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I feel like we are building a very large and complex interface between human beings and the internet, so that we are becoming more like mechanical nodes on the

I feel like we are building a very large and complex interface between human beings and the internet, so that we are becoming more like mechanical nodes on the network, where slowly the idiosyncracies of individuality are being erased. That's not unique to AI, but AI is a major component of it now. I can imagine future scenarios where every part of our communication is passed through an AI filter until we are all perfectly tuned to be mindless consumers of information. This SnapDiagram does it for sketches, and LLMs do it for text. Soon everyone will sound very similar and the system will be able to remove any aspect of individuality that is troublesome to it with a mere parameter tuning. The little picture is just a conversion to a more readable diagram. The big picture is the slow erasing of the human spirit.

hntcz 2y ago
Damn, well put!
schmidtleonard 2y ago
So all the highly unique, contextually relevant and aesthetically pleasing AI art that I am seeing pop up in blogs, chats, documentation, presentations, etc where before there would have been nothing or maaaybe some ultra-generic clipart, this explosion of creativity is slowly erasing the human spirit? Nah. Looks like the opposite, if anything. "It all looks the same" -> there's plenty of room for better prompting and models. Just look at civit.ai -- the "sameness" problem is just low skill with the new tools. The floor used to be "looks like a kid drew it," now the floor is "looks like the default StableDiffusion style." Replace with whatever domain you are interested in, I am using art as an example because it is comparatively further down the maturation curve. In any case, the ceiling is high and it still takes effort to reach, but the bar is raised everywhere.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  > So all the highly unique, contextually relevant and aesthetically pleasing AI art that I am seeing pop up in blogs, chats, documentation, presentations, etc where before there would have been nothing or maaaybe some ultra-generic clipart, this explosion of creativity is slowly erasing the human spirit? Nah. Looks like the opposite, if anything. None of that art represents the individual experience of a person any more. It's all a psychotic averaging. I've seen that art too and I find it disgusting. I don't see anything people are producing with AI as representing the human spirit. I see it as humans being plugged into a machine pushed to create and create and for what? What's the next step? It's horrific and should be destroyed.
  - doug_durham 2y ago
    So someone who has lost the use of their voice and uses a text to voice program is disgusting and has no human spirit? I would disagree. In the same way new AI tools allow people who could not express themselves otherwise to express themselves. Does it mean they have good taste? Not necessarily, but it is authentic communication.
    - neuralRiot 2y ago
      I’d argue that the person who lost its voice have no choice, the people choosing to draw by AI to express themselves do it by sheer laziness and to get quick gratification, but that seems what technology is mostly about, putting any effort in any pursuit is so old school.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      > So someone who has lost the use of their voice and uses a text to voice program is disgusting and has no human spirit? You are twisting my argument. I never said a PERSON using AI doesn't have human spirit. Rather, that in GENERAL, the content generated by AI does not have the subtelty of human expression compared to the human-made stuff. Of course, the person that lost their voice naturally loses some expression by using an artificially-generated one. That doesn't mean that they can't express themselves in other ways. Come on, these counterarguments are too easy to refute...
- pimlottc 2y ago
  Adding an image does not automatically make a post better. I'd rather just not have any image at all than something mindlessly thrown in just for its own sake, regardless of whether it's generic or generated.
  - manuelmoreale 2y ago
    I’d argue the opposite in fact. It’s more often than not making it worse. It adds nothing and it’s a waste of bandwidth
- jayd16 2y ago
  > this explosion of creativity But is it? It's fancier clip art, no?
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    It is in my opinion because it has that extremely generic feel, even more than clip art because at least the clip art had some character from the artist.
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago
  Those AI photos at the start of blogs often make me say "fuck it" and go back. It screams "I rushed this out, I'm probably regurgitating something I just learned". I rather a dorky stock photo than some nonsense AI image puking out some combination of "cyber", "tech", "hacker", and "circuit". It's unserious at best, scammy at its worst.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Exactly. I stop reading any article as soon as I see an AI image.
    - IndySun 2y ago
      I cringe when I see one, but sometimes the articles are good. Apparently, some people have great writing skills but suck at visual taste. Though, arguably, they aught to know that about themselves.
      - vouaobrasil 2y ago
        True, but I believe taking a strong unilateral stand is worth the sacrifice of not reading such articles.
        IndySun 2y ago
        Is that a little like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face? Good to have principles that propel forwards and not become entrenched by them, wouldn't you agree? That said, you will save, or at least not waste, an awful lot of time - there was already too much and now a lot more tripe out there since so-called a.i..
        vouaobrasil 2y ago
        > Good to have principles that propel forwards and not become entrenched by them, wouldn't you agree? That said, you will save, or at least not waste, an awful lot of time - there was already too much and now a lot more tripe out there since so-called a.i.. In this case, it's not really entrenchment, because there are viable alternatives.
- barrell 2y ago
  To each there own — I loved the AI art for about one month but since then it’s become insanely triggering. It’s everywhere now and it all has this same “feel”. What used to just be an unsplash image that I never gave any thought to is now a serious detractor that can often overshadow the content (for me) I’ve clicked out of articles and videos many times because of the AI art. I agree with OP that it feels like it’s washing out a lot of individuality at the moment.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    I prefer a stock image as well. At least it was crafted by a human being behind a camera. And as a pro photographer, and someone who takes thousands of photos a month and views thousands more, there is something indescribably human about human works that are lacking in AI.
    - doug_durham 2y ago
      There is no way you could tell the difference between stock photo and AI generated art. Stock photos are created to be generic and soulless. That allows them to have the most broad applicability.
      - itishappy 2y ago
        I'm extremely skeptical of that claim. Got any examples you think would stump us?
      - vouaobrasil 2y ago
        Seriously? Most AI-generated images look much faker than real photos. Real photos often have some flaws and some visual inconsistency about them.
- bugglebeetle 2y ago
  AI image generation has taught me two things: never had it been more obvious that taste is only cultivated through a careful, studied engagement with human arts and culture and never has this been more irrelevant to the majority of people. The American slop factory is the predominant cultural idiom and like this country’s factory farming is now an entire automated machinery for mass producing and force feeding everyone poison. I’m hoping some subset of countries will go AI art Galapagos to preserve a trace of our humanity and aspire to something beyond the median of a Google image search.
blargey 2y ago
No, the human spirit does not lie in the identical LucidChart diagram I would have made in order to transcribe a whiteboard photo without a tool like this. It's a direct transcription, the exact class of AI work that is irrelevant to your broad point about the human spirit. No choice or decision is being delegated to statistical noise here. Failing to make that distinction weakens your message imo.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I disagree really, actually, because the tool offers large-scale mechanization and uniformization of human activity with relatively low cost, which is the proto form of more advanced AI.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
doug_durham 2y ago
Disagree. There are different use cases for diagrams. The first is communication. My people are poor at drawing diagrams. That means our speech in the medium is limited. Tools like the expand our ability to communicate. A second use case is artistic expression. I can't imagine why you would use such a tool for artistic expression. Nothing is being lost here.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I never said that THIS tool would replace artistic expression. But the spirit of it and all of its implications will very likely result in tools that will replace it. One cannot pick and choose when it comes to technology -- the prisoner's dilemma will result in a net loss of human expression.

hntcz 2y ago

Damn, well put!

schmidtleonard 2y ago

So all the highly unique, contextually relevant and aesthetically pleasing AI art that I am seeing pop up in blogs, chats, documentation, presentations, etc where before there would have been nothing or maaaybe some ultra-generic clipart, this explosion of creativity is slowly erasing the human spirit? Nah. Looks like the opposite, if anything. "It all looks the same" -> there's plenty of room for better prompting and models. Just look at civit.ai -- the "sameness" problem is just low skill with the new tools. The floor used to be "looks like a kid drew it," now the floor is "looks like the default StableDiffusion style." Replace with whatever domain you are interested in, I am using art as an example because it is comparatively further down the maturation curve. In any case, the ceiling is high and it still takes effort to reach, but the bar is raised everywhere.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
> So all the highly unique, contextually relevant and aesthetically pleasing AI art that I am seeing pop up in blogs, chats, documentation, presentations, etc where before there would have been nothing or maaaybe some ultra-generic clipart, this explosion of creativity is slowly erasing the human spirit? Nah. Looks like the opposite, if anything. None of that art represents the individual experience of a person any more. It's all a psychotic averaging. I've seen that art too and I find it disgusting. I don't see anything people are producing with AI as representing the human spirit. I see it as humans being plugged into a machine pushed to create and create and for what? What's the next step? It's horrific and should be destroyed.
- doug_durham 2y ago
  So someone who has lost the use of their voice and uses a text to voice program is disgusting and has no human spirit? I would disagree. In the same way new AI tools allow people who could not express themselves otherwise to express themselves. Does it mean they have good taste? Not necessarily, but it is authentic communication.
  - neuralRiot 2y ago
    I’d argue that the person who lost its voice have no choice, the people choosing to draw by AI to express themselves do it by sheer laziness and to get quick gratification, but that seems what technology is mostly about, putting any effort in any pursuit is so old school.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > So someone who has lost the use of their voice and uses a text to voice program is disgusting and has no human spirit? You are twisting my argument. I never said a PERSON using AI doesn't have human spirit. Rather, that in GENERAL, the content generated by AI does not have the subtelty of human expression compared to the human-made stuff. Of course, the person that lost their voice naturally loses some expression by using an artificially-generated one. That doesn't mean that they can't express themselves in other ways. Come on, these counterarguments are too easy to refute...
pimlottc 2y ago
Adding an image does not automatically make a post better. I'd rather just not have any image at all than something mindlessly thrown in just for its own sake, regardless of whether it's generic or generated.
- manuelmoreale 2y ago
  I’d argue the opposite in fact. It’s more often than not making it worse. It adds nothing and it’s a waste of bandwidth
jayd16 2y ago
> this explosion of creativity But is it? It's fancier clip art, no?
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  It is in my opinion because it has that extremely generic feel, even more than clip art because at least the clip art had some character from the artist.
MSFT_Edging 2y ago
Those AI photos at the start of blogs often make me say "fuck it" and go back. It screams "I rushed this out, I'm probably regurgitating something I just learned". I rather a dorky stock photo than some nonsense AI image puking out some combination of "cyber", "tech", "hacker", and "circuit". It's unserious at best, scammy at its worst.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Exactly. I stop reading any article as soon as I see an AI image.
  - IndySun 2y ago
    I cringe when I see one, but sometimes the articles are good. Apparently, some people have great writing skills but suck at visual taste. Though, arguably, they aught to know that about themselves.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      True, but I believe taking a strong unilateral stand is worth the sacrifice of not reading such articles.
      - IndySun 2y ago
        Is that a little like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face? Good to have principles that propel forwards and not become entrenched by them, wouldn't you agree? That said, you will save, or at least not waste, an awful lot of time - there was already too much and now a lot more tripe out there since so-called a.i..
        vouaobrasil 2y ago
        > Good to have principles that propel forwards and not become entrenched by them, wouldn't you agree? That said, you will save, or at least not waste, an awful lot of time - there was already too much and now a lot more tripe out there since so-called a.i.. In this case, it's not really entrenchment, because there are viable alternatives.
barrell 2y ago
To each there own — I loved the AI art for about one month but since then it’s become insanely triggering. It’s everywhere now and it all has this same “feel”. What used to just be an unsplash image that I never gave any thought to is now a serious detractor that can often overshadow the content (for me) I’ve clicked out of articles and videos many times because of the AI art. I agree with OP that it feels like it’s washing out a lot of individuality at the moment.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I prefer a stock image as well. At least it was crafted by a human being behind a camera. And as a pro photographer, and someone who takes thousands of photos a month and views thousands more, there is something indescribably human about human works that are lacking in AI.
  - doug_durham 2y ago
    There is no way you could tell the difference between stock photo and AI generated art. Stock photos are created to be generic and soulless. That allows them to have the most broad applicability.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      I'm extremely skeptical of that claim. Got any examples you think would stump us?
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      Seriously? Most AI-generated images look much faker than real photos. Real photos often have some flaws and some visual inconsistency about them.
bugglebeetle 2y ago
AI image generation has taught me two things: never had it been more obvious that taste is only cultivated through a careful, studied engagement with human arts and culture and never has this been more irrelevant to the majority of people. The American slop factory is the predominant cultural idiom and like this country’s factory farming is now an entire automated machinery for mass producing and force feeding everyone poison. I’m hoping some subset of countries will go AI art Galapagos to preserve a trace of our humanity and aspire to something beyond the median of a Google image search.

blargey 2y ago

No, the human spirit does not lie in the identical LucidChart diagram I would have made in order to transcribe a whiteboard photo without a tool like this. It's a direct transcription, the exact class of AI work that is irrelevant to your broad point about the human spirit. No choice or decision is being delegated to statistical noise here. Failing to make that distinction weakens your message imo.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
I disagree really, actually, because the tool offers large-scale mechanization and uniformization of human activity with relatively low cost, which is the proto form of more advanced AI.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

doug_durham 2y ago

Disagree. There are different use cases for diagrams. The first is communication. My people are poor at drawing diagrams. That means our speech in the medium is limited. Tools like the expand our ability to communicate. A second use case is artistic expression. I can't imagine why you would use such a tool for artistic expression. Nothing is being lost here.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
I never said that THIS tool would replace artistic expression. But the spirit of it and all of its implications will very likely result in tools that will replace it. One cannot pick and choose when it comes to technology -- the prisoner's dilemma will result in a net loss of human expression.