4 ms·

A lazy wall of AI slop: > I was looking for something simple. Something right-sized for my scale. > Clear boxes don't have this problem. They scale. > That's

A lazy wall of AI slop: > I was looking for something simple. Something right-sized for my scale. > Clear boxes don't have this problem. They scale. > That's not a failure. That's the system working. I wonder if there's a simple regex that could detect these. Perhaps I should ask Claude The entirety of this post could be explained in 20 tokens: 1) use transparent boxes and bags for organizing 2) track the usage with stickers 3) remove rarely accessed boxes We need a sponsorblock-style crowdsourced solution against such slop. Meanwhile I'm just blocking offenders' domains on all of my networks

fgfarben 6mo ago
Learn how to skim?
- sudonanohome 6mo ago
  Skimming thru shit doesn't make the end result taste any better. All this terrible "writing" deserves is to be fed to another LLM and summarized into 3 sentences. Because that's all there is to the whole post. Why would the author choose to sloppost in a personal blog is beyond me. Personal blogs used to be a place for posting cool stuff you did in your basement. Now it's just another "personal brand" promotion engine. Hacker news is turning into linkedin, and people are turning into algorithmically entertainable slop-fed cattle. The end is near, I hope
  - twoodfin 6mo ago
    This is the real apocalypse scenario. Not Skynet, but a model trained so well to trigger dopamine hits across the bulk of the human population that our creative muscles totally atrophy. Then we’re the stochastic parrots.
Karuma 6mo ago
Yeah, I've been just slowly blocking all these domains, users, etc. But nowadays it's just unbearable. We have already lost this war. And seeing every day this kind of crap at the top of the front page of the websites I used to love, with hundreds of comments of intelligent people not even noticing all this useless AI slop... Very sad future ahead.
foltik 6mo ago
> The habit takes seconds. No database. No server. No app. > It wasn't the specialized components. It wasn't the sensors I had so many of. > These aren't the exciting parts. They're the infrastructure that every project shares.
refulgentis 6mo ago
It's against the rules as of 2 weeks ago, in the short term, you're more likely to get downvoted for complaining than see less of it. And it's astounding. Because this is awful writing. Author, one year ago: "you replied to an LLM generated comment. if you look at the posting history you can confirm it" Now they can't be bothered to take an edit pass on the most rote slop.
- sixhobbits 6mo ago
  Technically it's against the rules to use AI for comments. I don't think you have to be 100% sure that AI wasn't used for a submission before submitting or upvoting
- wwweston 6mo ago
  > Because this is awful writing. Can you describe what you think is awful (beyond rhetorical choices that have become LLM markers)?
  - refulgentis 6mo ago
    TL;DR: 2400 words ~= 18 minutes reading time for "stickers on boxes" (which I am v interested in!) x entry-level LLM markers = worst of both worlds. You're throwing a lot at the reader & it's nakedly obvious some of its computer-generated spam, and they can't tell what they can skim until its too late. I 100% empathize because I've done this too, generally, needs more time with the LLM and also metrics you're shooting for. I'm assuming you're the original author: the problem is the LLM markers. But its bigger than you're thinking, I think, otherwise you wouldn't have done what you did. No matter the discipline, painting, code, etc., people appreciate things that are unique and require unique effort. You can see this over and over again in art history, and the products / code we appreciate are things share that property. LLMs are great tools, you should use them. Problem was when it turned into (I'm guessing, because this is what I do) "I wrote too much...god I hate my writing...LLM, do your magic...LGTM! So much shorter and cleaner!" The failure mode I'm seeing with people posting obvious slop who otherwise wouldn't want to is, the editing makes things shorter but it also tends to make everything repetitive, both locally and across across the essay. Locally, to the person operating the LLM, it looks like "its so much more approachable!", to a reader, it reads as "the author things I am very dumb and takes 3 sentences to saying something that was 4 words" Please don't take it personally, btw. We're between a rock & a hard place right now and it's important to tease things like this out over time. I'd rather have an extended dialogue about it, but...in practice, people absorb microsignals about what's appropriate over time. Better to say "It's awful writing" then write an extended essay empathizing via guessing what was in your head and what you actually did. I enjoyed the essay and it's an interesting idea and right up my alley. It's just a pitch perfect example of something going bad, "I had problem X, it was solved via boxes and stickers" has to be 600 words, tops. And you probably sensed that when you were done, I'm assuming. Just needed to go farther rather than lean into sense of relief.
gyomu 6mo ago
Seriously. It's such a shame too because the author clearly cares about sharing their system, they went to the lengths of taking nice photos etc. - but then it's this low quality, meandering, repetitive, predictable AI writing. It's also surprising to see that most people in the comments here just do not seem to be affected one bit. Not sure if it's because it's become so standard now that everyone's completely accepted that this is what content is going to be from now on... or if most people just don't care about poor writing. The second hypothesis seems less likely given how central to the ethos of this board pg's old essays about good writing seem to be, but maybe that's just a bygone era.
eichin 6mo ago
I was just disappointed that they didn't include a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:Survivorship-bias.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:... joke (or maybe that's also a tell...)

fgfarben 6mo ago

Learn how to skim?

sudonanohome 6mo ago
Skimming thru shit doesn't make the end result taste any better. All this terrible "writing" deserves is to be fed to another LLM and summarized into 3 sentences. Because that's all there is to the whole post. Why would the author choose to sloppost in a personal blog is beyond me. Personal blogs used to be a place for posting cool stuff you did in your basement. Now it's just another "personal brand" promotion engine. Hacker news is turning into linkedin, and people are turning into algorithmically entertainable slop-fed cattle. The end is near, I hope
- twoodfin 6mo ago
  This is the real apocalypse scenario. Not Skynet, but a model trained so well to trigger dopamine hits across the bulk of the human population that our creative muscles totally atrophy. Then we’re the stochastic parrots.

Karuma 6mo ago

Yeah, I've been just slowly blocking all these domains, users, etc. But nowadays it's just unbearable. We have already lost this war. And seeing every day this kind of crap at the top of the front page of the websites I used to love, with hundreds of comments of intelligent people not even noticing all this useless AI slop... Very sad future ahead.

foltik 6mo ago

> The habit takes seconds. No database. No server. No app. > It wasn't the specialized components. It wasn't the sensors I had so many of. > These aren't the exciting parts. They're the infrastructure that every project shares.

refulgentis 6mo ago

It's against the rules as of 2 weeks ago, in the short term, you're more likely to get downvoted for complaining than see less of it. And it's astounding. Because this is awful writing. Author, one year ago: "you replied to an LLM generated comment. if you look at the posting history you can confirm it" Now they can't be bothered to take an edit pass on the most rote slop.

sixhobbits 6mo ago
Technically it's against the rules to use AI for comments. I don't think you have to be 100% sure that AI wasn't used for a submission before submitting or upvoting
wwweston 6mo ago
> Because this is awful writing. Can you describe what you think is awful (beyond rhetorical choices that have become LLM markers)?
- refulgentis 6mo ago
  TL;DR: 2400 words ~= 18 minutes reading time for "stickers on boxes" (which I am v interested in!) x entry-level LLM markers = worst of both worlds. You're throwing a lot at the reader & it's nakedly obvious some of its computer-generated spam, and they can't tell what they can skim until its too late. I 100% empathize because I've done this too, generally, needs more time with the LLM and also metrics you're shooting for. I'm assuming you're the original author: the problem is the LLM markers. But its bigger than you're thinking, I think, otherwise you wouldn't have done what you did. No matter the discipline, painting, code, etc., people appreciate things that are unique and require unique effort. You can see this over and over again in art history, and the products / code we appreciate are things share that property. LLMs are great tools, you should use them. Problem was when it turned into (I'm guessing, because this is what I do) "I wrote too much...god I hate my writing...LLM, do your magic...LGTM! So much shorter and cleaner!" The failure mode I'm seeing with people posting obvious slop who otherwise wouldn't want to is, the editing makes things shorter but it also tends to make everything repetitive, both locally and across across the essay. Locally, to the person operating the LLM, it looks like "its so much more approachable!", to a reader, it reads as "the author things I am very dumb and takes 3 sentences to saying something that was 4 words" Please don't take it personally, btw. We're between a rock & a hard place right now and it's important to tease things like this out over time. I'd rather have an extended dialogue about it, but...in practice, people absorb microsignals about what's appropriate over time. Better to say "It's awful writing" then write an extended essay empathizing via guessing what was in your head and what you actually did. I enjoyed the essay and it's an interesting idea and right up my alley. It's just a pitch perfect example of something going bad, "I had problem X, it was solved via boxes and stickers" has to be 600 words, tops. And you probably sensed that when you were done, I'm assuming. Just needed to go farther rather than lean into sense of relief.

gyomu 6mo ago

Seriously. It's such a shame too because the author clearly cares about sharing their system, they went to the lengths of taking nice photos etc. - but then it's this low quality, meandering, repetitive, predictable AI writing. It's also surprising to see that most people in the comments here just do not seem to be affected one bit. Not sure if it's because it's become so standard now that everyone's completely accepted that this is what content is going to be from now on... or if most people just don't care about poor writing. The second hypothesis seems less likely given how central to the ethos of this board pg's old essays about good writing seem to be, but maybe that's just a bygone era.

eichin 6mo ago

I was just disappointed that they didn't include a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:Survivorship-bias.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:... joke (or maybe that's also a tell...)