You can't have your cake and eat it too...
gemini://gem.sdf.org/
gemini://sdf.org/
gemini://gemi.dev/
gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/
gemini://cdg.thegonz.net/infrastructure/search/
gemini://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/~solderpunk/cia-world-factbook/
gemini://geminiprotocol.net/
gopher://sdf.org/1/
gopher://magical.fish/1/
gopher://gopherpedia.com/1/
gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/overbite
Also, it is not a monolith. There are parts of the internet (arguably like HN) that are off the charts when it comes signal-to-noise ratio, for me personally.
It was categorically, undeniably better--that's where the nostalgia is coming from.
There are lots of reasons why this happened (and those are interesting questions.) But simply denying that it was better doesn't seem particularly reasonable to me.
A more peaceful relationship with the internet does sound good, and most of us probably waste too much time with social media in some form (including here).
My "optimistic" take on this is that AI will ruin the Internet and cause us all to spend more time with people in real life. And maybe that's a good thing.
That's assuming that AI Internet slop is such a turn-off that most of us will decide to disengage from it, which is a big assumption. But I did say it was optimistic.
Every document I read at work has been AI generated at some capacity. It's becoming so annoying that I have to use AI to create a summary.
I don't know if anyone agrees, but AI generated documents are so verbose and explain things in an overcomplicated way that makes me exhausted after reading. Sometimes I don't even understand what AI is trying to explain
If AI forces people to re-weight their priorities (i.e. be less on the internet), perhaps that's a good thing?
But unfortunately I just don't think that will happen. For some people it might, but I think the mass of people will accept the slop as it's given to them. Nothing in the history of communication technologies makes me think otherwise.
Perhaps I'm too cynical.
Pretty much the same thing the printing press did. Breakthrough communication technologies force underlying societal problems to the surface. It will end up being a good thing long term as long as we survive it.
Not sure what else to say. Yeah, if you consume the "internet" like some firehose of information you spray at your face hoping for the best then, yeah, even today you're going to wind up gargling mostly shit.
The "internet" being a small group of well-minded people who largely shared a similar outlook on things was the anomaly, not what's going on now.
NOW people start to complain. And it's quite transparent why. ;)
That means either AI will become interesting, or people will figure out how to stop slop ruining their places.
Either of those options might bring their own problems, but the sloppification of the internet is not a stable equilibrium.
However, terse lists of bullets without any padding or phatic expressions are considered rude. Perhaps previously a long message indicated you'd put time and thought into it.
Maybe AI will invert the social signalling, and make conciseness polite. As it should be.
We should probably put some more thought toward that part and what it will mean.
The history of automation is filled with cases where the result has been lower quality goods at lower prices.
The cost for text generation will trend toward zero.
The amount of models that will be able to generate text will keep expanding making what text is generated or not will become more difficult.
The way actual humans write will change because of influence by AI mushing up what is human and what is not human further increasing the impossibility of determining what is AI and what is not.
Freedom of speech laws in the US will shoot down any broad legal requirements to mark text as AI generated or not.
The consumer financial incentives to go to the 'better' and more expensive products are questionable at best. People consuming a lot of shitty shit because it's cheap is a pretty standard human behavior. It doesn't mean good products won't exist. It means good products will have to do a shit load of work to stand above and beyond the slop, and with systems like the US, these better products are apt to be bought by VC to exploit as much money out of the product by turning it into slop and getting rid of the human assets behind it.
Also..
You only notice 'slop', not necessarily things that are written by AI (or lazy humans).
Listen, very smart people are very enthusiastic about other very smart people using AI to help AI learn to fix AI. Pretty much open-and-shut, IMO.
Also, it seems that writing encodes far more information about personality and mental state of the writer than it seems at first glance. A key problem is that machine-generated writing does not have this, it is obvious that it doesn’t have this, and there is no path towards fixing it.
This. I can't even listen to youtube videos any more because of their chat-gpt generated scripts. LLMs will readily generate several pages of superfluous prose, rehashing the same idea with punchy witticisms for no reason. But it uses such compelling connecting words that you might be tricked into believing there will be a payoff long past the point of diminishing returns.
I have been enjoying reading literary classics for their poetic concision. Sometimes, a bit of context can allow a simple sentence to form a picture in your mind's eye that would take a few minutes to explain syllogistically. I wish to communicate more like that.
wc .\ledger_reqs.md
1090 9347 68071 .\ledger_reqs.mdFor the past five years I made an effort to seek out and finish long posts or videos that seem interesting at first in the name of exercising my attention span.
I'm now quick to bail on anything when I don't know the author, and bail on authors if their quality starts slipping. When the daily fire hose started running out, I realized I was mainly looking for distraction and spent more time being healthily bored.
thataccount•45m ago