5 ms·

I cannot stop thinking about the LLMs having this Midas touch quality, because everything they touch seems to ruin things or make people want to avoid them, for

I cannot stop thinking about the LLMs having this Midas touch quality, because everything they touch seems to ruin things or make people want to avoid them, for example: - Ghibli studio style graphics, - the infamous em-dashes and bullet points - customer service (just try to use Klarnas "support" these days...) - Oracle share price ;) - imagine being one of the worlds most solid and unassailable tech companies, losing to your CEOs crazy commitment to the LLMs... - The internet content - We now tripple check every Internet source we dont know to the core ... - And now also the chips ? Where does it stop? When we decide to drop all technology as it is?

bogzz 10mo ago
I am not sure how, or even if, it does stop. I assume once the hot air from LLM company CEOs starts being treated as the flatulence that it is, things will wind down. The sentiment against generated content is not going away.
- cindyllm 10mo ago
  [dead]
- api 10mo ago
  In previous eras there were many purists who considered photography not-art, sequencer and synthesizer made music not-music, other forms of (non-AI) digital art less legitimate than their more manual classical counterparts, etc. This is the same discourse all over again. Is electronic music where the artist composes it on a screen and then hits 'play' music? I think it is, of course, but I have had experiences where I went to see a musician "live" and well... they brought the laptop with them. But I think it still counts. It was still fun. AI slop is to AI art what point and shoot amateur photography is to artistic photography. The difference is how much artistic intent and actual work is present. AI art has yet to get people like Ansel Adams, but it will -- actual artists who use AI as a tool to make novel forms and styles of art. (I used an emdash!) This is an outstanding read: https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an-art-form-7b74da777c63 https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an... Anti-photography discourse sounds exactly like anti-AI discourse to the point that you could search and replace terms and have the same rants. Another thing I expect to see is novelists using AI to create at least passable live action versions of their stories. I don't think these will put real actors or actresses out of work for a long time, but I could see them serving as "sizzle reels" to sell a real production. If an author posts their AI-generated film of their novel and it gets popular, I could see a studio picking it up and making a real movie or TV show from it.
  - bogzz 10mo ago
    I don't believe that there is near enough room for creativity to shine through in the prompt-generation pipeline, and I find the mention of a talent like Ansel Adams in this context asinine. There is no control there, and without control over creation I don't believe that creativity CAN flourish, but I may be wrong. Electronic music is analogous to digital art made by humans, not generated art.
    - api 10mo ago
      How much room for creativity is there with a camera? Angle, lighting, F-stop, film type, film processing? I have a local image generator app called Draw Things that has many times more options than this. Early synthesizers weren't that versatile either. Bands like Pink Floyd actually got into electronics and tore them apart and hacked them. Early techno and hip-hop artists did similar things and even figured out how to transform a simple record player into a musical instrument by hopping the needle around and scratching records back and forth with tremendous skill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRVmiqm84k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRVmiqm84k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgpZag6xyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgpZag6xyQ Serious AI artists will start tearing apart open models and changing how they work internally. They'll learn the math and how they work just like a serious photographer could tell you all about film emulsions and developing processes and how film reacts to light. Art's never about what it does. It's about what it can do.
      - bogzz 10mo ago
        I do not think that the things you say will happen, will ever happen. Also, photography has the added benefit of documenting the world as it is, but through the artist's lens. That added value does not exist when it comes to slop.
        CamperBob2 10mo ago
        I do not think that the things you say will happen, will ever happen. When's the last time someone who said something like that was right?
windexh8er 10mo ago
> Where does it stop? When we decide to drop all technology as it is? It doesn't stop. This is because that it's not the "technology" driving AI. You already acknowledged the root cause: CEOs. AI could be great, but it's currently being propped up by sales hype and greed. Sam wants money and power. Satya and Sundar want money and power. Larry and Jensen want to also cash in on this facade that's been built. Can LLMs be impactful? For sure. They are now. They're impacting energy consumption, water usage, and technology supply chains in detrimental ways. But that's because these people want to be the ones to sell it. They want to be the ones to cash in. Before they really even have anything significantly useful. FOMO in this C-suite should be punishable in some way. They're all charlatans to different degrees. Blame the people behind this propping up this mess: the billionaires.
- imglorp 10mo ago
  The CEO quiet part out loud was very clearly: "salaries". This will scale back when AI replacement attempts slow down as expectations temper (Salesforce, Klarna, etc).
  - compiler-devel 10mo ago
    It's always about cutting the OpEx spend. Companies are nothing more than giant piles of money seeking to grow themselves in any way possible.
  - xorcist 10mo ago
    The weird thing is that the AI companies themselves are hiring like there's no tomorrow, doing talent aquisitions etc. Why would you do that if the purpose of your product is to reduce necessary workforce? Why isn't that the first question that comes to mind for a journalist covering the latest acquisition? It's like an open secret that nobody really talks about.
    - ThunderSizzle 10mo ago
      Everyone is trying to be the shovel sales person for AI, not the gold diggers buying shovels. I'm not sure if even the LLM companies themselves are selling shovels yet. I think everyone is racing to find what the shovel of LLMs are.
pronik 10mo ago
I'm not sure people remember when PCs and inkjet printers became affordable while MS Word added cliparts at around the same time. Those black figurines with a light bulb above them while some text was written above or below in either Comic Sans or 3D "word art" were absolutely everywhere. Digital typesetting was bad when it started (see Donald Knuth's rant about it, leading to TeX), but you have to imagine the horror of normal people trying to layout stuff in Word all of the sudden without a hint of competence. This is exactly what happens right now with LLMs, some people will find the right amount of usage, the others won't, but that's OK. The problem back the wasn't MS Word per se (bar some stupid defaults Microsoft had borked completely), neither are LLMs inherently the problem right now. We are in the seemingly never-ending hype cycle, but even that will pass.
RiverCrochet 10mo ago
> Where does it stop? When we decide to drop all technology as it is? Whenever you want. Of course you can't directly control what other people do or how much they use t0echnology. But you have lots of direct control over what you use, even if it's not complete control. I stopped taking social media seriously in the early 2010's. I'm preparing for a world of restricted, boring, corporate, invasive Internet, and developing interests and hobbies that don't rely on tech. We've had mechanisms to network people without communications tech for thousands of years, it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them). The Internet will always be there, but I don't have to use it more than my workplace requires, and I can keep personal use of it to a minimum. Mostly that will mean using the Internet to coordinate events and meeting people and little else.
- yowlingcat 10mo ago
  I agree with you and I will also anecdotally note that I've been personally observing more and more of the younger generations (Z, esp gen Alpha) adopt these mechanisms en masse, viewing social media as the funhouse simulation of socialization that it always was and finding true social connection through other manners.
- drBonkers 10mo ago
  > it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them) Can you tell me more about these? I’m actively trying to find ways to cultivate my community.
  - smashem 10mo ago
    Face-to-face social gatherings - parties, dinners, clubs, meetups Membership organizations - country clubs, professional associations, alumni networks, charitable boards Personal introductions and referrals - being introduced through mutual acquaintances Cultural and civic participation - involvement in local institutions, community organizations, religious groups
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
lithocarpus 10mo ago
Some people are dropping things in response to how things are being ruined. Many people are not. I hope you're right but I imagine with more computing power used more efficiently, the big companies will hoard more and more of the total available human attention.
tqi 10mo ago
Oracle was "one of the worlds most solid and unassailable tech companies"?
- voidfunc 10mo ago
  The Oracle DB moat is big. Like Ocean-sized big.
- hansmayer 10mo ago
  Yes, absolutely. It is essentially the "nobody ever got fired for buying <insert-safe-choice>" of the databases universe.
racl101 10mo ago
We need a word for a Midas touch except instead of gold everything turns to feces.
- zappb 10mo ago
  That’s the Mierdes Touch.
  - hansmayer 10mo ago
    ^ Very funny this ;)
  - racl101 10mo ago
    Nice!
- marcosdumay 10mo ago
  We just need people capable of understanding it's a curse. .. and maybe to ignore whoever can't.
- hansmayer 10mo ago
  Absolutely, not to say "You are right!" :) The items touched by Midas were if nothing else, shiny and gold after all is a precious metal preserving its material properties for a long time...Whereas the stuff produced by LLMs...yes, quite resembles the key properties of feces, come to think of it. It is a simple meshup of whatever was digested over a timespan, it stinks, and it does not require special skills - anyone can produce one!
- tapoxi 10mo ago
  Montezuma's touch
heliumtera 10mo ago
>Where does it stop? I think you explained it very well. For now all sorts of "creative finance" are being invented to give AI momentum. At the same time, some of us that have to work with this monstrosity for 10 hours a day are nauseated. The same feeling I had towards putrid technology is now extended to generative technology. I would rather fight and lose my job than call this intelligence of any form. It is a generative thingy. Was very enthusiastic in tabnine days. Used copilot since closed beta. Use it for 10 hours a day. I rather not use it, though. I have to use C#. Would kill not to use this bullshit anymore. Would never,ever, touch Microsoft without being paid. Feel the same about AI in general. Betting on AI becoming lame would be the safest bet I ever did. When I see someone worshiping generative technology I just know what to expect and then I leave. In some levels, opinions on generative technology are very similar to politics. Tell me how you interact with it and how you feel about it, I won't ever need to ask a second question. Now, I think this sentiment will inevitably arrive to the masses. Yeah, sure I am fatigued and most people don't have to deal with generative tools for 44 hours a week, but it will slowly creep. Tell me again how excited everyone is to fiddle with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, react components, Vercel. The most shilled convenience of our timeline will become cringe, as always.
- hansmayer 10mo ago
  > Was very enthusiastic in tabnine days. Used copilot since closed beta. Use it for 10 hours a day. I sort of have a similar story with it. Was also one of the earliest GH Copilot users...but now I find its just utter crap. The one thing that worries me though is, while most of the tech folks have grown disillusioned, for each engineer who now rejects LLMs, there seems to be 20 "common" persons who just absolutely love it, for their ephemeral use cases, like planning their next trip, or asking if it will rain tomorrow and similar. And this sort of usage I think quietly underpins the drive. Its not just the CEOs, it is also the masses that absolutely love to use it, unfortunately.

bogzz 10mo ago

I am not sure how, or even if, it does stop. I assume once the hot air from LLM company CEOs starts being treated as the flatulence that it is, things will wind down. The sentiment against generated content is not going away.

cindyllm 10mo ago
[dead]
api 10mo ago
In previous eras there were many purists who considered photography not-art, sequencer and synthesizer made music not-music, other forms of (non-AI) digital art less legitimate than their more manual classical counterparts, etc. This is the same discourse all over again. Is electronic music where the artist composes it on a screen and then hits 'play' music? I think it is, of course, but I have had experiences where I went to see a musician "live" and well... they brought the laptop with them. But I think it still counts. It was still fun. AI slop is to AI art what point and shoot amateur photography is to artistic photography. The difference is how much artistic intent and actual work is present. AI art has yet to get people like Ansel Adams, but it will -- actual artists who use AI as a tool to make novel forms and styles of art. (I used an emdash!) This is an outstanding read: https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an-art-form-7b74da777c63 https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an... Anti-photography discourse sounds exactly like anti-AI discourse to the point that you could search and replace terms and have the same rants. Another thing I expect to see is novelists using AI to create at least passable live action versions of their stories. I don't think these will put real actors or actresses out of work for a long time, but I could see them serving as "sizzle reels" to sell a real production. If an author posts their AI-generated film of their novel and it gets popular, I could see a studio picking it up and making a real movie or TV show from it.
- bogzz 10mo ago
  I don't believe that there is near enough room for creativity to shine through in the prompt-generation pipeline, and I find the mention of a talent like Ansel Adams in this context asinine. There is no control there, and without control over creation I don't believe that creativity CAN flourish, but I may be wrong. Electronic music is analogous to digital art made by humans, not generated art.
  - api 10mo ago
    How much room for creativity is there with a camera? Angle, lighting, F-stop, film type, film processing? I have a local image generator app called Draw Things that has many times more options than this. Early synthesizers weren't that versatile either. Bands like Pink Floyd actually got into electronics and tore them apart and hacked them. Early techno and hip-hop artists did similar things and even figured out how to transform a simple record player into a musical instrument by hopping the needle around and scratching records back and forth with tremendous skill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRVmiqm84k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRVmiqm84k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgpZag6xyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgpZag6xyQ Serious AI artists will start tearing apart open models and changing how they work internally. They'll learn the math and how they work just like a serious photographer could tell you all about film emulsions and developing processes and how film reacts to light. Art's never about what it does. It's about what it can do.
    - bogzz 10mo ago
      I do not think that the things you say will happen, will ever happen. Also, photography has the added benefit of documenting the world as it is, but through the artist's lens. That added value does not exist when it comes to slop.
      - CamperBob2 10mo ago
        I do not think that the things you say will happen, will ever happen. When's the last time someone who said something like that was right?

windexh8er 10mo ago

> Where does it stop? When we decide to drop all technology as it is? It doesn't stop. This is because that it's not the "technology" driving AI. You already acknowledged the root cause: CEOs. AI could be great, but it's currently being propped up by sales hype and greed. Sam wants money and power. Satya and Sundar want money and power. Larry and Jensen want to also cash in on this facade that's been built. Can LLMs be impactful? For sure. They are now. They're impacting energy consumption, water usage, and technology supply chains in detrimental ways. But that's because these people want to be the ones to sell it. They want to be the ones to cash in. Before they really even have anything significantly useful. FOMO in this C-suite should be punishable in some way. They're all charlatans to different degrees. Blame the people behind this propping up this mess: the billionaires.

imglorp 10mo ago
The CEO quiet part out loud was very clearly: "salaries". This will scale back when AI replacement attempts slow down as expectations temper (Salesforce, Klarna, etc).
- compiler-devel 10mo ago
  It's always about cutting the OpEx spend. Companies are nothing more than giant piles of money seeking to grow themselves in any way possible.
- xorcist 10mo ago
  The weird thing is that the AI companies themselves are hiring like there's no tomorrow, doing talent aquisitions etc. Why would you do that if the purpose of your product is to reduce necessary workforce? Why isn't that the first question that comes to mind for a journalist covering the latest acquisition? It's like an open secret that nobody really talks about.
  - ThunderSizzle 10mo ago
    Everyone is trying to be the shovel sales person for AI, not the gold diggers buying shovels. I'm not sure if even the LLM companies themselves are selling shovels yet. I think everyone is racing to find what the shovel of LLMs are.

pronik 10mo ago

I'm not sure people remember when PCs and inkjet printers became affordable while MS Word added cliparts at around the same time. Those black figurines with a light bulb above them while some text was written above or below in either Comic Sans or 3D "word art" were absolutely everywhere. Digital typesetting was bad when it started (see Donald Knuth's rant about it, leading to TeX), but you have to imagine the horror of normal people trying to layout stuff in Word all of the sudden without a hint of competence. This is exactly what happens right now with LLMs, some people will find the right amount of usage, the others won't, but that's OK. The problem back the wasn't MS Word per se (bar some stupid defaults Microsoft had borked completely), neither are LLMs inherently the problem right now. We are in the seemingly never-ending hype cycle, but even that will pass.

RiverCrochet 10mo ago

> Where does it stop? When we decide to drop all technology as it is? Whenever you want. Of course you can't directly control what other people do or how much they use t0echnology. But you have lots of direct control over what you use, even if it's not complete control. I stopped taking social media seriously in the early 2010's. I'm preparing for a world of restricted, boring, corporate, invasive Internet, and developing interests and hobbies that don't rely on tech. We've had mechanisms to network people without communications tech for thousands of years, it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them). The Internet will always be there, but I don't have to use it more than my workplace requires, and I can keep personal use of it to a minimum. Mostly that will mean using the Internet to coordinate events and meeting people and little else.

yowlingcat 10mo ago
I agree with you and I will also anecdotally note that I've been personally observing more and more of the younger generations (Z, esp gen Alpha) adopt these mechanisms en masse, viewing social media as the funhouse simulation of socialization that it always was and finding true social connection through other manners.
drBonkers 10mo ago
> it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them) Can you tell me more about these? I’m actively trying to find ways to cultivate my community.
- smashem 10mo ago
  Face-to-face social gatherings - parties, dinners, clubs, meetups Membership organizations - country clubs, professional associations, alumni networks, charitable boards Personal introductions and referrals - being introduced through mutual acquaintances Cultural and civic participation - involvement in local institutions, community organizations, religious groups
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]

lithocarpus 10mo ago

Some people are dropping things in response to how things are being ruined. Many people are not. I hope you're right but I imagine with more computing power used more efficiently, the big companies will hoard more and more of the total available human attention.

tqi 10mo ago

Oracle was "one of the worlds most solid and unassailable tech companies"?

voidfunc 10mo ago
The Oracle DB moat is big. Like Ocean-sized big.
hansmayer 10mo ago
Yes, absolutely. It is essentially the "nobody ever got fired for buying <insert-safe-choice>" of the databases universe.

racl101 10mo ago

We need a word for a Midas touch except instead of gold everything turns to feces.

zappb 10mo ago
That’s the Mierdes Touch.
- hansmayer 10mo ago
  ^ Very funny this ;)
- racl101 10mo ago
  Nice!
marcosdumay 10mo ago
We just need people capable of understanding it's a curse. .. and maybe to ignore whoever can't.
hansmayer 10mo ago
Absolutely, not to say "You are right!" :) The items touched by Midas were if nothing else, shiny and gold after all is a precious metal preserving its material properties for a long time...Whereas the stuff produced by LLMs...yes, quite resembles the key properties of feces, come to think of it. It is a simple meshup of whatever was digested over a timespan, it stinks, and it does not require special skills - anyone can produce one!
tapoxi 10mo ago
Montezuma's touch

heliumtera 10mo ago

>Where does it stop? I think you explained it very well. For now all sorts of "creative finance" are being invented to give AI momentum. At the same time, some of us that have to work with this monstrosity for 10 hours a day are nauseated. The same feeling I had towards putrid technology is now extended to generative technology. I would rather fight and lose my job than call this intelligence of any form. It is a generative thingy. Was very enthusiastic in tabnine days. Used copilot since closed beta. Use it for 10 hours a day. I rather not use it, though. I have to use C#. Would kill not to use this bullshit anymore. Would never,ever, touch Microsoft without being paid. Feel the same about AI in general. Betting on AI becoming lame would be the safest bet I ever did. When I see someone worshiping generative technology I just know what to expect and then I leave. In some levels, opinions on generative technology are very similar to politics. Tell me how you interact with it and how you feel about it, I won't ever need to ask a second question. Now, I think this sentiment will inevitably arrive to the masses. Yeah, sure I am fatigued and most people don't have to deal with generative tools for 44 hours a week, but it will slowly creep. Tell me again how excited everyone is to fiddle with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, react components, Vercel. The most shilled convenience of our timeline will become cringe, as always.

hansmayer 10mo ago
> Was very enthusiastic in tabnine days. Used copilot since closed beta. Use it for 10 hours a day. I sort of have a similar story with it. Was also one of the earliest GH Copilot users...but now I find its just utter crap. The one thing that worries me though is, while most of the tech folks have grown disillusioned, for each engineer who now rejects LLMs, there seems to be 20 "common" persons who just absolutely love it, for their ephemeral use cases, like planning their next trip, or asking if it will rain tomorrow and similar. And this sort of usage I think quietly underpins the drive. Its not just the CEOs, it is also the masses that absolutely love to use it, unfortunately.