5 ms·

So we have two universes. One is pushing generated content up our throats - from social media to operating systems - and another universe where people actively

So we have two universes. One is pushing generated content up our throats - from social media to operating systems - and another universe where people actively decide not to have anything to do with it. I wonder where the obstinacy on the part of certain CEOs come from. It's clear that although such content does have its fans (mostly grouped in communities), people at large just hate arificially-generated content. We had our moment, it was fun, it is no more, but these guys seem obsessed in promoting it.

VHRanger 11mo ago
> I wonder where the obstinacy on the part of certain CEOs come from. I can tell you: their board, mostly. Few of whom ever used LLMs seriousl. But they react to wall street and that signal was clear in the last few years
- immibis 11mo ago
  "Completely detached from reality" we used to call it. But where is the money coming from? Is it because we abolished the idea of competition, they never suffer negative impacts of bad decisions any more?
  - Libidinalecon 11mo ago
    We are in a bad situation. Some of our biggest and best companies went from being "capex lite" to "capex light money on fire" and caused a capex light money on fire social contagion. The money is from debt financing. Things are bad and we don't even know who is completely full of shit because we are still at high tide.
Kuiper 11mo ago
There is a huge audience for AI-generated content on YouTube, though admittedly many of them are oblivious to the fact that they are watching AI-generated content. Here are several examples of videos with 1 million views that people don't seem to realize are AI-generated: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvTjrsNtxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvTjrsNtxA * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDnMpuSYic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDnMpuSYic These videos do have some editing which I believe was done by human editors, but the scripts are written by GPT, the assets are all AI-generated illustrations, and the voice is AI-generated. (The fact that the Sleepless Historian channel is 100% AI generated becomes even more obvious if you look at the channel's early uploads, where you have a stiff 3D avatar sitting in a chair and delivering a 1-hour lecture in a single take while maintaining the same rigid posture.) If you look at Reddit comment sections on large default subs, many of the top-voted posts are obviously composed by GPT. People post LLM-generated stories to the /r/fantasywriters subreddit and get praised for their "beautiful metaphors. The revealed preference of many people is that they love AI-generated content, they are content to watch it on YouTube, upvote it on Reddit, or "like" it on Facebook. These people are not part of "the Midjourney community," they just see AI-generated content out in the wild and enjoy it.
- lawlessone 11mo ago
  Their rate of uploads makes it obvious too. 3 hour videos multiple times a week. Compare that Fall Of Civilizations (a fantastic podcast btw) that often has 7 months between videos.
- anal_reactor 11mo ago
  Hot take but I don't care if the content I consume is AI-generated or not. First of all, while sometimes I need high-effort quality content, sometimes I want my brain to rest and then AI-generated slop is completely okay. He who didn't binge-watch garbage reality TV can cast the first stone. Second, just because something is AI-generated it doesn't automatically mean it's slop, just like human-generated content isn't automatically slop-free. Boring History For Sleep allowed me to see medieval times in a more emotional way, something that history books "this king did this and then won but then in 1274 was poisoned and died" never did.
  - blargey 11mo ago
    > He who didn't binge-watch garbage reality TV can cast the first stone I'm not in a rock-throwing mood, but I qualify for that easily. False consensus effect cuts against AI...mass-production? aficionados just as much as hardline opponents.
  - FridgeSeal 11mo ago
    > He who didn't binge-watch garbage reality TV can cast the first stone Stand by then, because I have rocks and according to you, licence to throw them. You are free to watch all the slop you want. All I want is for your slop, to not be at the cost of all other media and content. Have a SlopTube, have SlopFlix, go for it! But do it in a way that is _separate_ and doesn’t inflict it on the rest of us, who would _like_ human produced content, even if the AI stuff is “just as good”.
    - danudey 11mo ago
      Just let me choose a filter when I'm doing a search on YouTube and that's a good start. Beyond that I can just block or 'don't recommend this channel' for anything that shows up in my feed, but the fact that these platforms don't let people say 'I don't want this garbage' is the biggest issue I have with it.
estimator7292 11mo ago
Full on sunk cost fallacy and "business" hysteria. There is no logic, only fads and demands for exponential growth now and also forever.
hastamelo 11mo ago
you have a very narrow definition of "people" on Instagram AI content is highly popular, some videos have 50mil views and half a million likes
- jaredcwhite 11mo ago
  And if you believe any of those numbers mean anything, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
jatora 11mo ago
not exactly nothing to do with it, they still use generative AI to assist search and saying 'it is no more'... sigh. such a weird take. the world's coming for you
danudey 11mo ago
If creators are required to disclose that they used AI to create, modify, or manipulate content then I should be able to filter out content created with AI. Even if I'm thinking of a specific video it's getting harder to find things because of the ridiculous amount of mass-produced slop out there. I don't really care if people produce this sort of crap; let the market sort it out, maybe something of value will come of it. It's the fact that, as Kagi points out, it's getting more and more difficult to produce anything of value because content creators operating in good faith with good intentions get drowned out by slop peddlers who have no such limitations or morals.
raincole 11mo ago
Are you implying Kagi is on the "nothing to do with LLM" side? Even Kagi uses LLMs to summarize news. https://github.com/kagisearch/kite-public/issues/97 https://github.com/kagisearch/kite-public/issues/97 LLMs just make too much economic sense to be ignored.
BeFlatXIII 11mo ago
> people at large In your social circles.
veunes 11mo ago
The CEOs obstinacy comes from simple economics: the cost of producing content with AI is trending toward zero, which allows for scaling content farms to unprecedented sizes. It's a constant race for attention, so the goal is no longer quality, but volume

VHRanger 11mo ago

> I wonder where the obstinacy on the part of certain CEOs come from. I can tell you: their board, mostly. Few of whom ever used LLMs seriousl. But they react to wall street and that signal was clear in the last few years

immibis 11mo ago
"Completely detached from reality" we used to call it. But where is the money coming from? Is it because we abolished the idea of competition, they never suffer negative impacts of bad decisions any more?
- Libidinalecon 11mo ago
  We are in a bad situation. Some of our biggest and best companies went from being "capex lite" to "capex light money on fire" and caused a capex light money on fire social contagion. The money is from debt financing. Things are bad and we don't even know who is completely full of shit because we are still at high tide.

Kuiper 11mo ago

There is a huge audience for AI-generated content on YouTube, though admittedly many of them are oblivious to the fact that they are watching AI-generated content. Here are several examples of videos with 1 million views that people don't seem to realize are AI-generated: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvTjrsNtxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvTjrsNtxA * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDnMpuSYic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDnMpuSYic These videos do have some editing which I believe was done by human editors, but the scripts are written by GPT, the assets are all AI-generated illustrations, and the voice is AI-generated. (The fact that the Sleepless Historian channel is 100% AI generated becomes even more obvious if you look at the channel's early uploads, where you have a stiff 3D avatar sitting in a chair and delivering a 1-hour lecture in a single take while maintaining the same rigid posture.) If you look at Reddit comment sections on large default subs, many of the top-voted posts are obviously composed by GPT. People post LLM-generated stories to the /r/fantasywriters subreddit and get praised for their "beautiful metaphors. The revealed preference of many people is that they love AI-generated content, they are content to watch it on YouTube, upvote it on Reddit, or "like" it on Facebook. These people are not part of "the Midjourney community," they just see AI-generated content out in the wild and enjoy it.

lawlessone 11mo ago
Their rate of uploads makes it obvious too. 3 hour videos multiple times a week. Compare that Fall Of Civilizations (a fantastic podcast btw) that often has 7 months between videos.
anal_reactor 11mo ago
Hot take but I don't care if the content I consume is AI-generated or not. First of all, while sometimes I need high-effort quality content, sometimes I want my brain to rest and then AI-generated slop is completely okay. He who didn't binge-watch garbage reality TV can cast the first stone. Second, just because something is AI-generated it doesn't automatically mean it's slop, just like human-generated content isn't automatically slop-free. Boring History For Sleep allowed me to see medieval times in a more emotional way, something that history books "this king did this and then won but then in 1274 was poisoned and died" never did.
- blargey 11mo ago
  > He who didn't binge-watch garbage reality TV can cast the first stone I'm not in a rock-throwing mood, but I qualify for that easily. False consensus effect cuts against AI...mass-production? aficionados just as much as hardline opponents.
- FridgeSeal 11mo ago
  > He who didn't binge-watch garbage reality TV can cast the first stone Stand by then, because I have rocks and according to you, licence to throw them. You are free to watch all the slop you want. All I want is for your slop, to not be at the cost of all other media and content. Have a SlopTube, have SlopFlix, go for it! But do it in a way that is _separate_ and doesn’t inflict it on the rest of us, who would _like_ human produced content, even if the AI stuff is “just as good”.
  - danudey 11mo ago
    Just let me choose a filter when I'm doing a search on YouTube and that's a good start. Beyond that I can just block or 'don't recommend this channel' for anything that shows up in my feed, but the fact that these platforms don't let people say 'I don't want this garbage' is the biggest issue I have with it.

estimator7292 11mo ago

Full on sunk cost fallacy and "business" hysteria. There is no logic, only fads and demands for exponential growth now and also forever.

hastamelo 11mo ago

you have a very narrow definition of "people" on Instagram AI content is highly popular, some videos have 50mil views and half a million likes

jaredcwhite 11mo ago
And if you believe any of those numbers mean anything, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

jatora 11mo ago

not exactly nothing to do with it, they still use generative AI to assist search and saying 'it is no more'... sigh. such a weird take. the world's coming for you

danudey 11mo ago

If creators are required to disclose that they used AI to create, modify, or manipulate content then I should be able to filter out content created with AI. Even if I'm thinking of a specific video it's getting harder to find things because of the ridiculous amount of mass-produced slop out there. I don't really care if people produce this sort of crap; let the market sort it out, maybe something of value will come of it. It's the fact that, as Kagi points out, it's getting more and more difficult to produce anything of value because content creators operating in good faith with good intentions get drowned out by slop peddlers who have no such limitations or morals.

raincole 11mo ago

Are you implying Kagi is on the "nothing to do with LLM" side? Even Kagi uses LLMs to summarize news. https://github.com/kagisearch/kite-public/issues/97 https://github.com/kagisearch/kite-public/issues/97 LLMs just make too much economic sense to be ignored.

BeFlatXIII 11mo ago

> people at large In your social circles.

veunes 11mo ago

The CEOs obstinacy comes from simple economics: the cost of producing content with AI is trending toward zero, which allows for scaling content farms to unprecedented sizes. It's a constant race for attention, so the goal is no longer quality, but volume