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Warranty Void If Regenerated

nearzero.software

111–120 of 353 posts

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#111
"This was the mechanic’s paradox: the cheaper you were relative to the cost of failure, the more your clients needed you; and the more they needed you, the more they resisted the implication that they’d need you again."

This is my common issue from building websites for SMEs. It's not until Google updates their algorithm - killing their ranking and their sales leads slow that you hear from them.

There is wisdom in constantly up-selling to your customers (we offer management services, SEO and are cautiously moving in AIO), they may say no, but you have a fall back that you offered things that would have mitigated their current crisis.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#112
I started reading this and it gave a strong whiff of Richard Stallman’s “the right to read” - once dystopian and now a commonplace.

Then I started scrolling and thought the author was just verbose like RMS.

When it just kept going I was just mad to have fallen into the AI tarpit.

Fun idea. 5x too long. I need to calibrate my ai spidey sense better.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#113
post #106

When I saw this the other day -- and it just went on and on, like a good human author who was going to write this kind of story probably wouldn't -- I looked for a note that it was AI-generated, and I didn't find it. All I found was a human name given as the author. We might generously say that the AI was a ghostwriter, or an unattributed collaboration with a ghostwriter, which IIUC is sometimes considered OK within…

I sadly agree with this sentiment. But to add my own thoughts, I wonder if our “human generation” (all consciously existing today) are just plainly dinosaurs. Like in three decades we’ll have a society that knew LLMs from birth.

As such, we can’t comprehend the world they live in. A world in which you ask your device to give you any story and it gives you an entire book to read. I’d like to think that as humans we inevitably want whatever is next. So I’d like to think this future generation will learn to not only control, but be beyond more creative than current people can even imagine.

Did people who used typewriters imagine a world with iPhones? Did people flying planes imagine self landing rockets? Did people riding horses imagine electric cars? Did people living in caves imagine ocean crossing ships?

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#114
post #36

This sort of article really needs at least a vague clue as to what it is about. It's a long article and from skimming I see chat of farming, software, GPS. I can't tell whether this is worth investing time to read if I can't even tell what it may be about

It's worth reading. It's about AI.

Having read most of it, I don't agree that it's worth reading. A bunch of made-up technical jargon and situations that never happened to frame specific problems that are part of the made-up situations using more jargon, in a farmer-centric area. It was a waste of time and a waste of concentration to try to make sense of it. There was no learning, nor was it worth quoting, nor comparing to anything else.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#115
post #106

When I saw this the other day -- and it just went on and on, like a good human author who was going to write this kind of story probably wouldn't -- I looked for a note that it was AI-generated, and I didn't find it. All I found was a human name given as the author. We might generously say that the AI was a ghostwriter, or an unattributed collaboration with a ghostwriter, which IIUC is sometimes considered OK within…

I sadly agree with this sentiment. But to add my own thoughts, I wonder if our “human generation” (all consciously existing today) are just plainly dinosaurs. Like in three decades we’ll have a society that knew LLMs from birth. As such, we can’t comprehend the world they live in. A world in which you ask your device to give you any story and it gives you an entire book to read. I’d like to think that as humans we in…

> Did people who used typewriters imagine a world with iPhones? Did people flying planes imagine self landing rockets?

Yes, science fiction writers and readers have, since before any of us were born.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about it that makes the story less interesting to you? It's the same story, down to the same delicate details. When AI-slop stops being, well, slop, and just is everything that humans do, but much better, and much more efficient—will we have the same repulsion to it that many of us do now? I find it interesting to ponder. We look at the luddite movement as futile and somewhat fatalistic in a way. I feel li…

People had a revulsion to eating refrigerated foods. The developed world got over it. We're comfortably on the path to becoming Eloi who will trust everything the magic box does for us.

> We're comfortably on the path to becoming Eloi who will trust everything the magic box does for us.

And if you've read literally any science fiction you will know the myriad ways that could be absolutely terrible for us

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans build friendships and relationships on shared experiences. There is an element of relationship-through-experiencing-a-thing. Whether it's going for a walk together or the classic first date template of dinner and a movie. The shared experience is the thing. With stories that shared experience is between author and reader. Book clubs etc will try to extend that "shared experience" but primarily it is author rea…

...and what meaning does it have? It means, "Wow. Cool. I'm a member of a species that taught rocks to think. Holy fuck. That's pretty insanely fucking awesome. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Fuck." That's about all it means. Nothing was removed from your life, but something optional was added.

I think "I'm a member of a species chasing our own extinction by worshipping an idiot machine god for the purposes of profit. That's so insanely depressing. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck"

It has absolutely made my life worse not better

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#118
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a major bummer. When I first read the story (a few days ago, maybe?) I thought it was an interesting metaphor that didn't quite line up with the observed details of software development with AI. I assumed the writer was a journalist or author with a non-technical background trying to explore a more "utopian" vision of where trends could go. Without the inferred writer, it's much less interesting to me, except as…

What is it about it that makes the story less interesting to you? It's the same story, down to the same delicate details. When AI-slop stops being, well, slop, and just is everything that humans do, but much better, and much more efficient—will we have the same repulsion to it that many of us do now? I find it interesting to ponder. We look at the luddite movement as futile and somewhat fatalistic in a way. I feel li…

As a couple sibling comments said, I took it for an insight into the way an optimistic writer might see AI software development becoming a new form of "end-user programming" or "citizen developer" tooling. I'm personally too deep in the weeds to ever see it becoming empowering in that way (if nothing else, this will be an incredibly centralizing technology and whoever wins the "arms race" [assuming we we're not in a bubble destined to pop soon] will absolutely have the possible Toms and Megans of such a future by the short hairs). But I love end-user programming, or whatever we're calling it now! (I was partial to "shadow IT" - made it sound really cool.) So I enjoyed the idea that somebody saw AI as a "bicycle for the mind" in that sense, even if I feared they'd end up disappointed.

But there was nobody there, and I'm only disappointed in myself for not noticing.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans build friendships and relationships on shared experiences. There is an element of relationship-through-experiencing-a-thing. Whether it's going for a walk together or the classic first date template of dinner and a movie. The shared experience is the thing. With stories that shared experience is between author and reader. Book clubs etc will try to extend that "shared experience" but primarily it is author rea…

...and what meaning does it have? It means, "Wow. Cool. I'm a member of a species that taught rocks to think. Holy fuck. That's pretty insanely fucking awesome. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Fuck." That's about all it means. Nothing was removed from your life, but something optional was added.

[flagged]

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#120
post #61

I'm trying to sort out my own emotions on this. I did not realize this was AI generated while reading it until I came to the comments here... And I feel genuinely had? Like "oh wow, you got me"... I don't like this feeling. It's certainly the longest thing (I know about) I've taken the time to read that was AI generated. The writing struck me as genuinely good, like something out of The New Yorker. I found the story…

The duality of generated content.

It feels great to use.

It feels terrible to have it used on you.

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