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> I don’t like reading obviously AI-generated content on Twitter. (…) But I have no problem reading AI-generated content when I talk to Copilot or ChatGPT. Why

by latexr 2y ago

> I don’t like reading obviously AI-generated content on Twitter. (…) But I have no problem reading AI-generated content when I talk to Copilot or ChatGPT. Why is that? For the same reason that you making an annoying sound doesn’t bother you, but someone else doing the exact same thing does. Or why other people’s dreams aren’t particularly interesting but yours might be. Basically, in the words of George Carlin: “did you ever notice your own farts smell okay?”¹ There’s no mystery to it. You like the slop you make because you’re in control and you made it. You were present, interested, and invested in the process and decision making throughout. You only see the result of other people’s slop. ¹ https://youtu.be/MnI6F2DKoOQ?feature=shared&t=78 https://youtu.be/MnI6F2DKoOQ?feature=shared&t=78

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> You like the slop you make because you’re in control This seems wrong. When others show me AI-generated content it's not enraging because I know to skim it. I'm also not paying close attention because I'll need to fact check everything anyway. AI-generated content becomes obnoxious when I'm lured into thinking it's to be taken seriously only to, almost always no more than two sentences in, realising what it is.
- latexr 2y ago
  > When others show me AI-generated content it's not enraging because I know to skim it. There is a canyon of difference between not liking something and being enraged by it. You’re responding to an argument which wasn’t made.
karmakaze 2y ago
Another key difference is the motivation for making it--I wouldn't make slop for myself for the clicks.
- spwa4 2y ago
  This is it. That's the reason. People feel like they're being disrespected when reading AI. The whole point of the internet is making people think they're being fed high-value information while the whole point of "AI slop", of course, is to be as cheap as possible when making the information. In reality value of information is of course mostly independent of whether it's AI generated or not. We're in that weird period where AI beats low-effort human writing, but still falls pretty far short of well-researched well-reasoned human effort. So a weather report written by AI will probably be better than human written, as will all information, up to a certain length, maybe up to a level of difficulty. For example, I'm learning languages and having LLama generate both lessons and correcting my responses. It is far better than any language teaching book can hope to be. I'm teaching my kids python, and having AI generate intros and correct and critique their programs ... I could beat it with enough effort, but for similar effort. And whilst AI cannot yet write a great movie script, so it isn't (yet) a global thing, most information, online and offline, isn't great quality either (and wasn't before AI). People's AI detector and disgust is about a distaste for other people thinking of them as so low-value that they should be fed cheap information. Even while, of course, they're not paying anything for the internet sites they read (and I get it, which ISPs and FANGs do make worse by giving the impression people DID in fact pay for internet sites, either by monthly payments or "clicks")
scotty79 2y ago
Nah. Literary AI slop has pretentious, overintelectualized tone while usually having scarcely any content. It's like that because most of what humans wrote is like that. You, as a technical person, usually have very little exposure to such writing because you usually read technical things or at least things that have some content and not so many bland embellishments. Code is more bearable because most code humans wrote is more or less on point.
inglor_cz 2y ago
I would say that context matters. We expect certain styles in certain settings. Bureaucratic style is different from friendly chat style, which is different from lullaby style, which is different from priestly style etc. You expect to be preached at when visiting a church, but you would be really annoyed being preached at by a waiter. A doctor talking to you in a casual way "heya buddy, interested if you have the big C?" would be outright frightening, etc. Same with AI.

by latexr 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> You like the slop you make because you’re in control This seems wrong. When others show me AI-generated content it's not enraging because I know to skim it. I'm also not paying close attention because I'll need to fact check everything anyway. AI-generated content becomes obnoxious when I'm lured into thinking it's to be taken seriously only to, almost always no more than two sentences in, realising what it is.

latexr 2y ago
> When others show me AI-generated content it's not enraging because I know to skim it. There is a canyon of difference between not liking something and being enraged by it. You’re responding to an argument which wasn’t made.

karmakaze 2y ago

Another key difference is the motivation for making it--I wouldn't make slop for myself for the clicks.

spwa4 2y ago
This is it. That's the reason. People feel like they're being disrespected when reading AI. The whole point of the internet is making people think they're being fed high-value information while the whole point of "AI slop", of course, is to be as cheap as possible when making the information. In reality value of information is of course mostly independent of whether it's AI generated or not. We're in that weird period where AI beats low-effort human writing, but still falls pretty far short of well-researched well-reasoned human effort. So a weather report written by AI will probably be better than human written, as will all information, up to a certain length, maybe up to a level of difficulty. For example, I'm learning languages and having LLama generate both lessons and correcting my responses. It is far better than any language teaching book can hope to be. I'm teaching my kids python, and having AI generate intros and correct and critique their programs ... I could beat it with enough effort, but for similar effort. And whilst AI cannot yet write a great movie script, so it isn't (yet) a global thing, most information, online and offline, isn't great quality either (and wasn't before AI). People's AI detector and disgust is about a distaste for other people thinking of them as so low-value that they should be fed cheap information. Even while, of course, they're not paying anything for the internet sites they read (and I get it, which ISPs and FANGs do make worse by giving the impression people DID in fact pay for internet sites, either by monthly payments or "clicks")

scotty79 2y ago

Nah. Literary AI slop has pretentious, overintelectualized tone while usually having scarcely any content. It's like that because most of what humans wrote is like that. You, as a technical person, usually have very little exposure to such writing because you usually read technical things or at least things that have some content and not so many bland embellishments. Code is more bearable because most code humans wrote is more or less on point.

inglor_cz 2y ago

I would say that context matters. We expect certain styles in certain settings. Bureaucratic style is different from friendly chat style, which is different from lullaby style, which is different from priestly style etc. You expect to be preached at when visiting a church, but you would be really annoyed being preached at by a waiter. A doctor talking to you in a casual way "heya buddy, interested if you have the big C?" would be outright frightening, etc. Same with AI.