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It's hard to articulate this stuff, and especially hard to explain it to the AI infatuated among us because they don't really want to understand why people disl

It's hard to articulate this stuff, and especially hard to explain it to the AI infatuated among us because they don't really want to understand why people dislike the tooling they're obsessed with. AI is good at many things, digesting vast quantities of information, and code being most of them. Everything else to me looks/sounds like shit. AI music sounds dull and overproduced in a way that a lot of middling pop music does. AI images look overtuned and strange in the same way a magazine editor would, if they had no self control with their tools. It just... looks bad. As an aesthetic. If you are not aesthetically minded, you may not care, or you may not be able to tell, and that's fine. But I am and I can and if I open your blog post and see AI crap, I'm leaving. I'm not asking anyone else to, and I don't give a shit if my best friend in the world wants to beat his meat to your AI generated sunset, good for him, I hope he has a great time. But I'm not interested. Why these super-pro-AI people take this as such a personal slight is strange to me. You didn't care enough to actually make something, what are you offended if I tell you I don't really want to look at it?

bonoboTP 2mo ago
The tools are getting better and often that overproduced thing is the toupee effect, where you don't notice the better ones. The generic look can be avoided with more customized prompting. You can make much more natural songs with longer prompts, a bit of quickly self-sung melodies you add as references, even if you can't sing. Similarly for images, sketching something out in paint can make a huge difference or just iterating 2 or 3 times and not accepting the first result. And the tools are going to get better too.
- Planktonne 2mo ago
  > especially hard to explain it to the AI infatuated among us because they don't really want to understand why people dislike the tooling they're obsessed with Your comment is an example of what the parent comment is discussing; the reflexive "you can't really tell and anyway you can do it better to stop people being able to tell and also soon it will be better so no one will be able to tell" is a gallop like the narcissist's prayer. People are telling you they can tell, and that they do care. The toupee fallacy works because there are good wigs that no one can identify unless told, but the idea that that there's actually brilliant AI prose (that no one has detected) always lacks examples.
  - zenoprax 2mo ago
    "AI Slop" seems to be misunderstood despite its simplicity: "this is sloppy/low-effort/unskilled work ... enabled by generative AI tools". > "People are telling you they can tell, and that they do care." In the same spirit, one could argue that "AI Slop" is actually constructive feedback to a small degree. It's a short-hand for "this is sloppy/low-effort/unskilled work with obvious utilization of generative AI tools". It's not much different than using the same photography filter for every post on Instagram or picking the most popular Wordpress theme --- if you are expecting praise for that then you will be disappointed.
    - ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
      I do deeply enjoy that apparently among gen-Alpha, it's a common thing to say when someone says something really stupid, or makes something of poor quality, to call it "AI." The kids are alright.
  - bonoboTP 2mo ago
    It's fine to care about the human element and human connection. Analogy: It's fine to want to hold a large vinyl in your hand, look at the artwork, caress the sleeve with your fingertips, whiff the smell of the record and enjoy the experience. It's just that just as with "digital CD music is quantized and sounds worse than analog" got exposed as nonsense, the same way "I can tell it's AI and that's why I don't like it" will also not stand the test of time. You can still want human music for the human reason, but you won't be able to tell them apart.
    - ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
      > It's just that just as with "digital CD music is quantized and sounds worse than analog" got exposed as nonsense, the same way "I can tell it's AI and that's why I don't like it" will also not stand the test of time. I mean you're rather boldly skipping over the part where the former is a proven phenomenon (though I would say it's more nuanced than true or false but there's too much to unpack there) versus something that, as yet, I have not experienced. > You can still want human music for the human reason, but you won't be able to tell them apart. I will pepsi challenge any media you like, from the most powerful models you like, happily. And I'm only willing to even entertain images in terms of said challenge. The music and video are so fucking obvious, just absolutely glaringly AI when they are that I don't feel the need to even dignify it with a test. As yet, I've seen some images that certainly get close, but there are always tells in my experience.
- ojinai 2mo ago
  [flagged]
XenophileJKO 2mo ago
The biggest mistake is thinking that your aesthetics are "correct". You make it a personal slight when you espouse, that your aesthetic preferences are universal and then farther malign people with different preferences by saying that they are not aesthecticly minded.
- card_zero 2mo ago
  Yeah yeah, no aesthetic preferences are ever bad, sure. Heard it, don't believe it. Your thing sucks, sometimes that's just a fact.
- redsocksfan45 2mo ago
  [dead]
- ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
  > The biggest mistake is thinking that your aesthetics are "correct". Good thing I didn't say that then. > You make it a personal slight when you espouse, that your aesthetic preferences are universal and then farther malign people with different preferences by saying that they are not aesthecticly minded. Aesthetics are just taste and taste is subjective and will vary by person. That said you can, broadly, achieve "good" or "bad" aesthetics based on opinions at scale. The predominant opinion right now is that AI art is bad. You feel what you feel about that, but numerous prominent people, numerous companies who provide services, etc. are all responding to the fact that people find AI art ugly in a variety of ways. Any stock photo site I use has an option to filter AI art, and if it doesn't I don't use it. Projects in the public space that are outed for using it get backlash. Various social media sites are demonetizing generated content. And to be clear, me saying people are not aesthetically minded is not meant as an insult. Plenty of people I respect do not care how shit looks or feels. But they are a minority in my experience, and frankly, anyone working in an even remotely creative field probably does care. YMMV. Be that as it may, though, aesthetics do matter to a lot of people, even if they don't discuss it openly or lack the vocabulary to do so. People will say it just "feels wrong," or it's "soulless." It seems to activate our brains very similarly to things deep in the Uncanny Valley, where it looks allllmoooost right, but then fumbles something subtle in a way that makes it off-putting in retrospect. I don't think we'll ever get rid of AI entirely. I think it will remain in the margins as cheap solution-oriented ways to make graphics, and maybe video again if they can ever figure out how to make it profitable. But I have a feeling an AI video commercial would run on TV in a similar time-slot to recycled Billy Mays ads, and with similar function: cheap, already there, get the job done, and the audience is not discriminating. It's "fine" in the broadest sense of the word.

bonoboTP 2mo ago

The tools are getting better and often that overproduced thing is the toupee effect, where you don't notice the better ones. The generic look can be avoided with more customized prompting. You can make much more natural songs with longer prompts, a bit of quickly self-sung melodies you add as references, even if you can't sing. Similarly for images, sketching something out in paint can make a huge difference or just iterating 2 or 3 times and not accepting the first result. And the tools are going to get better too.

Planktonne 2mo ago
> especially hard to explain it to the AI infatuated among us because they don't really want to understand why people dislike the tooling they're obsessed with Your comment is an example of what the parent comment is discussing; the reflexive "you can't really tell and anyway you can do it better to stop people being able to tell and also soon it will be better so no one will be able to tell" is a gallop like the narcissist's prayer. People are telling you they can tell, and that they do care. The toupee fallacy works because there are good wigs that no one can identify unless told, but the idea that that there's actually brilliant AI prose (that no one has detected) always lacks examples.
- zenoprax 2mo ago
  "AI Slop" seems to be misunderstood despite its simplicity: "this is sloppy/low-effort/unskilled work ... enabled by generative AI tools". > "People are telling you they can tell, and that they do care." In the same spirit, one could argue that "AI Slop" is actually constructive feedback to a small degree. It's a short-hand for "this is sloppy/low-effort/unskilled work with obvious utilization of generative AI tools". It's not much different than using the same photography filter for every post on Instagram or picking the most popular Wordpress theme --- if you are expecting praise for that then you will be disappointed.
  - ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
    I do deeply enjoy that apparently among gen-Alpha, it's a common thing to say when someone says something really stupid, or makes something of poor quality, to call it "AI." The kids are alright.
- bonoboTP 2mo ago
  It's fine to care about the human element and human connection. Analogy: It's fine to want to hold a large vinyl in your hand, look at the artwork, caress the sleeve with your fingertips, whiff the smell of the record and enjoy the experience. It's just that just as with "digital CD music is quantized and sounds worse than analog" got exposed as nonsense, the same way "I can tell it's AI and that's why I don't like it" will also not stand the test of time. You can still want human music for the human reason, but you won't be able to tell them apart.
  - ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
    > It's just that just as with "digital CD music is quantized and sounds worse than analog" got exposed as nonsense, the same way "I can tell it's AI and that's why I don't like it" will also not stand the test of time. I mean you're rather boldly skipping over the part where the former is a proven phenomenon (though I would say it's more nuanced than true or false but there's too much to unpack there) versus something that, as yet, I have not experienced. > You can still want human music for the human reason, but you won't be able to tell them apart. I will pepsi challenge any media you like, from the most powerful models you like, happily. And I'm only willing to even entertain images in terms of said challenge. The music and video are so fucking obvious, just absolutely glaringly AI when they are that I don't feel the need to even dignify it with a test. As yet, I've seen some images that certainly get close, but there are always tells in my experience.
ojinai 2mo ago
[flagged]

XenophileJKO 2mo ago

The biggest mistake is thinking that your aesthetics are "correct". You make it a personal slight when you espouse, that your aesthetic preferences are universal and then farther malign people with different preferences by saying that they are not aesthecticly minded.

card_zero 2mo ago
Yeah yeah, no aesthetic preferences are ever bad, sure. Heard it, don't believe it. Your thing sucks, sometimes that's just a fact.
redsocksfan45 2mo ago
[dead]
ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
> The biggest mistake is thinking that your aesthetics are "correct". Good thing I didn't say that then. > You make it a personal slight when you espouse, that your aesthetic preferences are universal and then farther malign people with different preferences by saying that they are not aesthecticly minded. Aesthetics are just taste and taste is subjective and will vary by person. That said you can, broadly, achieve "good" or "bad" aesthetics based on opinions at scale. The predominant opinion right now is that AI art is bad. You feel what you feel about that, but numerous prominent people, numerous companies who provide services, etc. are all responding to the fact that people find AI art ugly in a variety of ways. Any stock photo site I use has an option to filter AI art, and if it doesn't I don't use it. Projects in the public space that are outed for using it get backlash. Various social media sites are demonetizing generated content. And to be clear, me saying people are not aesthetically minded is not meant as an insult. Plenty of people I respect do not care how shit looks or feels. But they are a minority in my experience, and frankly, anyone working in an even remotely creative field probably does care. YMMV. Be that as it may, though, aesthetics do matter to a lot of people, even if they don't discuss it openly or lack the vocabulary to do so. People will say it just "feels wrong," or it's "soulless." It seems to activate our brains very similarly to things deep in the Uncanny Valley, where it looks allllmoooost right, but then fumbles something subtle in a way that makes it off-putting in retrospect. I don't think we'll ever get rid of AI entirely. I think it will remain in the margins as cheap solution-oriented ways to make graphics, and maybe video again if they can ever figure out how to make it profitable. But I have a feeling an AI video commercial would run on TV in a similar time-slot to recycled Billy Mays ads, and with similar function: cheap, already there, get the job done, and the audience is not discriminating. It's "fine" in the broadest sense of the word.