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Knitting bullshit

katedaviesdesigns.com

201–210 of 221 posts

Re: Knitting bullshit

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only care about the material and physical utility of the product, you can order the sweater from AliExpress for 5% of the cost and no time spent.

Knitting is enjoyable for many people and can even be a form of stress relief. AliExpress is just more consumption.

The same way that the AI generated podcast about knitting, or engaging in consumption is enjoyable for many people and a form of stress relief, which was the point that the comment above was criticizing.

So the conclusion is that the utility of the activity is subjective, and if most people spend their time listening to AI factually incorrect podcasts about knitting and enjoying it, it's no different than knitting yourself and enjoying it. The blog was poor in this disambiguation, and pushed a more Aristotole-like ontological view of what is meaningful, which is more common view in engineering/hard-science dominated fields.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knitting is enjoyable for many people and can even be a form of stress relief. AliExpress is just more consumption.

The same way that the AI generated podcast about knitting, or engaging in consumption is enjoyable for many people and a form of stress relief, which was the point that the comment above was criticizing. So the conclusion is that the utility of the activity is subjective, and if most people spend their time listening to AI factually incorrect podcasts about knitting and enjoying it, it's no different than knitting yo…

They are not the same. One is a passive thing (viewing) and the other is active (physical creation). We should not mistake one for the other. It is like the difference between listening to music and making it.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way that the AI generated podcast about knitting, or engaging in consumption is enjoyable for many people and a form of stress relief, which was the point that the comment above was criticizing. So the conclusion is that the utility of the activity is subjective, and if most people spend their time listening to AI factually incorrect podcasts about knitting and enjoying it, it's no different than knitting yo…

They are not the same. One is a passive thing (viewing) and the other is active (physical creation). We should not mistake one for the other. It is like the difference between listening to music and making it.

That's completely your subjective opinion that ignores reality. If people feel like they are participating in something, or they feel like their identity is based on something they consume passively, it's as valid as the physical thing.

If people did not feel good from passive consumption, no-one would be listening, following or looking at things, people would just make and create all the time, which is obviously not true.

If what you say is true, there would be no value from AI-generating blogs in question, or AI-generated movies/youtube films. Yet both have millions of downloads, views and listens, as the article mentions.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#204
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI's tendency to emit unsourced, untrue statements with authority is about the most unscientific thing you can get. AI is scientism : presenting science-flavoured things as a cultural marker.

Unfortunately there is a lot of cargo cult science around. I am not just referring to alternative viewpoints (which vary in validity), but even things from mainstream outlets masquerading as mainstream science. One such example was businesses claiming physical cash was unhygienic while promoting dirty touchscreens for ordering. Real science has indicated that many of these touchscreens are covered in bacteria if they…

> The Daily Mail has been telling us that the Yellowstone supervolcano is about to blow for nearly thirty years now at least.

That's the Daily Mail, though. They platformed Andrew Wakefield, a misrepresentation of science that has a massive body count.

A more serious question for Silicon Valley is the San Andreas fault.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#205

I feel like the alt captions for the images, although diligent and thorough, don't really capture the most important aspects.

That got downvoted. But alt images are for inclusivity, for people who can't see the images. Only one of these says "surreal", the rest of them would lead you to believe that they are normal images. So it's performative inclusivity that actually excludes people. It would have been better to say "this AI generated image of the act of knitting is accidentally bizarre in a subtle way" as the alt text for every image.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#206
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to a podcast a while back (human authored I'm pretty sure) about low-quality gutter level streamer content and how popular it is, speaking of personalities like asmongold and a vast number of even worse imitators. This content is made by humans but is pointless grindingly stupid filler spiced with a dash of obviously performative offensiveness. You're basically listening to a complete loser (or someone LAR…

The problem is I want to live in the "correct information age" - that qualifier is hard to find. I suspect that correct will cost money. Unfortunately I don't know how to pay for it. Many of the major publishers are also using AI with questionable fact checking. Where I most need correct information is my local small town news, and there isn't even a newspaper anymore. (there is the nearby big city newspaper, but the…

The correct Information Age is the one you get when you let your prefrontal cortex play DJ and pick your media based on what will enrich your life or teach you something.

If you let your brain stem drive you’ll spend your life scrolling political rage bait and slop.

Whether the slop is made by humans or machines doesn’t much matter. I kind of think the AI thing is a red herring, though AI does make it possible to make a lot of slop. So maybe AI is the thing that forces the issue.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#207
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they don't get many views. Not sure why the system suggests them? Maybe they could have an "AI crap" feedback button to warn others?

I have reported some of it to YouTube. No idea if anything will come of it. A lot of fake C.S. Lewis and Carl Jung content for some reason. It bears no resemblance to things they actually said.

A problem with reporting it is the AI producers can churn out thousands or millions of the things. They need some sort of automated or semi automated way of dealing with it I guess.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#208
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple answer is every single AI podcast is the chaff. Everything this company makes can just be ignored.

All they need to do is keep changing the creator tags. They won't give up without a fight. Are you willing to give up all new content creators?

Already the way I find out about new podcasts is from recommendations from people I know, positive reviews, or from them being associated with a podcast I listen to. For now all of those have meant I haven't been exposed to any AI ones.

Re: Knitting bullshit

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, well good thing that LLMs are good at summarizing articles, unlike generating believable knitting images.

I was a couple of images in before I sussed it. Bullshit images, but pleasing enough to look at. Without the images, it would have either been a big wall of text, which would have put me off reading, though I did give up about 25% of the way through after sussing the images and thus the incoherence in the argument. The images bring something to the article. They were cheap/quick to generate. The increase the potentia…

I may have different perception facilities in the brain, but to me the images in the article are horrifying. Such bad, Frankenstein-level, criminal butchering of absolutely everything!

Re: Knitting bullshit

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"silver lining" agree. if internet is so filled with slop. people will move away from it, start to read books, walk, hang out with each other again?

not when all the world capital is pushed into that bubble while eventually eroding the freedom to do all these things can't move away from internet when you can't earn money without it, and all the services require you to participate can't read books if no one is going to be publishing those, after they get out-competed by cheap endless slop no point in walking when cities are built for cars and businesses, and publi…

There are absolutely people "trying to survive" but nobody reading HN falls into that category.
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