On a technical level, this is a great achievement. On a more societal level, I'm not sure continuously diminishing costs for producing AI slop is a net benefit

On a technical level, this is a great achievement. On a more societal level, I'm not sure continuously diminishing costs for producing AI slop is a net benefit to humanity. I think this whole thing parallels some of the social media pros and cons. We gained the chance to reconnect with long lost friends—from whom we probably drifted apart for real reasons, consciously or not—at the cost of letting the general level of discourse to tank to its current state thanks to engagement-maximizing algorithms.