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I don't enjoy the Internet any more

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Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#101
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fediverse still has a sense of community to me, and there are alt-webs like geminispace. All of it is anti-capitalist and anti-AI which should at least delay their eventual consumption by the rot, although holding it back entirely is impossible. As tired as I am seeing the constant stream of LLM stories (and even worse, vibe-coded projects) on HN i'm getting just as tired of the regular posts complaining about ho…

> HN never seemed to be very full of joy or whimsy to me (the culture seems to afraid of "being like Reddit") Reddit is full of the same hundred jokes being endlessly recycled in slightly different variants, along with people desperate to come up with a good pun to make their life complete.

And HN is full of the same hundred low-effort circular arguments, logical fallacies and pointless fence-painting debates being endlessly recycled in slightly different variants, along with people desperate to come up with some witty retort or outlandish extrapolation in order to appear intellectual and ahead of the curve.

It's basically the same picture, and if we're talking about the spirit of the "old internet" that everyone seems to miss, Reddit hits it far better than HN.

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a bit of AI somewhere without thinking too much and now the whole younger generation thinks you're Hitler.

Pretty much. While I get the general vibe against using too much AI, many are over correcting.

I saw a story recently about a school in Kentucky that published student agendas with AI and apparently no human supervision, and it had hallucinated states and elements on the periodic table and the like[0]. This shouldn't happen, even with the most optimistic estimates of AI's capabilities being true, yet there is a cultlike mentality around it that leads people to lose their minds and throw even basic common sense out the window. It's being used to publish garbage scientific papers [1] and rewrite the historical narrative [2]. AI is being used everywhere, with abandon, and seemingly little to no oversight or plan to manage the inevitable consequences of the flood of slop and bullshit that it creates. And then on top of that there is the environmental and economic impact of data centers, the social alienation, deskilling and intellectual rot its use creates, and the fact that the big AI companies all seem to be run by a cult of technofascist psychopaths. And the cherry on the dystopian sundae being that we're told we have no choice, that it's inevitable regardless of the consequences and we just have to adapt to whatever future these psychopaths create for us and whatever role they decide we have in it.

I don't think it's overcorrection so much as a proportional backlash against society losing its mind over this thing.

[0] https://www.fox5vegas.com/2026/08/14/middle-school-student-a...

[1] https://scienceintegritydigest.com/2024/02/15/the-rat-with-t...

[2] https://marinaamaral.substack.com/p/ai-is-creating-fake-hist...

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#103
post #45

I've been on the "internet" since before there was one, back in 1984-6 when bang paths were email addresses and DNS hadn't been invented yet. I was on one of the earliest BBSs (pre-FIDO) in Melbourne run by Peter Jetson and "Bear's Bull" running on a CDC-6000 at RMIT. It's been an "eternal September" since Prodigy & Compuserve and then AOL joined the net, Usenet started degrading, people had more then 4-line sigs wit…

What is the problem with time descending blogs?

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#104
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. While I get the general vibe against using too much AI, many are over correcting.

I saw a story recently about a school in Kentucky that published student agendas with AI and apparently no human supervision, and it had hallucinated states and elements on the periodic table and the like[0]. This shouldn't happen, even with the most optimistic estimates of AI's capabilities being true, yet there is a cultlike mentality around it that leads people to lose their minds and throw even basic common sense…

Yeah, we're all aware of these drawbacks. Does it mean I deserve all the hate in the world if I use AI to make graphics for my hobbyist video game? Without AI, I would simply just not make the game, so no graphic designer is losing their income here.

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#105
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a story recently about a school in Kentucky that published student agendas with AI and apparently no human supervision, and it had hallucinated states and elements on the periodic table and the like[0]. This shouldn't happen, even with the most optimistic estimates of AI's capabilities being true, yet there is a cultlike mentality around it that leads people to lose their minds and throw even basic common sense…

Yeah, we're all aware of these drawbacks. Does it mean I deserve all the hate in the world if I use AI to make graphics for my hobbyist video game? Without AI, I would simply just not make the game, so no graphic designer is losing their income here.

If you're aware of all of the negative externalities of using AI and just don't care as long as you get some mediocre and badly designed graphics for a game you aren't even trying to sell because you refuse to pay someone or take advantage of the universe of free assets out there then yes, I think you deserve some criticism. Hobbyist game development existed before AI and people still managed without the Torment Nexus.

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#106
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we're all aware of these drawbacks. Does it mean I deserve all the hate in the world if I use AI to make graphics for my hobbyist video game? Without AI, I would simply just not make the game, so no graphic designer is losing their income here.

If you're aware of all of the negative externalities of using AI and just don't care as long as you get some mediocre and badly designed graphics for a game you aren't even trying to sell because you refuse to pay someone or take advantage of the universe of free assets out there then yes, I think you deserve some criticism. Hobbyist game development existed before AI and people still managed without the Torment Nexu…

I hope you are as passionately against other harmful things like flying and animal agriculture. Otherwise this is just blind fanaticism, exactly the same phenomenon we were discussing.

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#107
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're aware of all of the negative externalities of using AI and just don't care as long as you get some mediocre and badly designed graphics for a game you aren't even trying to sell because you refuse to pay someone or take advantage of the universe of free assets out there then yes, I think you deserve some criticism. Hobbyist game development existed before AI and people still managed without the Torment Nexu…

I hope you are as passionately against other harmful things like flying and animal agriculture. Otherwise this is just blind fanaticism, exactly the same phenomenon we were discussing.

I don't think that choosing not using an AI to generate game code and graphics versus using existing tools and talent is "blind fanaticism" but clearly for some reason you consider doing so to be the moral high ground. I don't know why this is a hill you want to die on but I'll leave you to it.

Re: I don't enjoy the Internet any more

#108
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you are as passionately against other harmful things like flying and animal agriculture. Otherwise this is just blind fanaticism, exactly the same phenomenon we were discussing.

I don't think that choosing not using an AI to generate game code and graphics versus using existing tools and talent is "blind fanaticism" but clearly for some reason you consider doing so to be the moral high ground. I don't know why this is a hill you want to die on but I'll leave you to it.

Mate, just trying to argue for moderation and perspective in AI hate.
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