Zompist Bboard Again

alice wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 2:39 pm Alternatively: "Recycled and recirculated shit is still shit, in whatever quantity". Just as the Internet is a part of life for increasingly many people , so too will AI-generated slop be. And that's the main problem, *not* that people with more money than sense are trying to automate and replace human creativity (which won't succeed, I think we're pretty much agreed).

We're not drowning in NFTs. AI slop might well decline if the bubble bursts and a) AI is more expensive, b) the execs move on to the next corporate fad.

Developers, told to use AI or be fired, report productivity gains. But as one study reports, "While developers did spend less time on boilerplate code generation and API searches, code-quality regressions and subsequent rework frequently offset the headline gains."

As I've said before, if code is so repetitive and yet arcane that an LLM helps produce it, there's an architectural problem. Why do you need millions of lines of code that is barely different from the millions of lines of code you already have? Probably you should refactor so that similar situations use the same code, controlled by a parameters file or something. Why is getting libraries to talk to each other so complicated? Probably their APIs are needlessly complex. (A programmer writing an API is already an expert in their own system and doesn't even see the complexity; also doesn't care how hard using it is since that's not his job.)

The principle probably applies elsewhere as well. LLMs are really good at writing corporate boilerplate— that is, bullshit documents required by someone but not intended to be read by human beings. (Human beings that matter to the writer, that is.) They're also really good at writing papers for you so you can pass college courses without doing work. And writing spam. If it's not worth doing, an LLM can do it!

Eventually the AI companies will have to either turn a profit or die. Then enshittification sets in -- and all the executives who thought that generative AI would mean free or cheap work so they wouldn't have to pay real workers will have to think again when generative AI starts costing real money. AI might not go away per se but all the hype of AI providing easy, free or cheap work will go the way of monkey NFT's, as zompist alludes to.

21st century capitalism keeps shit alive when it's too big to fail. These companies are hoping to constitute a large enough section of the economy to qualify for government bailouts. That would normally happen if the government thinks a cascading failure will lead to a depression. Not that this administration seems to care.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 5:26 pmEventually the AI companies will have to either turn a profit or die. Then enshittification sets in -- and all the executives who thought that generative AI would mean free or cheap work so they wouldn't have to pay real workers will have to think again when generative AI starts costing real money. AI might not go away per se but all the hype of AI providing easy, free or cheap work will go the way of monkey NFT's, as zompist alludes to.

But what makes you so sure that they will charge as much as human artists and writers? They could simply charge less than humans would on average and that would give them a competitive advantage. Sure the data centers cost a lot to run, but the thousands of humans it would take to match their output cost a lot to pay.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 8:27 pm But what makes you so sure that they will charge as much as human artists and writers?

How much do you think artists and writers make?

It's nice, I guess, that you are worried about the artists and writers, though apparently you can't tell the difference between their work and AI slop. But getting rid of every artist in America would not be enough to make AI profitable.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 8:27 pm But what makes you so sure that they will charge as much as human artists and writers? They could simply charge less than humans would on average and that would give them a competitive advantage. Sure the data centers cost a lot to run, but the thousands of humans it would take to match their output cost a lot to pay.

AI companies run their models round the clock, making an image every 30 seconds. They could be profitable if they created images at a slower pace, even if that pace is faster than that of human artists. Quantity has dominated quality across the capitalist era.

Part of the speed can be explained as them compensating for the fact that current AIs don't have any life experiences to draw from, so their originality comes from human prompts. Clients might not have patience for relatively lower quality art generated at a slower pace. This assumes capitalists do things for reasons, which I'm not at all convinced of.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 9:37 pmHow much do you think artists and writers make?

Enough to survive since obviously they haven't all starved to death by now. The specific amount undoubtedly depends on where they live, though even the cheapest areas cost tens of thousands a year. Given that one generative AI can match the productivity of thousands or millions of humans, the business just needs to keep costs below the millions or billions that an equivalent number of humans would cost.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 10:15 pm Enough to survive since obviously they haven't all starved to death by now. The specific amount undoubtedly depends on where they live, though even the cheapest areas cost tens of thousands a year. Given that one generative AI can match the productivity of thousands or millions of humans, the business just needs to keep costs below the millions or billions that an equivalent number of humans would cost.

Industries have market caps. The art industry can only employ a limited number of workers.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 10:15 pm Given that one generative AI can match the productivity of thousands or millions of humans, the business just needs to keep costs below the millions or billions that an equivalent number of humans would cost.

Jeez, you just buy every wackazoid claim that comes out of an AI marketer's ass, don't you?

Stop worshipping the techbros and their slop machine, they don't need you to add to the hype.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 10:15 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 9:37 pmHow much do you think artists and writers make?

Enough to survive since obviously they haven't all starved to death by now.

A lot of the more artistic work is subsidised, e.g. by family and by day jobs.

Taking intermediate Ojibwe, quite fun language to learn. I wish there was a thread for discussing the language because there are many things to say about it. And I have many questions, like how to stress words in the language or what are the many different derivational affixes.

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 11:13 am Taking intermediate Ojibwe, quite fun language to learn. I wish there was a thread for discussing the language because there are many things to say about it. And I have many questions, like how to stress words in the language or what are the many different derivational affixes.

Make a thread yourself!

(We used to have a resident Ojibwe expert here, but he left the forum… not sure why.)

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 11:31 am Alcoholic drinks question: Does anyone else have the impression that actual rum rarely ever tastes as good as whatever substance they're using to flavor rum-flavored sweets?

Bump?

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 2:52 amJeez, you just buy every wackazoid claim that comes out of an AI marketer's ass, don't you?

Stop worshipping the techbros and their slop machine, they don't need you to add to the hype.

The ability to generate images and text passable as human-made was once just such a wackazoid claim. Nobody five years ago would have taken the possibility of stable diffusion or LLMs seriously. What makes you so sure that they're bluffing this time when they were right before?

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Feb 05, 2026 8:35 am

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 2:52 amJeez, you just buy every wackazoid claim that comes out of an AI marketer's ass, don't you?

Stop worshipping the techbros and their slop machine, they don't need you to add to the hype.

The ability to generate images and text passable as human-made was once just such a wackazoid claim. Nobody five years ago would have taken the possibility of stable diffusion or LLMs seriously. What makes you so sure that they're bluffing this time when they were right before?

The thing is that they're not truly passable as human-made.

I've been fooled by one or two [that i know of]. as boring as ai pics are, humans make boring art as well.

Torco wrote: ↑Thu Feb 05, 2026 9:30 am I've been fooled by one or two [that i know of]. as boring as ai pics are, humans make boring art as well.

Yes, there are humans who make bland art. But some humans do art that is not bland; AIs never make art that is not bland.

Personally, I like AI art. I just hate the companies that make AI art.

This doesn't necessarily mean AI art is interesting. I like boring things. I'm a boring person in general.

When I see AI-generated pics my brain almost immediately thinks "this is probably AI-generated" -- they have a specific kind of look to them that most human-generated images lack.