was easier, but in my opinion, i…

I think you don't get it :) I've written more about how I see it being here: https://emsh.cat/good-taste/ To repeat, I'm not worried. Making music might be easier than before, but having "Good Taste" isn't easier than before, it's still hard. And good stuff isn't just produced and made, they have decisions and choices behind them, and make the wrong ones, your thing ends up sucking. If you just care about average con…

It's a good read, thanks for sharing. But the flaw in it, is the fact that you think that the world is built on merit, i.e. Good Taste, as you call it.

And while sure, merit / good taste are important, but if you look at the mainstream it's filled with average. Now, from the consumer side you can claim "what do you care about the mainstream, just look for good taste, and you will find it", and I agree with you. But I do not speak about the consumer side, but rather the producer side. As a producer, I want to produce "good taste", but if there is very little demand for good taste things, I might struggle to sustain myself while producing based on merit.

In the end, the reason enshittification exists, is because "good taste" stuff became too popular and the authors decided to capitalize on it (can't blame them when you have a mortgage to pay, and family to feed), and turn it into "mainstream crap".

I guess the point I'm trying to make, is that creating good taste is not easy. And it will become even harder as the mainstream will expand and capture AI generated content, leaving people who believe in creation based on merit, fighting for the crumbs.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#16

Post by RiverCrochet »

fnoef wrote: post #6
embedding-shape wrote: post #3

Do you read a book just so you know what happens at the end, or because you like the journey there too? Do you read blog posts "just to know" or because you like reading? Sure, if you don't like reading, then it's great you don't have to. But personally I like to read, and be taken on an adventure by writers, that's why I read, I don't read just so I "know what happened". So everything remains the same, nothing has c…

You don't get it. You, and I, are in the minority. How do you expect authors to keep writing, when the market will be, eventually, flooded by AI generated slop? It's the same with coding: I no longer see point to write OSS by hand, as every day, 10 projects appear on HN front page, that are 95.9% AI generated. Becoming a successful writer / musician, is already hard. With software, it was easier, but in my opinion, i…

Flooded markets get bypassed. I see a future where real creatives simply don't post stuff online, and anything online is not trusted. What AI is going to kill is the Internet, not human creativity.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#17

Post by AnimalMuppet »

> instead of building reliable software, managers seem to push people to use AI more, as long as they ship products.

That can work for some things. Some things don't actually need reliability. That automated tool that's going to help a dozen people in accounting? Yeah, it's got a buffer overflow, which also can be used for a DOS attack, but who cares? (Unless someone like an AI exposes it to the internet...)

For things where reliability does matter, AIs may be a fad for a couple of years, but it won't last, for exactly the reasons you mention. For a bunch of things, reliability really matters. For those places, you cannot be replaced by AI. Migrate to those places.

That leaves the problem of the next couple years. You may need to look for places that understand, today, that reliability matters more than fast slop.

> Why read a book, when you can just get AI summary of it?

I mean... for books (and movies) that I'm mildly interested in but don't want to take N hours to wade through, I've been reading the Wikipedia summaries for a while. AI is here now, but I still go to Wikipedia, because I actually trust it more than the AI summary.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#18

Post by embedding-shape »

fnoef wrote: post #15
embedding-shape wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don't get it :) I've written more about how I see it being here: https://emsh.cat/good-taste/ To repeat, I'm not worried. Making music might be easier than before, but having "Good Taste" isn't easier than before, it's still hard. And good stuff isn't just produced and made, they have decisions and choices behind them, and make the wrong ones, your thing ends up sucking. If you just care about average con…

It's a good read, thanks for sharing. But the flaw in it, is the fact that you think that the world is built on merit, i.e. Good Taste, as you call it. And while sure, merit / good taste are important, but if you look at the mainstream it's filled with average. Now, from the consumer side you can claim "what do you care about the mainstream, just look for good taste, and you will find it", and I agree with you. But I…

> But the flaw in it, is the fact that you think that the world is built on merit, i.e. Good Taste, as you call it.

That's not a fact, because I never said this, nor is it in the article. What from the article made you believe that I think that?

> but if there is very little demand for good taste things

There isn't, there is huge demand for good things, and it'll only get higher as more people attempt to just produce shit things.

Re: Ask HN: What's the Point Anymore?

#20

Post by cpt_sobel »

> destroyed by AI: art, music, books

Some people crave the connection to the human experience through your examples. And personally, I wouldn't care in the least about any "work of art" created by a model. A model could produce the sequel to Grapes of Wrath, but I wouldn't care, because what experience did it have to motivate it towards it?

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