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Please Use AI

shawnsmucker.substack.com

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Re: Please Use AI

#261

Post by miunau »

cortesoft wrote: post #206
ilikecakeandpie wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being intentionally intellectually dishonest with your take here and this an absurd whataboutism. The author isn't telling people to stop using AI for work, coding tasks, etc he's saying to stop using it as a replacement for human interaction. Anecdotally, I've seen the effects that people delegating their executive functions to AI have had and the damage is quick and harrowing

If that is the argument, it makes even less sense. Who is using AI to replace human interaction? People use AI to replace other computer solutions for things. This is arguing against a straw man.

I suggest reading James Muldoon's "Love Machines" for a thorough answer to your question.

Re: Please Use AI

#262

Post by zug_zug »

I mean I get it hits you in the feels... but at the same time... DO talk to your friends, but then use AI too?

Like I don't want to say it's a strawman exactly, because some people probably do use AI too much. But it's a really emotional (and not exactly logical) play to emotions that sort of implies don't use AI at all, which I don't agree with.

Like if you're writing a speech for my wedding, please do a sanity check against AI before saying a really crass or risky joke. Because some of us have those maybe-on-the-spectrum acquaintances and AI actually can be a great sanity check for those people.

Re: Please Use AI

#263

Post by jimbokun »

aogaili wrote: post #249

Passive aggressive piece of garbage, he thinks everyone has those moments and people welcome them in open arms.

If you don't have a relationships like this, developing some is probably the best priority right now.

Re: Please Use AI

#265

Post by beej71 »

btilly wrote: post #121
cstever wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Take, for example, speeches. I do not let AI write my speeches. But my speeches are better for having been critiqued by AI. But the result is still my speech. My thoughts, my ideas, my words, and my meaning. Just improved with rounds of feedback about where it fell flat, where I was likely to lose people, and so on. Feedback that I had to fix. > So do not let AI write your speeches. But do use it to push yourself ha…

Odd. I never had any friends, families, or coworkers who were willing to be available for a dozen rough drafts. I've only had ones who were willing to talk during the idea stage, or after it was closer to a final speech. For me, AI gives me feedback at places that I wouldn't have received it before. It does not replace the human feedback that I still look for.

I just acted as an amateur editor for my friend's new novel. It took a long time to get through with hundreds or thousands of minor corrections and notes. I'm certain I outperformed an LLM for a lot of that in terms of quality.

Re: Please Use AI

#266

Post by layer8 »

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?

Vernor Vinge’s “bobble” series provides a variation of that scenario: https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime

Re: Please Use AI

#267

Post by jimbokun »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #165
jimbokun wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can’t they continue to do so? Because we are talking to the AIs instead of talking to them. > After all, nothing the author’s written isn’t also true about Google, but nobody realized how bad of a mistake that was. There was plenty written about how Google was making us dumber because we didn't need to remember anything any more.

> instead of Citation needed. People did not stop talking to family, friends and colleagues just because they're able to leverage LLMs.

No, they stopped talking to family, friends and colleagues because they got addicted to social media algorithms.

Re: Please Use AI

#268

Post by SlinkyOnStairs »

holistio wrote: post #221
SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm building something that aims to take on a bunch of the issues Substack has. I'm aware of what you refer to in (2), I see the results of all the "use our agent to write content in your voice, _totally_ human" tools, I'm fed up with everything needing a recurring subscription. But I'm not entirely sure what you refer to in (1). Would you care to elaborate? I'd love to learn more.

> I'm aware of what you refer to in (2), I see the results of all the "use our agent to write content in your voice, _totally_ human" tools, I'm fed up with everything needing a recurring subscription.

I'm sorry but I think you're misunderstanding.

I do not mean "nazi" euphemistically. Not general right-wing politics, not even such hardcore opposition to immigration that it borders on Nazism. Not even crypto-fascists. (No not the bitcoin kind) I mean they're hosting blogs written by out and open nazis. The swastika-armband wearing kind that names their blog "NatSocToday".

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-s...

There's some contrived argument about net neutrality in all this, but the Substack people have been pretty clear about their support for these nazis beyond merely hosting them. (And no matter how you look at it, being on "The Site With All The Nazis" despite many better alternative existing, is going to be a bad look)

> (1). Would you care to elaborate? I'd love to learn more.

Look at any contemporary Facebook page. Look at any of the older MySpace pages that preceded it. (e.g. A 2008 news article with a screenshot attached https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24161656)

Spot the difference.

Early platforms up to and including MySpace included functionality to write custom CSS (and HTML)

While Zuckerberg is not solely to blame, Facebook has popularized the removal of those features in favour of a uniform website design.

(And congratulations to the smart readers, who at this point in the reply have put together that the "MySpace-era" sites died and were supplanted by the (post-)Facebook era sites right around the same time when smartphones became big and that removing user-CSS features means the pages look the same in-app as on the web as well as making mobile-web responsiveness significantly easier.)

The consequence of this is a significantly more uniform and boring web, which amplifies the "soulless" feel of many of these newer Medium/Substack/etc blogs, as compared to older platforms.

Re: Please Use AI

#269

Post by shrubby »

kccqzy wrote: post #242
ryandrake wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since I started experimenting with AI coding, I've totally lost that feeling of accomplishment. For projects I actually developed by typing in the code, it feels like I actually did something--like here's something I built and am responsible for bringing into the world. When I finish an AI-built project, I feel...nothing. Just that empty: "Code now exists where it didn't exist before, but I didn't really do anyt…

That’s why fully AI written projects are only interesting to those who care only about productivity (i.e. business use cases) rather than the developer’s enjoyment and satisfaction. For my own sanity, I never allow AI to do everything. Either I write some code and turn to AI for debugging help and code review, or I let AI write the initial draft and I debug the AI-written code.

Meaning, purpose, essence.

Instead of void shit, empty pleasure.

Re: Please Use AI

#270

Post by NoGravitas »

cortesoft wrote: post #217
dietr1ch wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but no one has a book on pretty much anything at their fingertips that you open and find a hopefully good chapter on what you wanted. With books you needed to consult people on which book to read first.

No, you go to the library and find the book. That is what I did before the internet.

And there's someone working at the library who can help you find the right book to meet your need, if you talk to them.
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