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... insane catastrophizing." Nice unique phrase. Guessing you're not a LLM. ;^) The thing that is being offered is of no interested to me, as are almost any

... insane catastrophizing." Nice unique phrase. Guessing you're not a LLM. ;^) The thing that is being offered is of no interested to me, as are almost any AI generated content. I'm a human, and am interested in what humans do and say and think. AI content offends my sensibilities at every level. I dismiss it without even thinking twice. So all those people who do podcast, music, art, whatever, with AI, well, you lost me folks. I pay a lot of money for the things I like. AI ain't getting any of it, not out of spite (can't spite an AI, they're not human!) but on principle.

sodality2 2y ago
That's fine. To say you don't like something is fine. To say something holds no value is a stronger claim.
- redleggedfrog 2y ago
  I'd go even further than "hold no value" and say it's actively detrimental on both the individual and society. We already have an avalanche of dehumanizing technology that isolates and placates us. We see the results of this with problems in mental health and socialization. This is a downward spiral as AI content will likely appeal to those who lack social skills as they don't have to cope with tricky vagaries of other humans - which is part of which makes us human and gives us social growth.
  - sodality2 2y ago
    Even more catastrophizing. Do you get upset when you read the abstract from an academic paper? Or when you listen to a real podcast that does summarize a difficult topic in easier/shallower terms? Is it the fact that an AI summarized it the problem? Can you point to a real harm here, or will you just hand-wave, instead of seeing the reality of making information more available being a net positive?
    - EGreg 2y ago
      Here is what AI can do thus far: 1) humans produced a lot of content in good faith on the internet 2) the AI was trained on it and as a result produced a non-von-Neumann architecture that no one really understands, but which can reason about many things 3) even simply remixing the intelligible and artistic output of millions of humans in lots of nonlinear ways, directed by natural language, leads to amazing possibilities that obviate the need for humans to train anymore because by the time they do, it will all be commoditized. 4) doing it at scale means it can be personalized (also create unlimited amounts of fraudulent yet believable art / news / claims etc.) to spam the internet with fake information for short-term goals, some for LULz, others profit or control etc. 5) targeting certain goals, like reputation destruction of specific people or groups, seems like low hanging fruit and will probably proliferate in the next couple years, with no way to stop it 6) astroturfing all kinds of movements, with fake participants, is also a pretty easy goal with huge incentives — expect websites where 95% of the content and participants are fake trying to attract VC money or sell tokens, etc. 7) but ultimately, the real game changer is commoditizing everything you consider to be uniquely human and meaningful, including jokes, even eventually sex and intimacy. Visuals for heterosexual men, audio for heterosexual women (this is before the sexbots and emotionbots that learn everyone’s micro-preferences better than they know themselves, and can manipulate people at scale into being motivated to do all kinds of things and gently peer-pressure those who might resist). 8) For a few years they will console themselves with platitudes like “the AIs arent meant to replace, but enhance, centaurs of human + computer are better than a computer alone” until human in the loop will clearly be a liability and people will give up… the platitudes will become famous as epitomizing optimistic delusions as humans replaced themselves Would probably be used for busy parents to rsise their kids at first, in a “set and and forget it” way, educating them etc. But eventually will be weaponized by corporations or whoever trains the models, to nudge everyone towards various things. Even without AI, the software improves all the time through teams of humans sending autatic updates over-the-air. It can replace a few things you do… gradually then all at once. Driving. Teaching. Entertainment. Intimacy. And so on. I think the most benign end-game is humans have built a zoo for themselves… everyone is disconnected from everyone by like 100 AIs, and can no longer change anything. The AIs are sort of herding or shepherding the humans into better lifestyles, and every need is satisfied by the AIs who know the micro-preferences of the humans and kids and pets etc. But it will be too tempting for the corporations to put backdoors to coordinate things at scale, once humans rely on their AIs rather than other humans, a bit like in the movie “Eagle Eye”. But much more subtle. At that point most anything is possible.
  - EGreg 2y ago
    Hahaha Here we go, a claim that AI will create a glut of things detrimental to society And then you’ll have the usual response that the things detrimental to society have already been there and this is nothing new And round and round we go, while AI advances and totally commoditizes all the things humans produce that you found meaningful.
cdrini 2y ago
I will note this is slightly less an example of "AI generated" and more an example of "AI transformed". This takes existing, written by human documents or articles and transforms them into a podcast. Based on what you've written here, this shouldn't necessarily be in contradiction with your values, since you're still getting thoughts from other humans, and you can still pay money to the humans who made the original article, etc.

sodality2 2y ago

That's fine. To say you don't like something is fine. To say something holds no value is a stronger claim.

redleggedfrog 2y ago
I'd go even further than "hold no value" and say it's actively detrimental on both the individual and society. We already have an avalanche of dehumanizing technology that isolates and placates us. We see the results of this with problems in mental health and socialization. This is a downward spiral as AI content will likely appeal to those who lack social skills as they don't have to cope with tricky vagaries of other humans - which is part of which makes us human and gives us social growth.
- sodality2 2y ago
  Even more catastrophizing. Do you get upset when you read the abstract from an academic paper? Or when you listen to a real podcast that does summarize a difficult topic in easier/shallower terms? Is it the fact that an AI summarized it the problem? Can you point to a real harm here, or will you just hand-wave, instead of seeing the reality of making information more available being a net positive?
  - EGreg 2y ago
    Here is what AI can do thus far: 1) humans produced a lot of content in good faith on the internet 2) the AI was trained on it and as a result produced a non-von-Neumann architecture that no one really understands, but which can reason about many things 3) even simply remixing the intelligible and artistic output of millions of humans in lots of nonlinear ways, directed by natural language, leads to amazing possibilities that obviate the need for humans to train anymore because by the time they do, it will all be commoditized. 4) doing it at scale means it can be personalized (also create unlimited amounts of fraudulent yet believable art / news / claims etc.) to spam the internet with fake information for short-term goals, some for LULz, others profit or control etc. 5) targeting certain goals, like reputation destruction of specific people or groups, seems like low hanging fruit and will probably proliferate in the next couple years, with no way to stop it 6) astroturfing all kinds of movements, with fake participants, is also a pretty easy goal with huge incentives — expect websites where 95% of the content and participants are fake trying to attract VC money or sell tokens, etc. 7) but ultimately, the real game changer is commoditizing everything you consider to be uniquely human and meaningful, including jokes, even eventually sex and intimacy. Visuals for heterosexual men, audio for heterosexual women (this is before the sexbots and emotionbots that learn everyone’s micro-preferences better than they know themselves, and can manipulate people at scale into being motivated to do all kinds of things and gently peer-pressure those who might resist). 8) For a few years they will console themselves with platitudes like “the AIs arent meant to replace, but enhance, centaurs of human + computer are better than a computer alone” until human in the loop will clearly be a liability and people will give up… the platitudes will become famous as epitomizing optimistic delusions as humans replaced themselves Would probably be used for busy parents to rsise their kids at first, in a “set and and forget it” way, educating them etc. But eventually will be weaponized by corporations or whoever trains the models, to nudge everyone towards various things. Even without AI, the software improves all the time through teams of humans sending autatic updates over-the-air. It can replace a few things you do… gradually then all at once. Driving. Teaching. Entertainment. Intimacy. And so on. I think the most benign end-game is humans have built a zoo for themselves… everyone is disconnected from everyone by like 100 AIs, and can no longer change anything. The AIs are sort of herding or shepherding the humans into better lifestyles, and every need is satisfied by the AIs who know the micro-preferences of the humans and kids and pets etc. But it will be too tempting for the corporations to put backdoors to coordinate things at scale, once humans rely on their AIs rather than other humans, a bit like in the movie “Eagle Eye”. But much more subtle. At that point most anything is possible.
- EGreg 2y ago
  Hahaha Here we go, a claim that AI will create a glut of things detrimental to society And then you’ll have the usual response that the things detrimental to society have already been there and this is nothing new And round and round we go, while AI advances and totally commoditizes all the things humans produce that you found meaningful.

cdrini 2y ago

I will note this is slightly less an example of "AI generated" and more an example of "AI transformed". This takes existing, written by human documents or articles and transforms them into a podcast. Based on what you've written here, this shouldn't necessarily be in contradiction with your values, since you're still getting thoughts from other humans, and you can still pay money to the humans who made the original article, etc.