3 ms·

Bards and Sages Publishing closure due to "AI-generated trash"

21 points by jjgreen 3y ago

duxup 3y ago
Gotta wonder if "human hand made" gets to be a subset of some types of content and only trusted / known human creators walls go up at some of those niche places?
- bityard 3y ago
  I kinda want to read a novel about a dystopian future where AI content is so ubiquitous that human-made writing and art are rare and possibly illegal to own.
  - duxup 3y ago
    I'm sure that has been written about, but I don't know who really wrote it ...
jjgreen 3y ago
Earlier submission on the 404Media article on this DOA, I though the closure posting itself a rather interesting perspective ... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40236523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40236523
surfingdino 3y ago
Value capture through value destruction going as planned, I see.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Filligree 3y ago
That’s quite some editorialising. It isn’t the title of the page, and the article points at a number of other problems besides AI.
- jjulius 3y ago
  Correct. For clarification, the title on the page is "Closure Announcement". While you're right about there being a variety of issues, both around mental and physical health, it sounds like having to weed through AI submissions is the veritable straw that broke the camel's back. She spends half of the article discussing the AI aspect.
- duxup 3y ago
  Article does say it is the final straw, gets the most attention in the post, and is a huge time sink for them.
- nunez 3y ago
  The chief decision behind this closure is the owner's declining mental health that is exacerbated by the sea of trash AI content she and her team have to sift through. It's literally the second half of the article.
- mcphage 3y ago
  That is the part of the article that is most relevant to Hacker News, however. It would make sense to highlight it.
bityard 3y ago
> And while it is easy to shrug this off if you are outside the industry and claim, "Well, the cream rises to the top," anyone that has been around the industry long enough knows that what rises to the top is what Amazon's algorithms push there. And the AI bots are much better at manipulating the algorithms that real people. This is why it's a good idea make sure a non-trivial part of the content you read/listen/watch isn't spoon-fed to you by Big Tech. Join forums, read personal blogs, read books, listen to podcasts that exist outside of a walled-garden platform. If you hand over control of your attention to a platform fueled by advertising and algorithms, it's not a question of whether or not your behavior is being manipulated by them, only to what extent.
- dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
  That's why, in spite of the whole consumer-to-consumer revolution, I came back fur circle to the traditional model. I know that if I buy a Packt book, it could be anything, and most probably it won't be useful to me. But if I buy a Manning book, I know that most probably it will be good even if I'm not interested in the subject. Why? Because the publisher did their job well.
- duxup 3y ago
  I can't think of any reason to think that the content you describe ... is any less likely to be AI generated content. I'm not sure content found in a "walled garden" is any more or less likely to be AI generated. Google may in theory direct me to more of it, but in the end that content (personal blogs, read books, listen to podcasts) may just as likely be AI generated ...
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think most people can handle this properly. Many people who "step out of the bubble" are actually just innocently stepping into an echo-chambers of pure unhinged delusion. This is how you end up with people taking horse dewormer to cure covid and implementing race quotas to fix racism.
- nunez 3y ago
  1000%. I discovered KEXP, a popular indie radio station in Seattle. Their programming is leaps and bounds beyond what Spotify and Apple Music come up with. They ran a program a few weeks ago where every song every DJ played was related to the song played before it. For a full week! Without breaking show themes! All of their programming (afaik) is human-curated. I am 90% confident that Apple Music or Spotify cannot pull this off algorithmically. What those platforms are very good at is either giving me the same music I've always heard or giving me something that's trending (mostly due to their algorithms) that I haven't heard before. This is going to get so much worse with everyone running full-steam ahead towards centralizing AI efforts amongst Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Investing time into finding small corners of the internet is worth it.

21 points by jjgreen 3y ago

Gotta wonder if "human hand made" gets to be a subset of some types of content and only trusted / known human creators walls go up at some of those niche places?

bityard 3y ago
I kinda want to read a novel about a dystopian future where AI content is so ubiquitous that human-made writing and art are rare and possibly illegal to own.
- duxup 3y ago
  I'm sure that has been written about, but I don't know who really wrote it ...

jjgreen 3y ago

Earlier submission on the 404Media article on this DOA, I though the closure posting itself a rather interesting perspective ... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40236523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40236523

surfingdino 3y ago

Value capture through value destruction going as planned, I see.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Filligree 3y ago

That’s quite some editorialising. It isn’t the title of the page, and the article points at a number of other problems besides AI.

jjulius 3y ago
Correct. For clarification, the title on the page is "Closure Announcement". While you're right about there being a variety of issues, both around mental and physical health, it sounds like having to weed through AI submissions is the veritable straw that broke the camel's back. She spends half of the article discussing the AI aspect.
duxup 3y ago
Article does say it is the final straw, gets the most attention in the post, and is a huge time sink for them.
nunez 3y ago
The chief decision behind this closure is the owner's declining mental health that is exacerbated by the sea of trash AI content she and her team have to sift through. It's literally the second half of the article.
mcphage 3y ago
That is the part of the article that is most relevant to Hacker News, however. It would make sense to highlight it.

bityard 3y ago

> And while it is easy to shrug this off if you are outside the industry and claim, "Well, the cream rises to the top," anyone that has been around the industry long enough knows that what rises to the top is what Amazon's algorithms push there. And the AI bots are much better at manipulating the algorithms that real people. This is why it's a good idea make sure a non-trivial part of the content you read/listen/watch isn't spoon-fed to you by Big Tech. Join forums, read personal blogs, read books, listen to podcasts that exist outside of a walled-garden platform. If you hand over control of your attention to a platform fueled by advertising and algorithms, it's not a question of whether or not your behavior is being manipulated by them, only to what extent.

dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
That's why, in spite of the whole consumer-to-consumer revolution, I came back fur circle to the traditional model. I know that if I buy a Packt book, it could be anything, and most probably it won't be useful to me. But if I buy a Manning book, I know that most probably it will be good even if I'm not interested in the subject. Why? Because the publisher did their job well.
duxup 3y ago
I can't think of any reason to think that the content you describe ... is any less likely to be AI generated content. I'm not sure content found in a "walled garden" is any more or less likely to be AI generated. Google may in theory direct me to more of it, but in the end that content (personal blogs, read books, listen to podcasts) may just as likely be AI generated ...
Workaccount2 3y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think most people can handle this properly. Many people who "step out of the bubble" are actually just innocently stepping into an echo-chambers of pure unhinged delusion. This is how you end up with people taking horse dewormer to cure covid and implementing race quotas to fix racism.
nunez 3y ago
1000%. I discovered KEXP, a popular indie radio station in Seattle. Their programming is leaps and bounds beyond what Spotify and Apple Music come up with. They ran a program a few weeks ago where every song every DJ played was related to the song played before it. For a full week! Without breaking show themes! All of their programming (afaik) is human-curated. I am 90% confident that Apple Music or Spotify cannot pull this off algorithmically. What those platforms are very good at is either giving me the same music I've always heard or giving me something that's trending (mostly due to their algorithms) that I haven't heard before. This is going to get so much worse with everyone running full-steam ahead towards centralizing AI efforts amongst Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Investing time into finding small corners of the internet is worth it.