I wonder if the bigger but more difficult to process shock is about how many people we trusted and respected beaming AI slop at us.
It's one of those situation where nobody is forcing anyone to use AI, and to use it unskillfully, to produce something and then share the result without even reviewing it. Even if this wasn't AI-made, this kind of behavior would be looked down upon.
Or maybe we've discovered that too many people around us have no taste and truly can't tell the difference between AI slop and the real thing?
That is a serious thing that will keep happening. I almost added it to this article, but I wanted to finish it up and be done.
Yes. It is shocking to see how the trusted will fall and we will come to see they never really had great taste to begin with. More and more as I get older, it feels like luck is more important. AI is going to expose more how little some people really care about their audience and view them as a simple means to an end, and at a certain point view them as a problem to solve.
I never knew the guy, but as I get older, I realize how many (fellow) adults are complete winging it--often plain making shit up. If not weren't for multiple levels of inspection, I'd expect to see a lot more has leaks or car brakes installed upside down.
I'm trying hard not to turn to cyncism. People are complex: someone slinging slop at me at work might be a warm, generous friend. But it's hard for me to square the two.
It's a cliche, but it's a brave new world out there. At least it's not boring!
That is quite an interesting case! Of course, it is simple to not plagiarize, I always thought. Yet, this man... obviously is talented otherwise. Weird.
Definitely agree with you that nobody has the answer and is simply going through the motions as another 24 hours comes to pass.
Hell (if it exists) will freeze over before I ever use AI for any creative endeavour. It can reduce noise on my photos and answer simple questions I pose in a search engine. But that's it. If others want to use it, that's up to them but I hope the big AI companies catch pneumonia (not just "a cold") and the sooner, the better.
Is it going to get worse before it gets better… probably because the stress of actually writing something in your own time and in your own words is just too much to bear? What are the slop deliverers going to do with all their spare time?
AI is straight up magic (especially frontier agentic models) if used appropriately to augment the far right tail of one’s intelligence curve. The problem is it’s used by most to generate assumption based nonsense from terrible prompts like “write me an article about learning photography”. No outline, no training on ones prior work, no thought, no proofreading, no iteration, etc. just copy pasta of brain dead slop…
I worry about the carry-on effect even for that. Beware the Star Trek episode my friend. Personally, I have zero interest in paying for AI to the point where it could do that, and especially given that it's going to rate up in price and I might as well not lose my own skills.
I am also very biased in that I work in frontier medical research.
AI is rapidly becoming very useful in blowing out the top end for ideation exploration. Instead of iterating on one idea, each researcher is being opened up to explore 2,3,4,5 ideas at the same time. The implications of this compounded over the next decade will be incredible for the masses experience of the human condition.
In that sense, I personally envision implementing it in a way that allows me to explore more of my ideas at once, given the limited nature of my available time. The way we’re seeing it implemented by the masses currently is via extreme over indexing re the general populations propensity toward laziness and gluttony.
I firmly believe we will develop various guardrails over the next decade to index out the slop production. If we don’t, arguing over the impact of generative slop on the arts will index to irrelevance as we descend into a technocratic Sodom and Gomorrah…
Right. I use it for work, too. And it's always about that time trade off.
Qualms about ideation based in existing literature aside, I will be content when the technology has picked up it's floor and is out of reach for the folks who are generating animal stories to sell on Etsy. Doesn't seem like it's long off.
Agreed, this is a very frustrating transitional state. It will be weeded out and the floor elevated very quickly. Once again the alternative is too dystopian to even consider, so I won’t haha
When I say augment the far right tail I mean very specific uses. Last week I vibecoded an index program to organize my photo and video archive into buckets based on composition, exposure, filmed color temperature, etc. It employs a search function where I can select one clip or photo and ask it to find matching clips based on one or multiples of the above traits. This makes using my creativity more efficient, hours spent searching for the next clip now takes me 2min. In this scenario I can spend more time doing the creative part and less time in the drudgery.
Personally, I find magic in the drudgery but I accept the general purpose of technology is to reduce it. I will still spend the next decade finalizing my language abilities and picking up a new one.
I Enjoy this Hanz Thank You 🙏 for Sharing
Of course, always happy to hear that, Joe. You ever tried the old pufferfish soup? It still gives me the creeps a bit.
interesting read, glad I found your article despite alghoritms.
Thanks, Pavel. I’m glad you did, too. Seems like it’s going to keep accelerating, too.
I wonder if the bigger but more difficult to process shock is about how many people we trusted and respected beaming AI slop at us.
It's one of those situation where nobody is forcing anyone to use AI, and to use it unskillfully, to produce something and then share the result without even reviewing it. Even if this wasn't AI-made, this kind of behavior would be looked down upon.
Or maybe we've discovered that too many people around us have no taste and truly can't tell the difference between AI slop and the real thing?
That is a serious thing that will keep happening. I almost added it to this article, but I wanted to finish it up and be done.
Yes. It is shocking to see how the trusted will fall and we will come to see they never really had great taste to begin with. More and more as I get older, it feels like luck is more important. AI is going to expose more how little some people really care about their audience and view them as a simple means to an end, and at a certain point view them as a problem to solve.
In a way, this is nice, albeit painful like you say, to see so clearly.
I just happened across this article: https://www.science.org/content/article/french-physicist-and-media-star-loses-doctorate-after-plagiarism-investigation
I never knew the guy, but as I get older, I realize how many (fellow) adults are complete winging it--often plain making shit up. If not weren't for multiple levels of inspection, I'd expect to see a lot more has leaks or car brakes installed upside down.
I'm trying hard not to turn to cyncism. People are complex: someone slinging slop at me at work might be a warm, generous friend. But it's hard for me to square the two.
It's a cliche, but it's a brave new world out there. At least it's not boring!
That is quite an interesting case! Of course, it is simple to not plagiarize, I always thought. Yet, this man... obviously is talented otherwise. Weird.
Definitely agree with you that nobody has the answer and is simply going through the motions as another 24 hours comes to pass.
Hell (if it exists) will freeze over before I ever use AI for any creative endeavour. It can reduce noise on my photos and answer simple questions I pose in a search engine. But that's it. If others want to use it, that's up to them but I hope the big AI companies catch pneumonia (not just "a cold") and the sooner, the better.
Like I said, I don't want to interact with somebody that wants to hand me some AI slop. If I'm not worth their time, why should I give it to them.
Is it going to get worse before it gets better… probably because the stress of actually writing something in your own time and in your own words is just too much to bear? What are the slop deliverers going to do with all their spare time?
I am not sure. It seems many are convinced that they can disrupt and then reap rewards in various industries. I simply do not understand.
SNS? CFP?
social media // call for photos
AI is straight up magic (especially frontier agentic models) if used appropriately to augment the far right tail of one’s intelligence curve. The problem is it’s used by most to generate assumption based nonsense from terrible prompts like “write me an article about learning photography”. No outline, no training on ones prior work, no thought, no proofreading, no iteration, etc. just copy pasta of brain dead slop…
I worry about the carry-on effect even for that. Beware the Star Trek episode my friend. Personally, I have zero interest in paying for AI to the point where it could do that, and especially given that it's going to rate up in price and I might as well not lose my own skills.
I am also very biased in that I work in frontier medical research.
AI is rapidly becoming very useful in blowing out the top end for ideation exploration. Instead of iterating on one idea, each researcher is being opened up to explore 2,3,4,5 ideas at the same time. The implications of this compounded over the next decade will be incredible for the masses experience of the human condition.
In that sense, I personally envision implementing it in a way that allows me to explore more of my ideas at once, given the limited nature of my available time. The way we’re seeing it implemented by the masses currently is via extreme over indexing re the general populations propensity toward laziness and gluttony.
I firmly believe we will develop various guardrails over the next decade to index out the slop production. If we don’t, arguing over the impact of generative slop on the arts will index to irrelevance as we descend into a technocratic Sodom and Gomorrah…
Right. I use it for work, too. And it's always about that time trade off.
Qualms about ideation based in existing literature aside, I will be content when the technology has picked up it's floor and is out of reach for the folks who are generating animal stories to sell on Etsy. Doesn't seem like it's long off.
Agreed, this is a very frustrating transitional state. It will be weeded out and the floor elevated very quickly. Once again the alternative is too dystopian to even consider, so I won’t haha
One can only hope.
I understand, I think…
I am sure you are right, but don’t waste my time with machine slop - ever.
When I say augment the far right tail I mean very specific uses. Last week I vibecoded an index program to organize my photo and video archive into buckets based on composition, exposure, filmed color temperature, etc. It employs a search function where I can select one clip or photo and ask it to find matching clips based on one or multiples of the above traits. This makes using my creativity more efficient, hours spent searching for the next clip now takes me 2min. In this scenario I can spend more time doing the creative part and less time in the drudgery.
Personally, I find magic in the drudgery but I accept the general purpose of technology is to reduce it. I will still spend the next decade finalizing my language abilities and picking up a new one.