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If you do nothing that is discernible from noise (be that manually or through AI), unless your explicit goal is to generate noise, your ROI is 0. Sure, AI spam

If you do nothing that is discernible from noise (be that manually or through AI), unless your explicit goal is to generate noise, your ROI is 0. Sure, AI spam can severely disrupt peoples attention by competing with "real" people more competently. But people will not have twice the attention. We will simply shut down our channels when the number of real-person-level-ai-spam goes to infinity, because there is no other option. Nobody will be fooled, very quickly, because being fooled would require super human attention. Granted, that does not seem super fun either.

bowsamic 2y ago
The emails are discernible from noise though. They literally have a signal to noise ratio higher than one. Noise would be pure rng output. So I don’t know what you’re getting at
- Wolfenstein98k 2y ago
  Yes you do. You're being over-literal. "Noise" in context doesn't mean random characters, it means garbage or spam or content not worth your while.
  - bowsamic 2y ago
    No, I'm not being over-literal. Here's why: Yes, it could be that for you a given advert is irrelevant or not worth your while, but the point he was making is that it won't even be worth it for the advertiser to put out the advertisement because it will be noise for everyone. However, there is only one kind of noise that is noise for everyone: literal noise. So long as the spam is about something, it is relevant to someone, and therefore it does not necessarily have zero ROI. EDIT: The only kind of noise that has no semantic is actual "mathematically pure noise" as the person below commented (/u/dang banned my account so I can't reply)
    - thomashop 2y ago
      > However, there is only one kind of noise that is noise for everyone: literal noise. I feel like you're a bit too literal here. When people talk about noise it doesn't mean mathematically pure noise. A signal-to-noise ratio close to 1 is also colloquially called noise.
      - bowsamic 2y ago
        Addressed above
- ImHereToVote 2y ago
  He is talking about semantic noise. Something that appears to have substance but is just slop actually. When everything is that. Then all email will become equivalent to slop. How could it not? Someone will be burned once or twice, but after that, there is a semantic phase shift.
  - bowsamic 2y ago
    What is "just slop" though? A spam advert for a product is still an advert for a product. Therefore it's not just semantic noise, it is still an advert for a product, and therefore his point is invalid: there is an ROI and people will continue to be employed to do it
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      > A spam advert for a product is still an advert for a product. Therefore it's not just semantic noise, it is still an advert for a product Ergo slop and semantic noise. Companies that used adverts which weren't noise went out of business long ago.
      - bowsamic 2y ago
        Adverts have semantic content, they aren't noise.
        ryandrake 2y ago
        Let's just call it slop then. Peak HN: Another conversation is logjammed by nitpicking the precise definition of a word rather than discussing the overall point.
        bowsamic 2y ago
        Except I am still discussing the point: the companies won't stop getting an ROI because "slop" still produces an ROI, even if people know it's slop, because it isn't contentless noise, it has semantic content. Just because you and the others don't understand what point I'm making doesn't mean the conversation is "logjammed". I am still discussing the overall point, you just don't see it.
lmm 2y ago
> If you do nothing that is discernible from noise (be that manually or through AI), unless your explicit goal is to generate noise, your ROI is 0. We're talking about a group of people whose core skill is convincing people to pay for stuff that isn't worth it. You and I may know they're worthless, but that doesn't mean they're not getting paid.
- jstummbillig 2y ago
  Let's assume you have a mom that loves you very much and she let's your know by text on a semi-regular basis. She asks you to come by on Friday. That might seem like a nice idea to you. You reply yes, and you go. Now, imagine you got messages from what appears to be not 100 but, oh I don't know, 1 000 000 000 000 000 of the very best moms that have ever existed. And they all do love you so very much. And they do let you by writing these most beautifully touching text messages. And they all want to meet up on Friday. What is going to happen next? Here is what is not going to happen: You are not going to consider meeting any of them Friday, any week. You will, after the shortest of whiles, shut down to this signal. Because it's not actually a signal anymore. The noise floor has gone up and the most beautifully crafted, most personalized text messages of all time are just noise now.
  - ayewo 2y ago
    We all get to have only one mom and moms dont live forever. So once someone’s mom passes away, you can’t really fool them with 1 or dozens of message from other moms anyway.
  - lmm 2y ago
    I don't know what you're trying to say. The people making payroll decisions have the same amount of people under them as they always did.

bowsamic 2y ago

The emails are discernible from noise though. They literally have a signal to noise ratio higher than one. Noise would be pure rng output. So I don’t know what you’re getting at

Wolfenstein98k 2y ago
Yes you do. You're being over-literal. "Noise" in context doesn't mean random characters, it means garbage or spam or content not worth your while.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  No, I'm not being over-literal. Here's why: Yes, it could be that for you a given advert is irrelevant or not worth your while, but the point he was making is that it won't even be worth it for the advertiser to put out the advertisement because it will be noise for everyone. However, there is only one kind of noise that is noise for everyone: literal noise. So long as the spam is about something, it is relevant to someone, and therefore it does not necessarily have zero ROI. EDIT: The only kind of noise that has no semantic is actual "mathematically pure noise" as the person below commented (/u/dang banned my account so I can't reply)
  - thomashop 2y ago
    > However, there is only one kind of noise that is noise for everyone: literal noise. I feel like you're a bit too literal here. When people talk about noise it doesn't mean mathematically pure noise. A signal-to-noise ratio close to 1 is also colloquially called noise.
    - bowsamic 2y ago
      Addressed above
ImHereToVote 2y ago
He is talking about semantic noise. Something that appears to have substance but is just slop actually. When everything is that. Then all email will become equivalent to slop. How could it not? Someone will be burned once or twice, but after that, there is a semantic phase shift.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  What is "just slop" though? A spam advert for a product is still an advert for a product. Therefore it's not just semantic noise, it is still an advert for a product, and therefore his point is invalid: there is an ROI and people will continue to be employed to do it
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > A spam advert for a product is still an advert for a product. Therefore it's not just semantic noise, it is still an advert for a product Ergo slop and semantic noise. Companies that used adverts which weren't noise went out of business long ago.
    - bowsamic 2y ago
      Adverts have semantic content, they aren't noise.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        Let's just call it slop then. Peak HN: Another conversation is logjammed by nitpicking the precise definition of a word rather than discussing the overall point.
        bowsamic 2y ago
        Except I am still discussing the point: the companies won't stop getting an ROI because "slop" still produces an ROI, even if people know it's slop, because it isn't contentless noise, it has semantic content. Just because you and the others don't understand what point I'm making doesn't mean the conversation is "logjammed". I am still discussing the overall point, you just don't see it.

lmm 2y ago

> If you do nothing that is discernible from noise (be that manually or through AI), unless your explicit goal is to generate noise, your ROI is 0. We're talking about a group of people whose core skill is convincing people to pay for stuff that isn't worth it. You and I may know they're worthless, but that doesn't mean they're not getting paid.

jstummbillig 2y ago
Let's assume you have a mom that loves you very much and she let's your know by text on a semi-regular basis. She asks you to come by on Friday. That might seem like a nice idea to you. You reply yes, and you go. Now, imagine you got messages from what appears to be not 100 but, oh I don't know, 1 000 000 000 000 000 of the very best moms that have ever existed. And they all do love you so very much. And they do let you by writing these most beautifully touching text messages. And they all want to meet up on Friday. What is going to happen next? Here is what is not going to happen: You are not going to consider meeting any of them Friday, any week. You will, after the shortest of whiles, shut down to this signal. Because it's not actually a signal anymore. The noise floor has gone up and the most beautifully crafted, most personalized text messages of all time are just noise now.
- ayewo 2y ago
  We all get to have only one mom and moms dont live forever. So once someone’s mom passes away, you can’t really fool them with 1 or dozens of message from other moms anyway.
- lmm 2y ago
  I don't know what you're trying to say. The people making payroll decisions have the same amount of people under them as they always did.