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The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

arnon.dk

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Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#201

Post by mvdtnz »

stonogo wrote: post #180
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…

all builders are cowboys What does this mean?

Maybe this is regional. "Cowboy" in reference to a tradie means someone who is untrustworthy and out to rip you off or cheap out on work. They'll do the work but often to a low standard or with major defects they try to hide.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#202

Post by mvdtnz »

franktankbank wrote: post #185
stonogo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all builders are cowboys What does this mean?

They don't really do rework they'll rather keep plowing on assuming some slack in an ethereal safety margin.

That's not what this phrase means.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#204

Post by renegat0x0 »

erpigna wrote: post #39
renegat0x0 wrote: post #35

I use RSS to follow these I want to hear. I do not follow recommendation, since RSS reader is my window to the world. I follow even AI slop via reddit RSS. I control however what comes in.

I'm looking for a practical and possibly Open Source way to filter noise from RSS feeds, have you got any recommendation?

I have seen a lot recommends for karakeep.

I disagree with people suggesting removing noisy RSS feeds, as some are noisy, yet sometime useful. I think RSS client needs advanced filtering and search.

I use my own project for RSS https://github.com/rumca-js/Django-link-archive, but it should be considered 'alpha' as I move fast and break things. It provides me functionality that I miss in most of the clients, and it is a web client, so I can access it through mobile and PC, no need for sync. I am not a front-end dev so it does not look that much appealing.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#205

Post by [deleted] »

strogonoff wrote: post #199
spwa4 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason people don't accept this is that it fundamentally changes society, it is because of what it means, not because it is or isn't possible. Net-growth society: new wealth is being created, if you can be part of the creation you get wealth No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else Oh plus because essentially every society that experienced it legislated it's way into a no-grow…

In a no-growth (or even degrowth , which I have recently learned is a thing) society taking what you need from someone else is not the only option: someone can also choose to share it. A society like that may be quite different in innumerable ways, of course, and the idea of “wealth” in the way we understand it may not make sense.

[deleted]

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#206

Post by vkou »

spwa4 wrote: post #195
zahlman wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is pretty mindblowing how we have basically accepted growth as the default state It is completely to be expected, exactly because it is not new. It's been scarcely a generation since the peak in net change of the global human population, and will likely be at least another two generations before that population reaches its maximum value. It rose faster than exponentially for a few centuries before that ( https:/…

The reason people don't accept this is that it fundamentally changes society, it is because of what it means, not because it is or isn't possible. Net-growth society: new wealth is being created, if you can be part of the creation you get wealth No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else Oh plus because essentially every society that experienced it legislated it's way into a no-grow…

> No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else

Wealth is created by work. In any society, be it growth or no-growth, you can create and acquire wealth by working. (Not necessarily for a wage. Working for yourself also creates wealth. Every time you make yourself dinner, or patch a torn pant leg, or change your car's oil, you are creating wealth.)

The problem is that non-working parasites (investors, rent-seekers, warlords) can't acquire wealth in a no-growth society without taking it from someone else.[1] (Because in a no-growth society, investing on the net is ~zero-returns, ~zero-value.)

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[1] They take it from someone else in a growth society, too, but a person who works and loses half their productive surplus to a rent seeker is still getting the benefits of growth. In a no-growth society, the rent-seeker's gain is 100% someone else's net loss.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#207

Post by gusfoo »

arnon wrote: post #21
titanomachy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> This is just how I write in the last few years

"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us", may be the apposite bon mot.

That aside, I did enjoy your article. Thank you.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#208

Post by pron »

mvdtnz wrote: post #200
pron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem isn't "The NYT is wrong 5% of the time". It's that institutions are systematically wrong in predictable ways that happen to benefit their point of view. It's not random. It's planned.

But that source X is wrong - intentionally or not, in a biased way or not - does not entail that you should trust source Y. That just doesn't follow. To prefer an alternative source you must find one that is more trustworthy.

The problem is that often we have to choose because decisions are binary: either we get a vaccine or not. For example, to decide not to get a vaccine, the belief that the medical establishment are lying liars is just not enough. We must also believe that the anti-vaxxers are more knowledgeable and trustworthy than the medical establishment. Doctors could be lying 60% of the time and still be more likely to be right than, say, RFK. It's not enough to only look at one side; we have to compare two claims against each other. For the best outcome, you have to believe someone who's wrong 80% of the time over someone who's wrong 90% of the time. Even if you believe in a systemic, non-random bias, that doesn't help you unless you have a more reliable source of information.

And this is exactly the inconsistent epistemology that we see all around us: People reject one source of information by some metric they devise for themselves and then accept another source that fails on that metric even more.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#209

Post by fellowmartian »

vesche wrote: post #105
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…

Relevant: https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2025/07/05/are-w...

It’s quite rich coming from this guy, but I’m glad he’s seen the truth nonetheless.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#210

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

drakythe wrote: post #26
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.

Has any big-tech company every used "Torment Nexus" unironically as some new project name, or any startup used is their company/product name? I feel its close if it hasn't happened already. I mean the unironic use.
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