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Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

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Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#31

Post by poszlem »

ayaen wrote: post #16
TekMol wrote: post #3

Ice delivery guy goes on strike. Demands ban of fridges.

I am sorry, the analogy is completely lost on me. Care to expand? Thanks.

The analogy compares a writer complaining about generative AI to an ice delivery person demanding a ban on refrigerators. Here's the breakdown:

Ice delivery guy = Traditional writer Going on strike = Complaining or protesting Demanding ban of fridges = Calling for restrictions on generative AI The analogy suggests that the writer's complaint about generative AI is as futile and outdated as an ice delivery person trying to ban refrigerators. Just as refrigerators made ice delivery largely obsolete, the implication is that generative AI might be seen as a technological advancement that could potentially impact traditional writing roles.

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#32

Post by CrazyStat »

erickhill wrote: post #7
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #2

Leave and go where. Seems like a losing battle, eventually all platforms will be co-opted to feed AI. Even if you have a private web site (blog), it can be scraped, and how are the little guys going to fight it?

Can we not put lines in our robots.txt files to block being crawled?

AI companies are ignoring robots.txt in the race to slurp up the entire internet [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/m...

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#33

Post by tempfile »

happytoexplain wrote: post #17
ziddoap wrote: post #10

> Unlike many, I don’t sit on the fence. I hate it with a passion. I think it’s an affront to humanity and will ultimately cause our downfall. If an article uses AI, even just for header images, I don’t read it. This seems just as silly of a take as the fervent supporters of sticking AI everywhere. AI helps in some areas (e.g. assisting medical diagnoses) and is shitty in others (e.g. spam content). I wonder if the a…

I'm somewhere between the author and a true-neutral stance. Something can be "an affront to humanity [that] will ultimately cause our downfall" and also "help in some areas". Those aren't mutually exclusive, logically, despite sounding that way.

It's coherent (just) for something to be an affront to humanity and helpful for some tasks. It's emphatically not coherent for you to consider something an affront to humanity and to condone using it.

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#34

Post by cjf101 »

erickhill wrote: post #7
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #2

Leave and go where. Seems like a losing battle, eventually all platforms will be co-opted to feed AI. Even if you have a private web site (blog), it can be scraped, and how are the little guys going to fight it?

Can we not put lines in our robots.txt files to block being crawled?

There was a bunch of reporting on how AI companies and researchers were using tools that ignored robots.txt. It's a "polite request" that these companies had a strong incentive to ignore, so they did. That incentive is still there, so it is likely that some of them will continue to do so.

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#35

Post by mulhoon »

The quality of Medium articles (and comments) has really gone down over the past few years. Lots of attention grabbing headlines “5 ways to X” “Stop doing X” and less well-written content overall. I’m not sure if most writers hopped over to Substack but it feels like a cheaper place than it used to be.

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#36

Post by rvbissell »

erickhill wrote: post #7
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #2

Leave and go where. Seems like a losing battle, eventually all platforms will be co-opted to feed AI. Even if you have a private web site (blog), it can be scraped, and how are the little guys going to fight it?

Can we not put lines in our robots.txt files to block being crawled?

Someone who doesn't care about polluting our corpus is not going to care about your robots.txt

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#37

Post by imranq »

I see where the author is coming from - like any new technology, AI is getting abused significantly: Better scams, stealing creator IP, developing thought crutches, emotional dependencies on artificial companions, vast energy usage, and the collapse of personality and knowledge across the societal mean.

Some people say that LLMs make you more productive, but guess what? The value captured by your productivity will only enrich the companies that employ you. Companies will hire fewer people and eliminate positions all for "shareholder value" and to give a small raise to a C-suite executive.

But at the same time, we could definitely envision a world where these models accelerate human creativity - smaller high performance LLMs working on the edge, responsible usage for learning and skill development, helping people build their own voice.

The key is to identify the subtle line between dependence and empowerment, and to know when one is accruing AI-debt at the expense of their own abilities.

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#38

Post by tempfile »

stonethrowaway wrote: post #30
S0y wrote: post #8

Semi related but, googling a problem just to stumble on an 100% written by AI Medium article as the top result, is the bane of my existence. So really, I can get behind the author.

Assuming it answers the problem, what’s the issue?

The answer is probably wrong?

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#39

Post by sofixa »

stonethrowaway wrote: post #30
S0y wrote: post #8

Semi related but, googling a problem just to stumble on an 100% written by AI Medium article as the top result, is the bane of my existence. So really, I can get behind the author.

Assuming it answers the problem, what’s the issue?

It wastes your time because it's full of cruft. And you cannot assume to trust it will solve your problem, so you're risking losing even more time.

Re: Why I'm leaving Medium: AI policy

#40

Post by stonethrowaway »

joshstrange wrote: post #26

Why this writer ever thought Medium ever cared about specifically human-written stories is beyond me. Medium is a bad idea for many reasons but AI doesn’t make my list at all. Also the stanch anti-AI stance is incredibly off putting, saying things like they won’t even read an article with an AI-generated image or AI-assisted (as if they can actually tell with certainty). AI (LLMs) are a tool, nothing more, no differe…

Was the author ever not-obscure?
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