*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!

[frazzledbrynn@glitterkitten.co.uk]

@neil What I found really depressingly interesting is that I find it really fatiguing, and I already suffer from a huge amount of fatigue. All the dodging AI, my brain-fogged head working harder to filter things out, the heart sink as I get tricked and only later realise something was off.

Like recipes! Following along on my phone whilst already overwhelmed by what I'm doing, and then finding out mid-way through following a recipe that, hang on a sec, this is AI nonsense.

[kimcrawley@zeroes.ca]

@stroobl

No! 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@signaleleven

Someone was posting here about preferring "AI news" because they said that it was unbiased.

Someone posted an AI-generated "summary" of something.

More websites are using AI-generated images.

Do you not see this kind of thing?

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@FrazzledBrynn AI-generated "recipes" are indeed one of the only ways that most recipe sites could be made worse!

[wobweger@mstdn.social]

@neil 🧡
you are not alone
you're not isolated
your are in fact well connected to the human condition, having resisted years long propaganda on almost all channels
#salami slop is no good
🖖

[ahnlak@kavlak.uk]

@neil I find AI images a really strong flag that I'm not going to want to read an article.

I suspect at least part of the problem is that "experts" will tell you that a web page *has* to have an image to represent it (because that's what algorithms want), and people are panicked into finding *something* to fill that void.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@stroobl I'd prefer documentation written by a human?

[bstacey@icosahedron.website]

@FrazzledBrynn @neil Ah, damn, that's gotta suck.

I like to cook, but I don't even try looking up recipes online any more, unless they're verifiably from the pre-slop era. Fortunately, we have a shelf of cookbooks and I've gotten pretty good at winging things for a weeknight dinner.

[rubyjones@wandering.shop]

@neil Most writers and artists I know think the same, but the gap between those people and those who consume art and fiction - especially among programmers - is really depressing.

[wurzelmann@mastodon.wurzelmann.at]

@neil I'm with you on that hill. ✊

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@rubyjones On the consumption side, I am absolutely in a fortunate position that I can afford to pay, and see value in paying, for books, to support authors, and so on (although I suppose that I see blogs as free-to-read). Perhaps there's a circle there.

Slop has no value to me, so I would not knowingly pay for it.

But perhaps someone who doesn't value creativity or human expression would not willingly pay for it anyway, so slop is attractive enough?

(Sorry, pondering aloud here.)

[odd@mstdn.social]

@neil I haven't seen such posts here at all. Tbh it sounds like a troll because AI generated content is anything but unbiased. And in my experience, people around here are well aware of this.

That said, at work and around the internet at large I see more and more people using AI. Some because they believe in the technology, others because they feel its the normal thing to do now.

[futureisfoss@fosstodon.org]

@neil That is not an unpopular opinion, not at all.

[rubyjones@wandering.shop]

@ahnlak @neil The thing is... Pixabay exists! I used it all the time when I worked in Marketing. I think you can spend a lot more time messing around trying to get your 'prompt' to give you what you want than you would just going to Pixabay and finding a public domain image.

[lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me]

@ahnlak @neil Which is kind of funny because even before AI I found it so tailored towards some sort of ranking that it can end up looking a bit shady like sites that look borderline SEO-farming.

[anderelampe@chaos.social]

@neil yes, you are not alone. 100%.

[rubyjones@wandering.shop]

@neil The thing is, there is more free fiction and art online than a person could ever need. I've actually found it hard to pull myself away from the safe, comforting arms of fanfiction, which gives me exactly what I want, for free, but I get frustrated that I can't pay the authors for their often spectacular works.

I agree with you - writing and art are communication - there's no point if there's no one on the other side communicating anything. And the fact that it's all stolen>

[mjj@mstdn.dk]

@neil In principle I mostly agree, in practice entirely.
I would say with the top 92% I would read, I share the sentiment. *In principle*, I would be okay with looking up LLM-gens for the last 8% which would be checklists or how-to on changing a setting on something or listing a number of events. But it is mostly, or at least unpredictably, bullshit. If these models are built holding everything that is smart and good, why is there so much bullshit?
It does not reassure me for humanity that the machine that extracts the average of everything generally comes up with visually well-ordered feces.
So I arrive at your conclusion mostly, but not entirely, following the same route.

[rubyjones@wandering.shop]

@neil >and relies on technology that is doing absolutely horrendous things to the environment, makes it absolutely unthinkable for me to partake.

And yet I have very old, very dear friends who seem to simply not care. Even after I have explained to them how bad it is for the world, and how hurtful to me.

I don't get it.

[coldclimate@hachyderm.io]

@neil strong agree