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Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

asahilinux.org

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Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#51

Post by pjc50 »

roxolotl wrote: post #40
harringdev wrote: post #25

This is very hard to take seriously, it feels ideologically driven. The introduction where they claim LLMs are useless for software engineering is just incorrect. They are useful for many software engineering tasks. I do think that vibe coding is rubbish however, and more junior SWEs very regularly misuse LLMs to produce nonsense code. The only substantive point is that the LLM may regurgitate pieces of proprietary t…

Why is something ideologically driven inherently not worth taking seriously? I appreciate maybe their understanding will be more challenging to change but people don’t necessarily arrive at ideologies for unserious reasons nor do ideologies have unserious results.

Linux is, in and of itself, ideological.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#52

Post by mathiaspoint »

simianwords wrote: post #7

Environmental aspect is listed as one of the reasons which makes me think this is more ideological than practical.

I'm generally against the environmental movements and I think part of the problem is that the utility markets aren't elastic enough (or at all) to appropriately charge these companies for what they're doing.

But the huge amount of fresh water going to waste for cooling makes me very uncomfortable. In an ideal world it really should go the other way where the heat from the DC is used to desalinate salt water.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#53

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

mathiaspoint wrote: post #52
simianwords wrote: post #7

Environmental aspect is listed as one of the reasons which makes me think this is more ideological than practical.

I'm generally against the environmental movements and I think part of the problem is that the utility markets aren't elastic enough (or at all) to appropriately charge these companies for what they're doing. But the huge amount of fresh water going to waste for cooling makes me very uncomfortable. In an ideal world it really should go the other way where the heat from the DC is used to desalinate salt water.

> I'm generally against the environmental movements

why is that, may I ask? Always interested to learn about alternative viewpoints.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#54

Post by rootnod3 »

simianwords wrote: post #32
mschuster91 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote [1]: > Alex de Vries is a Ph.D. candidate at VU Amsterdam and founder of the digital-sustainability blog Digiconomist. In a report published earlier this month in Joule, de Vries has analyzed trends in AI energy use. He predicted that current AI technology could be on track to annually consume as much electricity as the entire country of Ireland (29.3 terawatt-hours per year). That's a lot of power, and the…

what is it as a percentage of all electricity used in the world? as a percentage of air travel? of using netflix? of eating meat? Population of Ireland is .06% of world's population btw.

AI is on track to use more energy than Bitcoin this year. And Netflix and others are activety trying to reduce their usage, whereas all I see on the AI side right now is people scrambling to use more for bigger models in the that at some point something usable might come out of it.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#55

Post by Fade_Dance »

electricboots wrote: post #6
Fade_Dance wrote: post #2

>Slop Generator Using that term through the article makes it hard to take seriously. I know nothing of this project but right off the bat it seems like a project that has little credibility just because of the tone used throughout. There's no need to turn it into a full-on tirade against this set of technologies either. Is this an appropriate place to complain about Reddit comments? Ironically, the author could well…

I think for a project like asahi, and frankly any project with a reasonable blast radius, software or otherwise, the article is on point. The authors lack of professionalism is a reasonable counter to the completely unhinged mainstream takes on ai/llms that we hear daily. I think the Reddit example provides useful, generally relatable context, otherwise missing to the average reader. My opinions are not to detract fr…

The mainstream seems sort of anti-AI from what I get in the non-tech sphere. Ex: artists generally hate it. Writers generally hate it. Many people think it's damaging to society and are very pessimistic.

Marketing is completely ridiculous when it comes to the topic, but when isn't that enough in the case with the next shiny thing. They even extolled the life changing virtues of 3D TVs for one of the cycles.

I honestly hear far more unhinged AI doomer stuff and constant pessimism that makes me sort of sad (after all it is cool tech that will do a lot of new things) than AI sycophantism, do you not? If so, where? Granted this is a US perspective, where there is currently a deep seated pessimistic undercurrent about just about everything right now.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#57

Post by nurettin »

andybak wrote: post #26
nurettin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some context into what they mean by "AI slop" https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-s... Reading the first two vulnerability reports makes it very clear.

Except they don't mean "specific examples of AI content are slop". They unambiguously say that all uses of generative AI are slop.

That is indeed controversial, I'm just saying that after seeing enough examples like the above one might be persuaded to think that way.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#58

Post by salawat »

lucumo wrote: post #37
terminalbraid wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luddites in what sense? Because there's the lazy, gross stereotype that's been perpetuated with negative connotation and the movement that was not at face anti-technology, but against how that technology was used to suppress labor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The historical luddites were not heroes of the working class. They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo. Dumb or evil, either way they are not people to be celebrated.

>The historical luddites were not heroes of the working class. They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo.

You mean like Doctors and lawyers? Make no mistake. Laws are threats. You can tell yourself it's about some imagined Quality concern, but the extreme resource burden to enter the field creates a stark class boundary that is in general very hard to get past.

If anything, the Luddites actually understood what society was doing even if that same society said they weren't.

The only difference between a craftsman destroying a machine, and a lawyer or doctor erecting entry barriers through political means is the tools being employed at the time.

>Dumb or evil, either way they are not people to be celebrated.

I see them as neither dumb, nor evil. I see them as both wise, intelligent, motivated, and thoroughly realistic about the direction society was headed and recognizing no one wanted to be on the hook for answering the question of "what about me?"

It's a natural response for a class suddenly evicted from a meta stability in the social order, and if anything should be vilified, it's the kind of rapid progress at all costs, bundled with lack of care who gets left behind by it that so characterizes the modern incarnation of tech-capitalism.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#59

Post by lucumo »

salawat wrote: post #58
lucumo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The historical luddites were not heroes of the working class. They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo. Dumb or evil, either way they are not people to be celebrated.

>The historical luddites were not heroes of the working class. They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo. You mean like Doctors and lawyers? Make no mistake. Laws are threats. You can tell yourself it's about some imagined Quality concern, but the extreme resource burden to enter the field creates a stark…

> it's the kind of rapid progress at all costs, bundled with lack of care who gets left behind by it

As opposed to the status quo at all costs, bundled with a lack of care for who gets to stay in the gutter?

They were just another special interest group that wanted to keep more of the pie for themselves, at the expense of people poorer than them. And they used violence to try to achieve that.

Re: Generative AI. "Slop Generators, are unsuitable for use [ ]"

#60

Post by mathiaspoint »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #53
mathiaspoint wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally against the environmental movements and I think part of the problem is that the utility markets aren't elastic enough (or at all) to appropriately charge these companies for what they're doing. But the huge amount of fresh water going to waste for cooling makes me very uncomfortable. In an ideal world it really should go the other way where the heat from the DC is used to desalinate salt water.

> I'm generally against the environmental movements why is that, may I ask? Always interested to learn about alternative viewpoints.

Often it's either overblown or outright wrong and just used by wealthy people to manipulate the public. I think protecting the environment is very important but most political environmental movements are doing something else.
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