al_borland
12 hours ago
If I think an article was written by AI, I stop reading. I didn’t even bother clicking on the link due to the URL and framing of the question, I assume it’s going to be AI on the other end.
If it isn’t worth someone’s time to write, it isn’t worth my time to read.
bediger4000
12 hours ago
I agree completely, and do the same. In link aggregators that allow voting, downvote or flag. If the submitter of the "Ai" generated article has commented, I downvote or flag that comment.
I don't want to read generated median prose that almost certainly contains falsehoods or nonsense.
Wpnx330
12 hours ago
While I don't disagree that lots of people are using AI to turn out slop that is unreviewed, uninteresting drivel... and often times out right trash. There are others which take the time to use AI to do good things. As I mentioned in my comment. AI is literally used in every part of peoples day, even if they don't realize it. Eventually, AI will be so good enough at doing the writing you won't be able to tell, even when it is used by those people who put in no effort to make their content good when they use it.
al_borland
12 hours ago
AI being heavily leveraged by companies during a hype cycle doesn’t make it good, nor does it mean I’m obligated to consume the content.
I have disabled YouTube recommendations so I stop getting AI videos. When choosing books, I have plenty of AI-free options written before 2022. Newer books will need to clear a high bar.
The opportunistic people who try to leverage every new technology to get rich quick have made the world a much worse place, and right now their tools of choice is AI. If there are valid uses for it, the people doing it should be loudly speaking out against the slop producers, not telling people resisting it that AI is inevitable and they need to get on board. That’s the playbook of one of those opportunistic people who make the world worse. I’d urge you not to align your life with those who erode society.
Wpnx330
11 hours ago
I'd urge you not to be so close minded, and not to straw man other people who have different views than you.
People once thought cars we dumb toys for rich people and completely impractical forms of transportation given the state of the roads and economy at the time. Look at society today.
People also once thought the internet was a fad. And, steel-manning your point. we had a dot com bubble. never-the-less the whole world runs on the internet today. Arguably for the better. Many innovations around the world have been due to digitally shared information.
Just because some people try to use it to get rich, doesn't mean the world wont be the better for it. I'm just looking at the big picture. sure, some people will use AI poorly... their businesses, and ideas, and blogs, etc.. they wont last. some people will use AI well, and they will. Either way. people are going to use AI, for everything.
al_borland
10 hours ago
The productive uses won’t become clear until the grifters move on to the next grift. Until that happens, I’m going to remain highly skeptical of most things.
The internet eventually became a tool/platform to build on, rather than a feature itself. I think those advertising AI or using AI as the main feature, are missing the mark. AI is a tool to do other things, and how valuable is the thing being done? If AI makes the thing being done trivial and low value, the human probably isn’t doing enough beyond the basic capabilities of the model.
A site churning out AI articles is like SHEIN turning out fast fashion. It’s quick, it’s cheap, but no one really thinks it’s good quality. Many would argue the industry and the Earth would be better without it. I prefer to opt for better quality clothes, just like I would prefer to opt for writing that isn’t all AI generated.
I have found some genuinely useful use cases for AI, but I don’t think writing is one of them. We already have more content than anyone can hope to read. Creating more text is going to create a bigger haystack. I believe what I said at the start, that if something has value, a person will be willing to spend time on it. I think that’s a great filter. I also think it’s important for people to write, because it helps the thinking process and the ability to organize complex thoughts and ideas. I don’t think short cutting this use for the brain is good for society as a whole.
Jitte98
an hour ago
"I have found some genuinely useful use cases for AI, but I don’t think writing is one of them."
In 2019 I was diagnosed with a rare, progressive brain disease that was slowly robbing me of all the skills ad abilities that make m ethe person I am and would continue to do so till the only thing left of "me" would be the box.
I almost lost m ability to write completely, a post like this could take hours to compose, and the only reason I can write now is because I didn't stop writing.
I've put Gemini to work writing for me but I look it over before publishing. If that turns you off you probably wouldn't be interested anyway. And that's ok, but it doesn't mean I'll stop.
Wpnx330
7 hours ago
"I believe what I said at the start, that if something has value, a person will be willing to spend time on it." so, we have common ground.
I think only way we really differ is that I don't believe in preventing others from seeing AI writing because I saw it and decided it doesn't have value for me. Instead, I leave it to them to decide. I let the "great filter" of quality do its job.
My point from the start was. People flag content generated by AI as bad, when they don't even read the content themselves to determine if it is bad. It's a bias reaction. they are trying to curb the tide of AI use. The reality is, they can't. What they can do, is decide for themselves if what they see is valuable or not, and react accordingly. the truly bad stuff will fail. the good stuff will succeed.
Though, a few hours ago my original belief was it may take a little while before people who insta-reject AI writing are fooled into thinking the writing was done by a human... but it would seem based on other comments in this thread, people already can't tell what is written by people or llm.
That seems far more concerning. based solely on the other comment, I bet somewhere out there, people who use no AI at all and are getting labeled as AI writers and auto blocked by those individuals with their anti-AI guard up.
al_borland
6 hours ago
Just to level set, I didn’t flag or downvote the original post or any comments. I didn’t click the link, so I made the choice for myself, but didn’t try to make the choice for anyone else.
I’m opting out of AI content where it makes sense for me, and when I can tell, but I am fully aware that trying to make it my own personal mission to stop AI is not possible and a fool’s errand. I vote with my attention and dollars, that’s the best I can do. If enough people think slop is slop, maybe it won’t be worth producing and people will back off, but I’m not counting on that either. I’m mostly expecting to withdraw more and more from the internet and shift more into the real world, which is probably a good and healthy thing.
Not capitalizing your sentences does make it look like you told an AI to do that to appear more human… or that you’re doing it on purpose so people don’t accuse you of using AI in the comments. A lot of systems automatically capitalize the first letter of a sentence, and people on HN generally use proper capitalization and grammar, so it’s weird to see it all (or mostly) lowercase. That coupled with a post about AI, by someone who is all-in on AI and trying to convince others, it’s not a stretch for people to think you’re using AI for everything to prove a point.
I had some people say I comment I made sounded like AI a few weeks ago. When I wrote it, I knew it sounded AI-ish, but it was a bit of a tack-on that I thought was needed for clarification, and to write it differently would have meant rewriting the whole paragraph. Ironically, I likely would have never thought to phrase it the way it did if it wasn’t for the patterns seen in AI responses. So I think that’s a real problem too. Even if someone doesn’t use AI for a thing, their thoughts and style maybe be influenced by it, which will make them sound more like AI. I think professional writers might be wise to avoid using AI chats all together, to avoid picking up AI habits. Similar to how some bands will lock themselves away so they aren’t influenced by other music while trying to make an album.
bediger4000
9 hours ago
Id urge you to not use LLM generated replies on HN. Make your argument fairly, don't try to baffle us with median generated prose.
Good day, sir.
Wpnx330
7 hours ago
none of my responses have been llm generated. the grammatical mistakes, lack of punctuation, and proper capitalization alone should have been clue enough for you. the fact that you believe my responses are llm generated tells me that the people downvoting AI writing aren't actually qualified to detect AI writing. Irony.