7 ms·

I've kinda given up on the internet at this point. It's sad but comforting. My social networks are just my friends and I've started to get back into reading boo

I've kinda given up on the internet at this point. It's sad but comforting. My social networks are just my friends and I've started to get back into reading books and long form blogs. Don't want to be exposed to this endless slop. Every day it gets harder to find something that was so easy before. It's all being buried by endless content. I'm hoping some non AI generative content branch of the internet will be created. Don't know if something like that is possible. Curation seems like the next best step.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
I was thinking exactly that: a coalition of people who refuse to use AI, and who refuse to interact with or support others who do use AI. I actually work for Photography Life, and we have already committed to 100% AI free: no generative AI for articles and no gen AI for photos either. I also have a 100% AI-free commmitment on my YouTube channel. Procreate for iPad believes in no AI as well. But we need more supporters. Place AI-free banners on your site if you have one and send me the link. Encourage others to declare their support against AI. Writing and art is about communicating what humans make because it transmits experience! We have to come together and refuse as much as possible to support those who use AI! Feel free to contact me if you want to collaborate!
- deisteve 2y ago
  coalition makes it sound like its in the millions all coordinating together like these guys : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    I am happy to declare that I am myself, a Luddite in many ways. No problem with that. I like lots of technology, not gonna lie. I'm a programmer and have a PhD in math, but I think it's gone too far in many respects. And if I have to build a coalition into millions, I'll do it one step at a time.
    - blibble 2y ago
      where do I sign up? early 2000s style amish would do it for me...
    - floren 2y ago
      Where do I sign?
    - signatoremo 2y ago
      No problems with that. I don’t even call you luddite. I wouldn’t look down on you and call what I don’t like anti art.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - calvinmorrison 2y ago
    Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites.[5]
    - dmix 2y ago
      The outcome of the times. Likewise it is far more likely harmless AI (like adding dumb AI stuff to a family video) will have stronger suppression by current power systems than society suppressing critics of generative AI. Mostly because the latter boils down to cultural preferences and protectionism, not the real sort of harm that would build collective mass to threaten progress. And the former because people are heavily motivated these days by outrage and abstract future threats, well before the tangible evidence exists of widespread harm.
- underlipton 2y ago
  Turning it into a prohibition-style movement where using AI taints you forever unless your confess your sins and pledge total abstinence seems like the opposite for the group that wants to present itself as a return to sanity and moderation. It would be better to say, "Do what you want elsewhere, but we don't do that here." If you want to go full-radical, bombing a few data centers would probably be more effective than being mean to randos who used Midjourney a few times.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Hey, I am not trying to be mean to anyone. We all are forced to use technology more than we could choose too. Some friends and family of mine use AI and I am not mean to them. I just gently talk about it. Even my Macbook has some AI processor in it though I don't use it. There's no condemnation whatsoever, except for some who are really pushing AI.
    - underlipton 2y ago
      >who refuse to interact with Zero-tolerance ostracization is mean. If you're not doing that, and simply setting your boundaries - "I don't like the technology, let's talk about something else" - that's one thing. That's not what you were encouraging people to do in GP. I think we should be concise in our rhetoric, because it does have the potential to create needless conflict. "But you just said-" I did. People keep saying that AI is an existential threat requiring the most extreme action to stop. So... do people really believe that? Or are they just saying it? The treehuggers have a whole file on their actions[1]; where are the luddites? Is there really conviction, or just people letting off steam at convenient targets.[2] [1]: https://www.dhs.gov/archive/science-and-technology/publication/st-frg-overview-bombing-and-arson-attacks-environmental-and-animal-rights-extremists https://www.dhs.gov/archive/science-and-technology/publicati... [2]: I am not encouraging nor do I condone illegal or destructive acts, I'm analogizing a similar movement and its tactics.
      - vouaobrasil 2y ago
        I do think there has to be some responsibility taken, rather than being "nice" all the time. And I was speaking of a business sense. If someone uses AI in their own work, I fully support not supporting them. That's not social ostracization, that's just good business sense in not supporting a technology that I don't believe in. So yeah, let me be clear: I absolutely support boycotting people who use AI when it comes to business decisions, and I absolutely support an economic war of attrition against them. You know what's mean? Creating a technology that takes other people's jobs en masse like AI. But refusing to do business with those who use AI? I think that's fair play, and if it is at all mean, then it's just karma.
- martin82 2y ago
  How do you protect your community from the inevitable arrival of trolls who try to blend in and poison your photo collections with AI generated ones, only so they can say "see? it's so good, they don't even notice!"
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    The community has to be based on actually knowing people and a progressive level of trust. Just like other things in society: doctors and accreditations make sure that fake doctors don't practice, keeping sensitive information is based on trust, etc. An anti-AI community has to be a real community that is based on knowing and actually working with people, and not some online thing where anyone can sign up. In other words, it's not a social network or an amusing website with a free account. Nor is it just about photo collections. It's about supporting real people who do not want to support or use AI.
mrcwinn 2y ago
And yet here you are.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  There's nothing wrong with using existing platforms to declare the problems of said platforms. To me the "and yet you are using the internet"-type replies sound rather defensive and shallow. The truth is, sometimes it is possible to dismantle the master's house using the master's tools. Do we not complain about our governments using the countries we live in or the tools provided by the government? People who point out the deficiencies of technology sometimes must use said technology. Nothing wrong with that.
- latexr 2y ago
  Mr Gotcha strikes again. https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
vagab0nd 2y ago
Imagine a herd of AI agents, indistinguishable from real human, are to interact with you and the content you create. Are you ok with it? Would you even care that they are not real people? Or maybe you'd even prefer them sometimes? Because that's where we are headed.
- chasd00 2y ago
  If the AI agents are indistinguishable from humans then it doesn’t matter how you feel about them.
  - totallymike 2y ago
    But wouldn’t you want to know that something you made affected actual people in meaningful ways? I’d hate to have LLM bots drown out real people with actual opinions and experiences, and never know if I was actually reaching anyone.
    - xkqd 2y ago
      I’ve heard similar equivalencies in the past and I don’t know what the root cause of someone feeling this way is? Apathy? I’ve heard coworkers argue that enjoyment from video games is equally valuable to enjoying time with your family or enjoying a walk. I’m a lifelong gamer and it’s still heartbreaking to hear people say the grass outside is no more valuable to them than what’s going on in a digital world. What is going on with us?
      - paulryanrogers 2y ago
        > I’m a lifelong gamer and it’s still heartbreaking to hear people say the grass outside is no more valuable to them than what’s going on in a digital world. Digital is just another part of the human experience, albeit much further removed from the surviving-in-the-savannah experience most of our ancestors evolved in. For folks with significant limitations, screen-based experiences can be a huge enhancement and even a lifeline. A balanced life is such a subjective concept. IME it's easy and natural to judge, but not always fair or productive. By all means, let's encourage people to try a wide variety of experiences in all available mediums. Yet without scolding or pity when they make choices we don't relate to.
bko 2y ago
It's just a technology. Much like you can still buy "hand made" shoes, there will be people that create curated hand made content. And if they use AI and you can't tell the difference, does it really matter? I really don't understand why there is so much negativity for a new technology. It's never explained, just taken as a fact and people bemoaning the new state of the world.
- wilted-iris 2y ago
  Technology is not neutral.
- latexr 2y ago
  > And if they use AI and you can't tell the difference, does it really matter? It does, yes. To use your own analogy, if one pays for an artisanal product and is served something out of a production line in a factory, that is fraud. > It's never explained You’re not paying attention, it is often explained. One huge reason is that it devalues the work of artists who are already struggling to make any money by using their own work as a base without compensation. It’s not hard to find explanations if you really care to spend 5 seconds typing it into a search engine. Heck, I bet that if you asked an LLM, it’d tell you. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/zn2e3c/eli5_why_does_everyone_hate_ai_art/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/zn2e3c/eli5_why_do...
  - bko 2y ago
    Did washing machine devalue the work of people washing by hand? Did cameras devalue the work of portrait artists? ATMs to bank tellers? Tractor to farmer? Car to horses? Again, it's technology. I guess I shouldn't have said I never heard an argument. I just never heard a good one that can't be applied to pretty much any other technology that came before.
    - mrkpdl 2y ago
      These are false equivalences, or whataboutisms. The hand washers provided a very different ‘thing’. To that of artists. You mention things like getting clean clothes, getting from a to b in a car or on a horse, getting cash from an ATM instead from the teller at a bank branch. These are all completely different to the work of an artist or craftsperson that expresses something. So it’s very reasonable for people to seek insight/inspiration/catharsis/etc from things that they understand to be fully crafted by human minds and hands.
makeitdouble 2y ago
> reading books The harder part to me: "books" aren't great in average. There's an ocean of garbage books basically mass produced by ghost writers, solely targeted at milking a socially hot topic or grifting. There's an obesity epidemic ? Let's make 3000 new books repackaging classic diets under new catchy titles and see which sticks. AI is coming ? Let's throw money at anyone with a vaguely related blog and expand their 3 hot takes into 300 pages with a nice title and cover. At the end of the day what we get in long form is often a stretched version of what was fitting into 3 tweets before they tried to monetize it in a book deal.
- oscillatingpie 2y ago
  There's more than a lifetime of good literature, good non-fiction, good genre fiction to read. No one is making you read dross.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    It's the same for every medium though: good stuff will be good, dross will be dross. So why books in particular ?
- beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
  > The harder part to me: "books" aren't great in average. If all you're looking for is any book, then sure. But if you have specific interests in mind, or you actually take the time to get beyond an HBR listicle of the "5 best books for [x] topic", you can find so many good books. Too many too read in a lifetime. It's just insane how many great books there are given how many books there are already and are published every year. Even just subscribing to a pub like the NYRB or LRB and reading the reviews/essays has made my TBR list explode with interesting books. Then you have the smaller academic or niche presses that are publishing some great, serious, academic or weirdo fiction stuff, stuff that has no marketing whatsoever. > At the end of the day what we get in long form is often a stretched version of what was fitting into 3 tweets before they tried to monetize it in a book deal. Those books are very easy to spot. You can safely ignore 99% of Business, Productivity, Nutrition (add fitness), and pop-science, books, as you already noted. A lot of pre-internet books on those topics are fascinating, though, because they're usually written nothing at all like a blog post, and as examples that there has been very little world-changing written in those topics in the last 30-40 years.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
Forums linked to real-world activities, with people posting real pictures, are doing fine. For example I'm on several car forums and life is all good there. Bonus when there are "verified members" zones: for example on a car forum where another owner of a car of the same brand has to vet you in, certifying he saw you in real-life with a car from that brand. > Curation seems like the next best step. I don't disagree.
bongodongobob 2y ago
The drama on this site regarding AI is absolutely hilarious. You'd think this group would be excited about game changing technology but well over half the crowd is crying over it. You deciding the Internet is broken or whatever is a you thing. The rest of humanity will continue to use, enjoy, and create new interesting stuff with it. As if most shit on the Internet hasn't been mostly trash to begin with. Even in the late 90s most of it was useless. Learn to adapt or drop out and cry I guess. Get a hobby. These tears over mind blowing tech is pathetic.
- phito 2y ago
  Sounds like they struck a nerve to make you this aggressive... I think the tech is cool. I also think it's making the web worse, because people use that tech to abuse the system.
- gitaarik 2y ago
  Indeed, seems like a lot of people are getting old and conservative here ;)
- bloqs 2y ago
  Please try to take a less aggressive tone on HN, lest this become reddit
- nocturnes 2y ago
  It's possible to accept that a new tool is incredibly technically impressive while expressing concerns over how it may be deployed. Now feels like the right time to be having those conversations.
- internet101010 2y ago
  It's cool and I use it sometimes. But I am jaded and have seen the next big thing come and go time and time again. I'll partake but I'm not going to be the one that eats the biscuit.
vachina 2y ago
Focus on in real life experiences, stop consuming low effort media.
WuxiFingerHold 2y ago
That was unavoidable. Your (and mine, btw.) reaction is healthy. I hope more people start to withdraw more from the virtual world. Once they do, many will recognize that it's become an addiction: The good feelings of discovering new things on the internet is gone long ago. What is left is the bad feeling, when we don't distract ourselves with it. A typical sign for addiction. Back to the topic: I'm still worried by the huge danger of mass delusion. Commercially, but much more politically. How easy will it be to create fake movies of war scenes. There've been fake photos around for a long time. By setting up real scenarios and of course by "photoshopping". Now, there's not much left we can trust. The good and only way out of this to learn to not trust anything you see on the internet or television. We need new ways of trusted communication.
- the_gipsy 2y ago
  You're just getting old, man.
shinycode 2y ago
I feel that there always will be people loving their craft. Maybe their price will go higher but it also means they might work on more interesting projects because the crap ones will be generated by AI. It also means that commercials, ads will be customized for each person with all the informations gathered on that person, maybe every time. Dynamic video Ads, AI will unlock this potential (and I hope AI will also unlock the potential to definitely filter itself)
ur-whale 2y ago
> I've started to get back into reading books and long form blogs How do you know the books and blogs you're reading weren't generated by an AI?
- famahar 2y ago
  Well there's countless books before AI, before the internet, before the computer to read. Blogs are a bit tricky but I just have to trust that the blogs I follow are writers that love writing and don't care about making mass appeal content.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jongjong 2y ago
Sadly, something I've realized is that, as the junk gets more abundant, most people's taste seems to get worse. It's not only because of AI, it was a pre-existing trend. Just look at music, books, movies (can't really call them films anymore). Humans are becoming as soulless as machines. The machines are shaping us in their image, human consciousness will be extinct long before humanity becomes extinct physically.
- danielbln 2y ago
  Is this a quote from Plato? Sure reads like something every single generation that aged out of the prime time has said.
- saturn8601 2y ago
  The cost of 'quality' is going up and people don't fully realize that they can't afford it anymore because it is being hidden from them. Put another way: Anything that has benefited from Moore's law or the drop in energy prices (which itself benefits from moore's law)has been deflationary while anything that requires humans in the loop has become inflationary. [1]:https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/price-changes-goods-services.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/... Music/Movies: In the future, the common person will have endless amount of AI slop to meet whatever they feel like watching. Sounds like abundance right? Well the rich will have real human actors/singers do performances at their behest and only they can afford it. Books: This is already happening: AI will provide the answer to any question but people will not have the mental fortitude to derive the solution by learning the first principles manually. Its much easier for AI to provide you the direct answer instead of a breakdown of how it got to the answer and why. That requires enormous mental concentration(ie. learning). As a result they will further be enslaved by the AI and the few wealthy people will have access to humans that can truly teach them anything they want. An AI teacher for all is not the same as a human teacher.
stroupwaffle 2y ago
Yeah it’s tough. Could get the people to curate the content. Bookmarks used to be a sacred thing. I’m sure if we band together, the best sites are already known to someone, somewhere. But yeah, read a book. Practice poetry. Go analog. It’s very rewarding!
ErigmolCt 2y ago
We need a more thoughtful internet
_w1tm 2y ago
> I'm hoping some non AI generative content branch of the internet will be created. Social media has been filled with disinformation and bot generated slop for well over a decade. AI or not, the internet is turning into shit until we come up with ways to filter it out. Maybe we need to build a section of internet where we use identity verification, the anonymous internet has all been turned suspect by malicious actors.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

vouaobrasil 2y ago

I was thinking exactly that: a coalition of people who refuse to use AI, and who refuse to interact with or support others who do use AI. I actually work for Photography Life, and we have already committed to 100% AI free: no generative AI for articles and no gen AI for photos either. I also have a 100% AI-free commmitment on my YouTube channel. Procreate for iPad believes in no AI as well. But we need more supporters. Place AI-free banners on your site if you have one and send me the link. Encourage others to declare their support against AI. Writing and art is about communicating what humans make because it transmits experience! We have to come together and refuse as much as possible to support those who use AI! Feel free to contact me if you want to collaborate!

deisteve 2y ago
coalition makes it sound like its in the millions all coordinating together like these guys : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I am happy to declare that I am myself, a Luddite in many ways. No problem with that. I like lots of technology, not gonna lie. I'm a programmer and have a PhD in math, but I think it's gone too far in many respects. And if I have to build a coalition into millions, I'll do it one step at a time.
  - blibble 2y ago
    where do I sign up? early 2000s style amish would do it for me...
  - floren 2y ago
    Where do I sign?
  - signatoremo 2y ago
    No problems with that. I don’t even call you luddite. I wouldn’t look down on you and call what I don’t like anti art.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- calvinmorrison 2y ago
  Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites.[5]
  - dmix 2y ago
    The outcome of the times. Likewise it is far more likely harmless AI (like adding dumb AI stuff to a family video) will have stronger suppression by current power systems than society suppressing critics of generative AI. Mostly because the latter boils down to cultural preferences and protectionism, not the real sort of harm that would build collective mass to threaten progress. And the former because people are heavily motivated these days by outrage and abstract future threats, well before the tangible evidence exists of widespread harm.
underlipton 2y ago
Turning it into a prohibition-style movement where using AI taints you forever unless your confess your sins and pledge total abstinence seems like the opposite for the group that wants to present itself as a return to sanity and moderation. It would be better to say, "Do what you want elsewhere, but we don't do that here." If you want to go full-radical, bombing a few data centers would probably be more effective than being mean to randos who used Midjourney a few times.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Hey, I am not trying to be mean to anyone. We all are forced to use technology more than we could choose too. Some friends and family of mine use AI and I am not mean to them. I just gently talk about it. Even my Macbook has some AI processor in it though I don't use it. There's no condemnation whatsoever, except for some who are really pushing AI.
  - underlipton 2y ago
    >who refuse to interact with Zero-tolerance ostracization is mean. If you're not doing that, and simply setting your boundaries - "I don't like the technology, let's talk about something else" - that's one thing. That's not what you were encouraging people to do in GP. I think we should be concise in our rhetoric, because it does have the potential to create needless conflict. "But you just said-" I did. People keep saying that AI is an existential threat requiring the most extreme action to stop. So... do people really believe that? Or are they just saying it? The treehuggers have a whole file on their actions[1]; where are the luddites? Is there really conviction, or just people letting off steam at convenient targets.[2] [1]: https://www.dhs.gov/archive/science-and-technology/publication/st-frg-overview-bombing-and-arson-attacks-environmental-and-animal-rights-extremists https://www.dhs.gov/archive/science-and-technology/publicati... [2]: I am not encouraging nor do I condone illegal or destructive acts, I'm analogizing a similar movement and its tactics.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      I do think there has to be some responsibility taken, rather than being "nice" all the time. And I was speaking of a business sense. If someone uses AI in their own work, I fully support not supporting them. That's not social ostracization, that's just good business sense in not supporting a technology that I don't believe in. So yeah, let me be clear: I absolutely support boycotting people who use AI when it comes to business decisions, and I absolutely support an economic war of attrition against them. You know what's mean? Creating a technology that takes other people's jobs en masse like AI. But refusing to do business with those who use AI? I think that's fair play, and if it is at all mean, then it's just karma.
martin82 2y ago
How do you protect your community from the inevitable arrival of trolls who try to blend in and poison your photo collections with AI generated ones, only so they can say "see? it's so good, they don't even notice!"
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  The community has to be based on actually knowing people and a progressive level of trust. Just like other things in society: doctors and accreditations make sure that fake doctors don't practice, keeping sensitive information is based on trust, etc. An anti-AI community has to be a real community that is based on knowing and actually working with people, and not some online thing where anyone can sign up. In other words, it's not a social network or an amusing website with a free account. Nor is it just about photo collections. It's about supporting real people who do not want to support or use AI.

mrcwinn 2y ago

And yet here you are.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
There's nothing wrong with using existing platforms to declare the problems of said platforms. To me the "and yet you are using the internet"-type replies sound rather defensive and shallow. The truth is, sometimes it is possible to dismantle the master's house using the master's tools. Do we not complain about our governments using the countries we live in or the tools provided by the government? People who point out the deficiencies of technology sometimes must use said technology. Nothing wrong with that.
latexr 2y ago
Mr Gotcha strikes again. https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

vagab0nd 2y ago

Imagine a herd of AI agents, indistinguishable from real human, are to interact with you and the content you create. Are you ok with it? Would you even care that they are not real people? Or maybe you'd even prefer them sometimes? Because that's where we are headed.

chasd00 2y ago
If the AI agents are indistinguishable from humans then it doesn’t matter how you feel about them.
- totallymike 2y ago
  But wouldn’t you want to know that something you made affected actual people in meaningful ways? I’d hate to have LLM bots drown out real people with actual opinions and experiences, and never know if I was actually reaching anyone.
  - xkqd 2y ago
    I’ve heard similar equivalencies in the past and I don’t know what the root cause of someone feeling this way is? Apathy? I’ve heard coworkers argue that enjoyment from video games is equally valuable to enjoying time with your family or enjoying a walk. I’m a lifelong gamer and it’s still heartbreaking to hear people say the grass outside is no more valuable to them than what’s going on in a digital world. What is going on with us?
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      > I’m a lifelong gamer and it’s still heartbreaking to hear people say the grass outside is no more valuable to them than what’s going on in a digital world. Digital is just another part of the human experience, albeit much further removed from the surviving-in-the-savannah experience most of our ancestors evolved in. For folks with significant limitations, screen-based experiences can be a huge enhancement and even a lifeline. A balanced life is such a subjective concept. IME it's easy and natural to judge, but not always fair or productive. By all means, let's encourage people to try a wide variety of experiences in all available mediums. Yet without scolding or pity when they make choices we don't relate to.

bko 2y ago

It's just a technology. Much like you can still buy "hand made" shoes, there will be people that create curated hand made content. And if they use AI and you can't tell the difference, does it really matter? I really don't understand why there is so much negativity for a new technology. It's never explained, just taken as a fact and people bemoaning the new state of the world.

wilted-iris 2y ago
Technology is not neutral.
latexr 2y ago
> And if they use AI and you can't tell the difference, does it really matter? It does, yes. To use your own analogy, if one pays for an artisanal product and is served something out of a production line in a factory, that is fraud. > It's never explained You’re not paying attention, it is often explained. One huge reason is that it devalues the work of artists who are already struggling to make any money by using their own work as a base without compensation. It’s not hard to find explanations if you really care to spend 5 seconds typing it into a search engine. Heck, I bet that if you asked an LLM, it’d tell you. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/zn2e3c/eli5_why_does_everyone_hate_ai_art/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/zn2e3c/eli5_why_do...
- bko 2y ago
  Did washing machine devalue the work of people washing by hand? Did cameras devalue the work of portrait artists? ATMs to bank tellers? Tractor to farmer? Car to horses? Again, it's technology. I guess I shouldn't have said I never heard an argument. I just never heard a good one that can't be applied to pretty much any other technology that came before.
  - mrkpdl 2y ago
    These are false equivalences, or whataboutisms. The hand washers provided a very different ‘thing’. To that of artists. You mention things like getting clean clothes, getting from a to b in a car or on a horse, getting cash from an ATM instead from the teller at a bank branch. These are all completely different to the work of an artist or craftsperson that expresses something. So it’s very reasonable for people to seek insight/inspiration/catharsis/etc from things that they understand to be fully crafted by human minds and hands.

makeitdouble 2y ago

> reading books The harder part to me: "books" aren't great in average. There's an ocean of garbage books basically mass produced by ghost writers, solely targeted at milking a socially hot topic or grifting. There's an obesity epidemic ? Let's make 3000 new books repackaging classic diets under new catchy titles and see which sticks. AI is coming ? Let's throw money at anyone with a vaguely related blog and expand their 3 hot takes into 300 pages with a nice title and cover. At the end of the day what we get in long form is often a stretched version of what was fitting into 3 tweets before they tried to monetize it in a book deal.

oscillatingpie 2y ago
There's more than a lifetime of good literature, good non-fiction, good genre fiction to read. No one is making you read dross.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  It's the same for every medium though: good stuff will be good, dross will be dross. So why books in particular ?
beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
> The harder part to me: "books" aren't great in average. If all you're looking for is any book, then sure. But if you have specific interests in mind, or you actually take the time to get beyond an HBR listicle of the "5 best books for [x] topic", you can find so many good books. Too many too read in a lifetime. It's just insane how many great books there are given how many books there are already and are published every year. Even just subscribing to a pub like the NYRB or LRB and reading the reviews/essays has made my TBR list explode with interesting books. Then you have the smaller academic or niche presses that are publishing some great, serious, academic or weirdo fiction stuff, stuff that has no marketing whatsoever. > At the end of the day what we get in long form is often a stretched version of what was fitting into 3 tweets before they tried to monetize it in a book deal. Those books are very easy to spot. You can safely ignore 99% of Business, Productivity, Nutrition (add fitness), and pop-science, books, as you already noted. A lot of pre-internet books on those topics are fascinating, though, because they're usually written nothing at all like a blog post, and as examples that there has been very little world-changing written in those topics in the last 30-40 years.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

Forums linked to real-world activities, with people posting real pictures, are doing fine. For example I'm on several car forums and life is all good there. Bonus when there are "verified members" zones: for example on a car forum where another owner of a car of the same brand has to vet you in, certifying he saw you in real-life with a car from that brand. > Curation seems like the next best step. I don't disagree.

bongodongobob 2y ago

The drama on this site regarding AI is absolutely hilarious. You'd think this group would be excited about game changing technology but well over half the crowd is crying over it. You deciding the Internet is broken or whatever is a you thing. The rest of humanity will continue to use, enjoy, and create new interesting stuff with it. As if most shit on the Internet hasn't been mostly trash to begin with. Even in the late 90s most of it was useless. Learn to adapt or drop out and cry I guess. Get a hobby. These tears over mind blowing tech is pathetic.

phito 2y ago
Sounds like they struck a nerve to make you this aggressive... I think the tech is cool. I also think it's making the web worse, because people use that tech to abuse the system.
gitaarik 2y ago
Indeed, seems like a lot of people are getting old and conservative here ;)
bloqs 2y ago
Please try to take a less aggressive tone on HN, lest this become reddit
nocturnes 2y ago
It's possible to accept that a new tool is incredibly technically impressive while expressing concerns over how it may be deployed. Now feels like the right time to be having those conversations.
internet101010 2y ago
It's cool and I use it sometimes. But I am jaded and have seen the next big thing come and go time and time again. I'll partake but I'm not going to be the one that eats the biscuit.

vachina 2y ago

Focus on in real life experiences, stop consuming low effort media.

WuxiFingerHold 2y ago

That was unavoidable. Your (and mine, btw.) reaction is healthy. I hope more people start to withdraw more from the virtual world. Once they do, many will recognize that it's become an addiction: The good feelings of discovering new things on the internet is gone long ago. What is left is the bad feeling, when we don't distract ourselves with it. A typical sign for addiction. Back to the topic: I'm still worried by the huge danger of mass delusion. Commercially, but much more politically. How easy will it be to create fake movies of war scenes. There've been fake photos around for a long time. By setting up real scenarios and of course by "photoshopping". Now, there's not much left we can trust. The good and only way out of this to learn to not trust anything you see on the internet or television. We need new ways of trusted communication.

the_gipsy 2y ago
You're just getting old, man.

shinycode 2y ago

I feel that there always will be people loving their craft. Maybe their price will go higher but it also means they might work on more interesting projects because the crap ones will be generated by AI. It also means that commercials, ads will be customized for each person with all the informations gathered on that person, maybe every time. Dynamic video Ads, AI will unlock this potential (and I hope AI will also unlock the potential to definitely filter itself)

ur-whale 2y ago

> I've started to get back into reading books and long form blogs How do you know the books and blogs you're reading weren't generated by an AI?

famahar 2y ago
Well there's countless books before AI, before the internet, before the computer to read. Blogs are a bit tricky but I just have to trust that the blogs I follow are writers that love writing and don't care about making mass appeal content.

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jongjong 2y ago

Sadly, something I've realized is that, as the junk gets more abundant, most people's taste seems to get worse. It's not only because of AI, it was a pre-existing trend. Just look at music, books, movies (can't really call them films anymore). Humans are becoming as soulless as machines. The machines are shaping us in their image, human consciousness will be extinct long before humanity becomes extinct physically.

danielbln 2y ago
Is this a quote from Plato? Sure reads like something every single generation that aged out of the prime time has said.
saturn8601 2y ago
The cost of 'quality' is going up and people don't fully realize that they can't afford it anymore because it is being hidden from them. Put another way: Anything that has benefited from Moore's law or the drop in energy prices (which itself benefits from moore's law)has been deflationary while anything that requires humans in the loop has become inflationary. [1]:https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/price-changes-goods-services.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/... Music/Movies: In the future, the common person will have endless amount of AI slop to meet whatever they feel like watching. Sounds like abundance right? Well the rich will have real human actors/singers do performances at their behest and only they can afford it. Books: This is already happening: AI will provide the answer to any question but people will not have the mental fortitude to derive the solution by learning the first principles manually. Its much easier for AI to provide you the direct answer instead of a breakdown of how it got to the answer and why. That requires enormous mental concentration(ie. learning). As a result they will further be enslaved by the AI and the few wealthy people will have access to humans that can truly teach them anything they want. An AI teacher for all is not the same as a human teacher.

stroupwaffle 2y ago

Yeah it’s tough. Could get the people to curate the content. Bookmarks used to be a sacred thing. I’m sure if we band together, the best sites are already known to someone, somewhere. But yeah, read a book. Practice poetry. Go analog. It’s very rewarding!

ErigmolCt 2y ago

We need a more thoughtful internet

_w1tm 2y ago

> I'm hoping some non AI generative content branch of the internet will be created. Social media has been filled with disinformation and bot generated slop for well over a decade. AI or not, the internet is turning into shit until we come up with ways to filter it out. Maybe we need to build a section of internet where we use identity verification, the anonymous internet has all been turned suspect by malicious actors.

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