4 ms·

Youtube is flooded with bad Science Fiction - I assume all literature genres are the same?

sandspar 2y ago
From February 2023: "Sci-fi magazine has to halt submissions after receiving too much AI-generated fiction" https://qz.com/clarkesword-neil-clarke-chatgpt-ai-q-and-a-1850144881 https://qz.com/clarkesword-neil-clarke-chatgpt-ai-q-and-a-18...
- aurizon 2y ago
  Yes, 100 times as much, some say
drdaeman 2y ago
There was a myriad of crappy fiction before LLMs - way more than anyone can read - so… nothing really changed? Sure, LLMs have their own distinct flavors of crappiness, but it doesn’t really matter. If I got it right, the core problem is that because writing became easier/more accessible, more people got… bolder (for a lack of better word) and started to spam^W publish subpar quality works more, I assume, hoping to make some money out of it. If so, this seems to be simply a growth-related average quality issue that was surely known for centuries (cf. Mill’s “the general tendency of things … is to render mediocrity”; and if that’s a stretch, then, at the very least, I believe Lem was quite explicit about it coming in his Summa Technologiae)
- aurizon 2y ago
  True, there was always crappy writing, but now an ocean of spamwrite can flow so easily
  - drdaeman 2y ago
    And that's just a result of growth. There are more humans than ever, communication technologies are improving a lot every decade, writing tools are also improving a lot, and now there are LLMs that can aid with writing. The more accessible it becomes, the more stuff we'll have out there, and most of this stuff is going to be not so great (we'll still have gems, of course). So, it was bound to happen. The issue you're seeing ($platform spamwrite) is not really an "AI" problem (though, of course, any tech improvement is a sort of an enabler) - its root cause is modern advertising being not aligned with your interests. Incentives there are purely economical (driving sales is the only thing that matters there), and they don't have anything to do with the quality or consumer satisfaction, at least not directly. So, no surprise, when all that matters is consumers' attention (and not the quality of the work), people try to make buck by making the least necessary amount of effort and spamming hard, hoping for an "engagement".
    - aurizon 2y ago
      A venal AI assisting a venal, but limited, human..
      - drdaeman 2y ago
        What we currently call "AI" (LLMs) cannot be venal. It is not conscious and has no agency, so the term is simply not applicable. It's like calling a rock "murderous" when someone used it to murder another person - understandable, possibly poetic, but completely semantically wrong. My point is, shifting blame on progress is misdirected and benefits nobody. Fixing issues requires understanding and addressing root causes. As greed (the most fundamental issue, I believe) can be only be possibly solved by achieving post-scarcity (or so I think), I'm suggesting that the next best thing to blame is misaligned incentives and modern economy of "engagement". And not "AI" or "Internet" or anything progress-related.
        aurizon 2y ago
        In essence you are right, a wandering AI - off it's leash will 'run' hither and yon with no guidance - however with a guiding mind it will bark up whatever 'trees' it's master directs..

From February 2023: "Sci-fi magazine has to halt submissions after receiving too much AI-generated fiction" https://qz.com/clarkesword-neil-clarke-chatgpt-ai-q-and-a-1850144881 https://qz.com/clarkesword-neil-clarke-chatgpt-ai-q-and-a-18...

aurizon 2y ago
Yes, 100 times as much, some say

drdaeman 2y ago

There was a myriad of crappy fiction before LLMs - way more than anyone can read - so… nothing really changed? Sure, LLMs have their own distinct flavors of crappiness, but it doesn’t really matter. If I got it right, the core problem is that because writing became easier/more accessible, more people got… bolder (for a lack of better word) and started to spam^W publish subpar quality works more, I assume, hoping to make some money out of it. If so, this seems to be simply a growth-related average quality issue that was surely known for centuries (cf. Mill’s “the general tendency of things … is to render mediocrity”; and if that’s a stretch, then, at the very least, I believe Lem was quite explicit about it coming in his Summa Technologiae)

aurizon 2y ago
True, there was always crappy writing, but now an ocean of spamwrite can flow so easily
- drdaeman 2y ago
  And that's just a result of growth. There are more humans than ever, communication technologies are improving a lot every decade, writing tools are also improving a lot, and now there are LLMs that can aid with writing. The more accessible it becomes, the more stuff we'll have out there, and most of this stuff is going to be not so great (we'll still have gems, of course). So, it was bound to happen. The issue you're seeing ($platform spamwrite) is not really an "AI" problem (though, of course, any tech improvement is a sort of an enabler) - its root cause is modern advertising being not aligned with your interests. Incentives there are purely economical (driving sales is the only thing that matters there), and they don't have anything to do with the quality or consumer satisfaction, at least not directly. So, no surprise, when all that matters is consumers' attention (and not the quality of the work), people try to make buck by making the least necessary amount of effort and spamming hard, hoping for an "engagement".
  - aurizon 2y ago
    A venal AI assisting a venal, but limited, human..
    - drdaeman 2y ago
      What we currently call "AI" (LLMs) cannot be venal. It is not conscious and has no agency, so the term is simply not applicable. It's like calling a rock "murderous" when someone used it to murder another person - understandable, possibly poetic, but completely semantically wrong. My point is, shifting blame on progress is misdirected and benefits nobody. Fixing issues requires understanding and addressing root causes. As greed (the most fundamental issue, I believe) can be only be possibly solved by achieving post-scarcity (or so I think), I'm suggesting that the next best thing to blame is misaligned incentives and modern economy of "engagement". And not "AI" or "Internet" or anything progress-related.
      - aurizon 2y ago
        In essence you are right, a wandering AI - off it's leash will 'run' hither and yon with no guidance - however with a guiding mind it will bark up whatever 'trees' it's master directs..