As a fan of his work, I too wish it all to stop. People always go headlong for the people who we all miss the most, yet don't understand that it was their underlying humanity that made them so special.
I mean, there are AI applications that have improved humanity without threatening to enslave it, like computational photography, automated driver assistance for autos and biomedical applications.
Assuming by "AI" you mean LLMs in their current incarnation (starting with GPT), I tend to agree. On balance I see the harm outweighing the benefits for society.
Similarly, it drives me up the wall with people posting black and white "historical photographs" of history happenings, that are AI slop, and from the wrong era.
Just yesterday someone posted a "photo" of a 1921 where a submarine lost power, and built sails out of bedsheets to get home.
But the photo posted looked like a post WWII two submarine, rigged like a clipper ship, rather than the real life janky 1920's bed sheet rig and characters everywhere.
"We must negate the machines-that-think. Humans must set their own guidelines. This is not something machines can do. Reasoning depends upon programming, not on hardware, and we are the ultimate program! Our Jihad is a "dump program." We dump the things which destroy us as humans!".
I know, Dune and yeah, i get it - science fiction aint real life - but im still into these vibes.
I just look forward to the point where this is so common it becomes oversaturated and the original incentives go away/scare off the folks doing this stuff (inevitable as, like parasites, they only stay around as long as the host is providing them sustenance).
its not really a story, this is an instagram post about someone that can be tagged and forwarded items on instagram by strangers, for those of you that aren't familiar
this is not about any broader AI thing and its not news at all. a journalist made an article out of someone's instagram post
Maybe someday we will grow so tired of AI, that people will leave social media entirely. The most interesting thing about social media, the ability to build real human connections, is quickly becoming a relic of the past. So without that, what is left? Just slop content, rage bait.
My Dad passed away two years ago, and for a time I thought it would be nice to have an AI of him just to hear his voice again, but then I realized that the reason I'd want that is because I don't have really any video or audio of him from when he was alive. The reason I'd want the AI is because I have no training data for it...
If I did have sufficient training data for an AI Dad, I'd much rather just listen to the real recordings, rather than some AI slop generated from it. This is just another dumb application of AI that sounds alright on paper, but makes no sense in real life.
I saw that Robin Williams setup a deed to prevent his image or likeness being used for film or publicity that covers a period of up to 25 years after his death.
Long-lasting transferable exclusive rights that will inevitably end up being owned by corporations could also be a problem, though, particularly when the lawyers are motivated to interpret them as broadly as possible so that it becomes dangerous to even slightly resemble anyone famous who died less than 70 years ago unless you have paid various licence fees. So I'm not sure it's worth giving up our current freedoms just to avoid some distasteful crap on the internet which I can easily avoid.
However, there might be a way of doing it that doesn't create a new category of intellectual property. I think I read about a case that went a bit like this. Parliament created some kind of privacy right. A newspaper asked someone for permission to publish some pictures that could be an invasion of some person's privacy. The person asked for money. The newspaper went ahead and published without permission. The person sued. The newspaper argued in court that if the person was willing to let the pictures be published in return for money then they didn't really care about their privacy. The judge said: it does not seem that the purpose of the legislation was to create a new category of intellectual property so that argument might be valid... I've garbled the details and I'm not sure of the final result but that line of reasoning is interesting, I think.
To my mind this is no different to other forms of spam or harassment.
Back in the 00s I remember friends being sent “slimming club” junk mail on paper made to look like a handwritten note from “a concerned friend”. It was addressed but random.
Unfortunately it can be very distressing for those with body image issues.
We’re going to have to treat this slop like junk mail as it grows.
Fake handwritten mails are still a thing and still get instantly thrown away from me.
Anything I'm sent that's AI generated doesn't get read. I realize this will get more difficult as models improve, but I'm standing by this as long as they have that recognizable verbose and agreeable signature
"stop calling it 'the future,' AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed"
She has found some very good words to boil down all this AI slop nonsense. I sometimes struggle to explain to non-tech folks why GenAI "art" is and always will be entirely and fundamentally worthless to me. Why I will never waste a second of my time looking at it, and kick it to the bin the moment I notice what it is. She did a better job, the hotdog and centipede create some appropriately gross images.
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[ 26.5 ms ] story [ 844 ms ] threadLLM and stable diffusion though? Yep; agree.
Just yesterday someone posted a "photo" of a 1921 where a submarine lost power, and built sails out of bedsheets to get home.
But the photo posted looked like a post WWII two submarine, rigged like a clipper ship, rather than the real life janky 1920's bed sheet rig and characters everywhere.
Actual incident (with actual photo): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_R-14
I know, Dune and yeah, i get it - science fiction aint real life - but im still into these vibes.
Anyone wanna start a club?
its not really a story, this is an instagram post about someone that can be tagged and forwarded items on instagram by strangers, for those of you that aren't familiar
this is not about any broader AI thing and its not news at all. a journalist made an article out of someone's instagram post
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021...
It's not necessarily disgusting by itself, but sending clips to the guy's daughter is very weird.
If I did have sufficient training data for an AI Dad, I'd much rather just listen to the real recordings, rather than some AI slop generated from it. This is just another dumb application of AI that sounds alright on paper, but makes no sense in real life.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/31/robin-williams-...
I don't know if it could be extended further, but I feel like there is merit for it to be considered in this case.
In Denmark people own the copyright to their own voice, imagery and likeness:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/deepfakes...
I think that it is probably the right way to go.
However, there might be a way of doing it that doesn't create a new category of intellectual property. I think I read about a case that went a bit like this. Parliament created some kind of privacy right. A newspaper asked someone for permission to publish some pictures that could be an invasion of some person's privacy. The person asked for money. The newspaper went ahead and published without permission. The person sued. The newspaper argued in court that if the person was willing to let the pictures be published in return for money then they didn't really care about their privacy. The judge said: it does not seem that the purpose of the legislation was to create a new category of intellectual property so that argument might be valid... I've garbled the details and I'm not sure of the final result but that line of reasoning is interesting, I think.
Back in the 00s I remember friends being sent “slimming club” junk mail on paper made to look like a handwritten note from “a concerned friend”. It was addressed but random.
Unfortunately it can be very distressing for those with body image issues.
We’re going to have to treat this slop like junk mail as it grows.
Anything I'm sent that's AI generated doesn't get read. I realize this will get more difficult as models improve, but I'm standing by this as long as they have that recognizable verbose and agreeable signature
She has found some very good words to boil down all this AI slop nonsense. I sometimes struggle to explain to non-tech folks why GenAI "art" is and always will be entirely and fundamentally worthless to me. Why I will never waste a second of my time looking at it, and kick it to the bin the moment I notice what it is. She did a better job, the hotdog and centipede create some appropriately gross images.