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Please Use AI

shawnsmucker.substack.com

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Re: Please Use AI

#71

Post by cpt_sobel »

causal wrote: post #8

This does not just apply to AI. Uber, AirBNB, Facebook, etc. all basically serve as paid surrogates for what once was done by community. Sometimes it feels like all digital technology is simply an enterprise to replace human to human contact.

> Sometimes it feels like all digital technology is simply an enterprise to replace human to human contact.

Hasn't it always been the case that technology reduces the contact with other people? Now with cars we don't need to sit next to others on trains, we don't need to ask pedestrians for directions thanks to GPS etc.

Re: Please Use AI

#72

Post by SlinkyOnStairs »

frankest wrote: post #15

The poem is absolutely on point. Nobody wants to consume AI content, especially on the parts that should be all-human. At the same time the poem is published on Substack, instead of a hand-crafted custom blog. There are 1) the tools that let us surface the human, then there is 2) the human, and then there comes 3) the factory generated business (someone doesn’t care but has to do it) content pretending to be human to…

> At the same time the poem is published on Substack, instead of a hand-crafted custom blog.

Look. I am a massive fan of the janky old manually created website. will never die and it is hilarious that browsers will have to retain the feature for years to come.

But "the blog was generated by a machine" isn't the problem with Substack. "Machine Generated" blog sites have been around ever since blogs went big. Blogspot and Wordpress were practically a duopoly in the peak days of blogging. The problem with Substack is two (really, only the latter):

1) It's gotten the Post-Zuckerberg "everything must follow our company letterhead" disease. That's not a substack exclusive problem and designers need to be bullied harder for it.

2) It's the nazi bar where all the nazi blogs are. This one is the actual reason you should not be using substack.

Re: Please Use AI

#73

Post by cpt_sobel »

randusername wrote: post #21

Reminds me of that silly Adam Sandler movie Click (2006). In that movie only the protagonist had the magic remote to fast-forward through existence. It was a tragedy of self-destruction. But what if everyone gets the remote at roughly the same time?

This movie hit harder than my highest expectations from an Adam Sandler movie.

Re: Please Use AI

#74

Post by sublinear »

I sometimes wonder if these same people pushing AI onto devs would ask the same of their lawyers and accountants.

If someone hasn't gotten the memo yet, writing code got that serious at least a decade ago when web ate the world and chrome had won the web. Probably even earlier for certain industries like financial institutions.

This isn't just about "human imperfections" or something else sentimental. It's the fact that quality really does matter in a huge number of situations and the consequences are not forgiving in the slightest.

Re: Please Use AI

#75

Post by bigfishrunning »

yanis_t wrote: post #43

Be sure to use a mobile phone when making your next, I don’t know, meal plan, for example. Definitely do not come in person to your friend who loves to cook and ask her for her favorite recipes or tips or ways to save time making meals

You've missed the point. You're describing replacing a method of communication, the poem describes replacing a relationship.

Re: Please Use AI

#76

Post by PaulRobinson »

frankest wrote: post #15

The poem is absolutely on point. Nobody wants to consume AI content, especially on the parts that should be all-human. At the same time the poem is published on Substack, instead of a hand-crafted custom blog. There are 1) the tools that let us surface the human, then there is 2) the human, and then there comes 3) the factory generated business (someone doesn’t care but has to do it) content pretending to be human to…

The "If it's on substack, it's not a real blog, it's just sparkling page bloat" take is a little strained for me.

The content is great. The tool gives writers a low-friction mechanism to charge for premium content, and works on most people's devices. I would rather have read this on substack, than the author get frustrated at having to learn how to publish pages by hand and give up.

Maybe we just need a better alternative to substack if that's the problem.

Re: Please Use AI

#77

Post by d--b »

I really dislike the condescending tone of the person who thinks they discovered the secret of happiness, but instead of distilling their wisdom for joy chooses to shame others in a passive aggressive poem.

Sure, buddy, you know how to live a meaningful life, then why are you trolling the internet?

Re: Please Use AI

#78

Post by llm_nerd »

Brendinooo wrote: post #29

This makes me think about that "Dad, how do I?" YouTube channel that made headlines a few years back. People seem to be fine with such a thing existing, they don't seem to be lamenting that people might go to that channel instead of asking their own fathers. Like, apparently Mr. Smucker has a friend who's into fly fishing, and the time to talk to that person. Great! Good for him! If I do not have a friend who's into…

>they don't seem to be lamenting that people might go to that channel instead of asking their own fathers.

Much of the anti-AI sentiment has this sort of false dichotomy as its foundation. An imagination that the alternative to AI is the purest form of manual labour in some sort of idealized, bucolic form, filled with heartfelt, purposeful, sincere human connection.

So every time I'm thinking about what to make with the ingredients I have, I should text someone who cooks (I cook, so this is a hypothetical)? What a ridiculous canard, and absolutely no one would appreciate that. I can enjoy human contact without inventing ridiculous justifications.

Further, to quote from Unlearning Economics, everything already was AI [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2bn0HvUwg], at least in the demonized way that people use that phrase.

Wedding speeches? Overwhelmingly cliche bullshit, and if you've been to a number of weddings it starts to get incredible how blatant this is. The whole manner of "genres" of music, art, and so on, is everyone copying each other and mimicking styles.

Even the recurring "I can spot AI websites!" nonsense, as if everyone wasn't already copy/pasting the trend du jour.

Even programming, this site is stuffed with "I lament the loss of the craft" pearl clutching articles daily, yet most of you are terrible programmers. I mean this as nicely as I can. It's astonishing seeing the actual state of the industry and hearing people imagining the world's most skillful, conscientious, thoughtful developer as the only alternative to AI assistance. It's rather amazing.

And long before AI people were largely just duct-taping together whatever libraries they found mentioned in a StackOverflow post.

Is it possible to hand craft better creations? Absolutely. Was that the norm pre-LLM? LOL, not even remotely. People were churning out enormous volumes of garbage, in every field.

AI isn't the reason people aren't making "human connections", and the foundation of the article is perverse.

Re: Please Use AI

#79

Post by randoments »

antonyt wrote: post #57
causal wrote: post #8

This does not just apply to AI. Uber, AirBNB, Facebook, etc. all basically serve as paid surrogates for what once was done by community. Sometimes it feels like all digital technology is simply an enterprise to replace human to human contact.

Facebook, sure, but Uber and AirBNB? I don't see how Uber has displaced some community function. AirBNB is arguably destructive to communities, but again how was community fulfilling the need it attempts to address?

with classified ads? or calling the local tourist office? Like people didnt rent a house for their holiday before airbnb

Re: Please Use AI

#80

Post by threetonesun »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #66
frankest wrote: post #15

The poem is absolutely on point. Nobody wants to consume AI content, especially on the parts that should be all-human. At the same time the poem is published on Substack, instead of a hand-crafted custom blog. There are 1) the tools that let us surface the human, then there is 2) the human, and then there comes 3) the factory generated business (someone doesn’t care but has to do it) content pretending to be human to…

Being great writer and capable of self-hosting your blog is a pretty unusual combination once you venture outside of the realm of tech.

It wasn't 20 years ago, and it shouldn't be today, but somehow we've made it harder. I suppose some think AI will "fix" it but I tend to think it'll just make it worse.
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