*Edit*: here at least, I am clearly not isolated!
Perhaps I am increasingly isolated in holding this position, but I have no interest in reading "AI"-generated slop.
I love reading.
I read people's blogs and toots and whatever *because people wrote them* and I want to read their own thoughts and opinions.
I buy books, and read numerous different authors. I like finding new authors, bringing new ideas, styles etc.
Same with "AI" images. I'd prefer no image at all.
@neil Quite.
I'm not opposed to machine learning; it's genuinely useful. I'm more ambivalent about LLMs, but that's more to do with the environmental impact, the way they were trained and the people involved in doing it than it is to do with the technology per se.
What profoundly offends me is the pretence that these things are capable of thought or creativity, of "generating" something that is actually going to be of interest to or provoke an emotional response in a human.
@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.
@hedders @neil But Big Tech is selling us a dream of general AI that isn’t a reality just yet, and the consumers don’t know enough about the technology to understand that.
The negative sentiment towards AI in general is, imho, undeserved. And it’s all because the shite they’re selling at the moment is so dodgy. It’s a real shame.
Neil Brown
Hedders
Gary 