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People downvote me when I say we're back in the "Geocities era" / "indie web" of the 90's and 00's, but LLMs have enabled us to build cool side projects to comp

by echelon 24d ago

People downvote me when I say we're back in the "Geocities era" / "indie web" of the 90's and 00's, but LLMs have enabled us to build cool side projects to completion and give them love. This is 100% a good thing. I love this website. It's fantastic. I don't care if it's AI. The world is better for it existing.

deleted 24d ago
[deleted]
krapp 24d ago
People were already building cool side projects to completion and giving them love before AI. You get downvoted for being weirdly ecstatic about AI "enabling" things that were already possible, while not caring about the human element that AI lacks.
- echelon 24d ago
  People that say "things [...] were already possible" don't dream enough. Maybe you were born a few decades too late. I feel I was born (a few decades?) too early. I want the world with cures for cancer, holodecks, brain uploads, immortality, jet packs, surfing on Titan, etc. I legitimately enjoy the future we're hurtling towards. It's the most exciting thing that has ever happened to our species. I hated the world where "Apple iPhones" were the pinnacle of human achievement. We might be able to vibe engineer our own iPhones in a few years. That'll be fun.
  - krapp 24d ago
    But building a website like the one posted here was already possible. you compared it to the early "indie" web. There is literally nothing about generating websites with AI that merits being called "the most exciting thing that has ever happened to our species." FFS we've stood on the moon.
    - echelon 24d ago
      > was already possible. The fact that people who couldn't program can now build utilities and automations for themselves is beyond remarkable. And for those of us who can engineer, we're making 10x, 20x what we were before. I'm filling my life with all kinds of fun side projects, toys, games, utility software, automations. I don't look at libraries and software packages anymore - I just build what I need. This is like 3D printing for software. I've built my own SRS software, my own music library, my own project management software, several agents, a video editor, a few toy video games, home automation software ... and I've done this all in a month. I am so excited about everything I'm going to be building. Time was a limit before. There is no limit now. > FFS we've stood on the moon. And we slept on that for nearly 60 years. We're about to build cities there. Finally.
      - krapp 24d ago
        >The fact that people who couldn't program can now build utilities and automations for themselves is beyond remarkable. Learning to program has never been easier or more accessible. Being able to build a website has been accessible to non-techies for years. I'll admit using an AI is convenient but "beyond remarkable" is pushing it. If anything it's a bit of a tragedy. In exchange for that convenience people are buying into a closed, third party mass surveillance infrastructure generating code they can't understand, can't repair, can't edit or redistribute. From a FOSS point of view AI is objectively worse than what we had. And that's not even getting into the flood of slop and disinformation destroying the web. >I've built my own SRS software, my own music library, my own project management software, several agents, a video editor, a few toy video games, home automation software ... and I've done this all in a month. I can't imagine you needed all of this done within a month and couldn't find existing solutions for most of it. It seems more like you're addicted than being productive. And I still don't see the line between you vibe-coding a productivity app something something holograms and brain uploads and surfing on Titan. >And we slept on that for nearly 60 years. We're about to build cities there. Finally. No, we aren't. We're no closer to than than we were 60 years ago. If you think Elon Musk is actually going to accomplish anything of the sort I think you're bound for disappointment.
      - fwip 24d ago
royal__ 24d ago
I agree that this is an example of interesting and good AI usage. The person who made it obviously put thought into it. Unfortunately a lot of vibe coded sites do not have that same level of care
VCFundedGenYer 24d ago
What world are you living in where you’re okay with this? Phoned in websites / AI slop is not a good thing. Code something yourself on neocities.
- echelon 24d ago
  This is not slop. It took effort. This is not a one shot fire and forget project.
  - andai 23d ago
    Value != Effort: Infinite randomly generated slop + The Algorithm = Extremely personalized value delivered
    - echelon 23d ago
      A lot of effortful things deliver value, yet we call them slop. The Jurassic Park sequels, for instance. One of the common tropes anti-AI people fall into is calling all AI-enabled works low effort. I'm refuting that point here, but you're right in that there's a broader discussion to be had as to what constitutes value to different demographics, individual tastes, and subjectivities. There are highly discerning craftspeople with good taste who are both using and consuming AI works. This should not be disregarded.
      - andai 21d ago
        I'll often run into one of those automatically generated YouTube videos, where the whole thing was done by ChatGPT (probably including the video idea itself). Very often I will find it valuable or entertaining and continue listening. Conversely, when listening to a high production YouTube video, I'll often (about half the time these days?) spot a ChatGPTism and instantly lose respect for the person. (Even if the video was valuable!) So I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. "Fully automated AI generated content pipeline" doesn't disgust me as much as it probably should, whereas "guy left cringe ChatGPT language in his script" my neurology registers as an unforgivable crime. --- Anyway the question of slop and effort is an interesting one. I've just spent several years working on a game and it's still shit. (Should have "iterated" more, apparently.) Conversely, I often have the experience that I see some art that leaves me cold or that I actively dislike, but then I will discover that a heroic amount of effort went into making it (e.g. it's constructed out of a million individual toothpicks or something like that) and will suddenly think it's amazing. My favourite story here is... a man in India spent 20 years carving a passage through a mountain by hand. By all accounts, it would have been much better if it were 20 minutes and a bit of TNT. But then he wouldn't be a legend, right? Similarly I discovered an art page I enjoyed was fully AI generated. (Well, I don't know about the human involvement. Taste, maybe?) The art was still good, to my eye, but I noticed that I had been idolizing the artist — "how much toil it must have taken, to etch every stroke!" — and of course that part popped like a balloon. I'll have to make due with the actual result, stripped of the glorious suffering!
rossy 23d ago
What enabled people to build cool side projects in the actual 90's and 00's and what stopped them from doing it in the period afterwards but before LLMs?

by echelon 24d ago

deleted 24d ago

[deleted]

krapp 24d ago

People were already building cool side projects to completion and giving them love before AI. You get downvoted for being weirdly ecstatic about AI "enabling" things that were already possible, while not caring about the human element that AI lacks.

echelon 24d ago
People that say "things [...] were already possible" don't dream enough. Maybe you were born a few decades too late. I feel I was born (a few decades?) too early. I want the world with cures for cancer, holodecks, brain uploads, immortality, jet packs, surfing on Titan, etc. I legitimately enjoy the future we're hurtling towards. It's the most exciting thing that has ever happened to our species. I hated the world where "Apple iPhones" were the pinnacle of human achievement. We might be able to vibe engineer our own iPhones in a few years. That'll be fun.
- krapp 24d ago
  But building a website like the one posted here was already possible. you compared it to the early "indie" web. There is literally nothing about generating websites with AI that merits being called "the most exciting thing that has ever happened to our species." FFS we've stood on the moon.
  - echelon 24d ago
    > was already possible. The fact that people who couldn't program can now build utilities and automations for themselves is beyond remarkable. And for those of us who can engineer, we're making 10x, 20x what we were before. I'm filling my life with all kinds of fun side projects, toys, games, utility software, automations. I don't look at libraries and software packages anymore - I just build what I need. This is like 3D printing for software. I've built my own SRS software, my own music library, my own project management software, several agents, a video editor, a few toy video games, home automation software ... and I've done this all in a month. I am so excited about everything I'm going to be building. Time was a limit before. There is no limit now. > FFS we've stood on the moon. And we slept on that for nearly 60 years. We're about to build cities there. Finally.
    - krapp 24d ago
      >The fact that people who couldn't program can now build utilities and automations for themselves is beyond remarkable. Learning to program has never been easier or more accessible. Being able to build a website has been accessible to non-techies for years. I'll admit using an AI is convenient but "beyond remarkable" is pushing it. If anything it's a bit of a tragedy. In exchange for that convenience people are buying into a closed, third party mass surveillance infrastructure generating code they can't understand, can't repair, can't edit or redistribute. From a FOSS point of view AI is objectively worse than what we had. And that's not even getting into the flood of slop and disinformation destroying the web. >I've built my own SRS software, my own music library, my own project management software, several agents, a video editor, a few toy video games, home automation software ... and I've done this all in a month. I can't imagine you needed all of this done within a month and couldn't find existing solutions for most of it. It seems more like you're addicted than being productive. And I still don't see the line between you vibe-coding a productivity app something something holograms and brain uploads and surfing on Titan. >And we slept on that for nearly 60 years. We're about to build cities there. Finally. No, we aren't. We're no closer to than than we were 60 years ago. If you think Elon Musk is actually going to accomplish anything of the sort I think you're bound for disappointment.
    - fwip 24d ago

royal__ 24d ago

I agree that this is an example of interesting and good AI usage. The person who made it obviously put thought into it. Unfortunately a lot of vibe coded sites do not have that same level of care

VCFundedGenYer 24d ago

What world are you living in where you’re okay with this? Phoned in websites / AI slop is not a good thing. Code something yourself on neocities.

echelon 24d ago
This is not slop. It took effort. This is not a one shot fire and forget project.
- andai 23d ago
  Value != Effort: Infinite randomly generated slop + The Algorithm = Extremely personalized value delivered
  - echelon 23d ago
    A lot of effortful things deliver value, yet we call them slop. The Jurassic Park sequels, for instance. One of the common tropes anti-AI people fall into is calling all AI-enabled works low effort. I'm refuting that point here, but you're right in that there's a broader discussion to be had as to what constitutes value to different demographics, individual tastes, and subjectivities. There are highly discerning craftspeople with good taste who are both using and consuming AI works. This should not be disregarded.
    - andai 21d ago
      I'll often run into one of those automatically generated YouTube videos, where the whole thing was done by ChatGPT (probably including the video idea itself). Very often I will find it valuable or entertaining and continue listening. Conversely, when listening to a high production YouTube video, I'll often (about half the time these days?) spot a ChatGPTism and instantly lose respect for the person. (Even if the video was valuable!) So I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. "Fully automated AI generated content pipeline" doesn't disgust me as much as it probably should, whereas "guy left cringe ChatGPT language in his script" my neurology registers as an unforgivable crime. --- Anyway the question of slop and effort is an interesting one. I've just spent several years working on a game and it's still shit. (Should have "iterated" more, apparently.) Conversely, I often have the experience that I see some art that leaves me cold or that I actively dislike, but then I will discover that a heroic amount of effort went into making it (e.g. it's constructed out of a million individual toothpicks or something like that) and will suddenly think it's amazing. My favourite story here is... a man in India spent 20 years carving a passage through a mountain by hand. By all accounts, it would have been much better if it were 20 minutes and a bit of TNT. But then he wouldn't be a legend, right? Similarly I discovered an art page I enjoyed was fully AI generated. (Well, I don't know about the human involvement. Taste, maybe?) The art was still good, to my eye, but I noticed that I had been idolizing the artist — "how much toil it must have taken, to etch every stroke!" — and of course that part popped like a balloon. I'll have to make due with the actual result, stripped of the glorious suffering!

rossy 23d ago

What enabled people to build cool side projects in the actual 90's and 00's and what stopped them from doing it in the period afterwards but before LLMs?