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

[iwein@mas.to]

@stroobl
AI can write good docs is an unpopular opinion among people that know the value of documentation. Rightfully so because:

1. "AI" doesn't exist, and LLM's can't "know" meaning. They hide it well.
2. Writing documentation proves the author cares about the thing they document.
3. Documenting something surfaces it's subtlest bugs.

If devs use llm for documentation, the software is shit. If you use llm to describe others' software, you're taking a great risk of misunderstanding it.
@neil

[derickr@phpc.social]

@neil I made that exact point in my closing keynote at #dpc last Friday. There was a lot of LLM generated images in many presentations, even when actual photos existed. My line was something akin to: I'd rather see badly drawn stick figures illustrating my points than fake generic "art", and I also made the point about the different ideas and writing styles of authors.

I'll turn it into a blog post soon.

[sephster@fosstodon.org]

@neil best book you read last year? Looking for recommendations

[alex@social.alexhyett.com]

@neil I am definitely in the “if you couldn’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it” category.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@sephster Let me reply when I have my eReader or calibre in front of me!

[solderandchaos@mastodon.me.uk]

@neil definitely not isolated. It is a hill I will almost certainly be at least critically injured on.

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@neil most of my early professional training was as a text person. Literature, journalism, history. Professions where you obsess about individual words, sentence structure, context, and layers of meaning.

For this reason, I find LLM-generated text supremely exhausting to read. I keep looking for meaning and intention, and it just isn’t - can’t be - there.

[nobody@mastodon.acm.org]

@neil
I very much relate and, at least for myself, I'd say it's not even anthropocentrism, not "human supremacy". It's largely about SOTA, it's about information hygiene. SOTA in thought, SOTA in language and expression, which are achieved through struggle and experience that today happen to mean specifically human experience. As for hygiene, there's the matter of attention being a very scarce resource, and the matter of contamination: exposure to information affects the thought...

[rpbook@gts.phillipsuk.org]

@neil I have no interest in AI generated crap either. Even though the fediverse is my only social media, I do sometimes feel very isolated in that stance. It's good to see so many replies to your post agreeing with us 🙂

I've commissioned an artist to create the cover of my next book. He periodically sends me work-in-progress images. It's fascinating watching the evolution, and I love being asked about specifics and being able to offer feedback. I can't imagine it would be the same if I was talking to a machine.

[unchartedworlds@scicomm.xyz]

@sephster

Book recommendations from anyone, or only from @neil?

Some of mine are here: @booktrail

#books

[unchartedworlds@scicomm.xyz]

@nobody

What's SOTA in this context, please?

[nobody@mastodon.acm.org]

@unchartedworlds
Oh, "state of the art". I mean we do have a very dynamic sense of what is novel, relevant, needed

[feff@comicscamp.club]

@neil How anyone can read unedited AI-generated stuff is beyond me. It is so empty, so soulless; somehow using so many words to say nothing at all. It is boring to read.

The false tone of helpfulness is grating. The puffery reminds me of long pre-ambles on recipe sites.

AI-art also lacks that something. It is so smooth and so normalised and boring. The mass average of everyone's work is boring, for it can say nothing new.

[jaimieserotica@kinkycats.org]

@neil I take the same view but I think we are increasingly in the minority. I hate what I see of AI. We keep being told of the benefits but all I see is slop, people losing their jobs and tech-bros getting richer.
I worry about what it means for creatives (and I include myself in that although it's not how I make a living) but moreso, what it means for us as a species. Enfeeblement and disempowerment most probably.

[jaimieserotica@kinkycats.org]

@FrazzledBrynn @neil
Yes! The constant gatekeeping is exhausting. In my profession, it's increasingly an issue where people (lay persons and professionals alike) have used AI to draft a document which looks legit but on closer inspection turns out to be a pile of shit.

[bright_helpings@mspsocial.net]

@diffractie I don't like the feeling that I might be the first person to look at/read/encounter something.

It just feels so inherently like it doesn't matter, it's like thinking you're on solid ground but when you check there's nothing holding you up, you've already gone over the edge of the cliff.

@neil

[sephster@fosstodon.org]

@unchartedworlds @neil @booktrail welcome from anyone. Thank you for the heads up

[gilester45@twit.social]

@neil I am with you. I also don't think it's just a Masto echo chamber; there is some pushback against GenAI slop around, but whether it'll be enough to stop the tsunami remains to be seen.

Look at Buzzfeed, it was always slop, but they did annoyingly well. Then they switched to GenAI slop and found nobody wants that to the point they're bankrupt.

I see reports that teens are both aware and weary of GenAI slop in their SM feeds.

So, we must push back as much as we can. There's slight hope...

[jaimieserotica@kinkycats.org]

@rubyjones
Basically, yes to everything you've said Ruby. This is the issue going forward. People don't care. They will when it impacts them negatively but, of course, by then it's too late.
@neil

[witewulf@cyberplace.social]

@hedders @neil I’ve been pondering this recently, too. I’m as much against the generative/LLM material being used in lieu of that created by humans as anyone else, but the knee jerk reaction of many people towards “AI” as whole now is grating on me.

AI is bloody brilliant, it’s doing incredible things with computers, from running my home central heating more efficiently, to modelling crowd behaviour at football matches, and predicting heart attacks.