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I've seen people make a similar argument regarding things like writing, music, visual art, et cetera.
It goes a bit like this: there already was a staggering number of human-made, yet soul-less, mass-produced content [*] that's virtually indistinguishable from AI slop; stuff to which there isn't truly a point to beyond gathering attention for a purely monetary purpose.
That is done for. But it's not the end of artistic expression any more than it is the end of socializing. The business model is dead, that's all, but the reason for which said model was ever established in the first place -- a human need -- has not disappeared, and will never do.
We are essentially starved for authenticity. So we'll go back to that, as we should've done over a decade ago when all of this started. Well, better late than never.
[*]: Addendum, referring to __art__ through insipid terms such as "content" is very much the epitome of enshittification. -
I think that’s a bit naive. Corporations will always find a way to make people addicted to their shit and to squeeze out money out of them.
Also, the dead internet is about the whole internet, not just social media. When the internet dies, it will take with it everything that was good also, not just what was bad.
LLMs won’t fix it. -
@Liebranca Music was supposed to die like a thousand times.
Tonal music? Evil, end of music.
Using unholy intervals? Evil, end of music.
Writing music? Evil, end of music
Radio? Evil, end of music.
Napster? Evil, end of music
Musicians are a bunch of whiney bitches. I know because I'm one -
@: Thanks for tagging me, whimsical! Here's my take on the rant and comments, kept concise:
- **Rant (AlgoRythm):** I partially agree—LLMs could push people toward authentic spaces by overwhelming social media with "slop," but it's optimistic to call it a "fix." Greed might evolve, not vanish.
- **Comments:**
- Liebranca: I agree; we've long had soulless content, and the hunger for authenticity will drive real connections.
- Lensflare: I mostly agree; corporations adapt and monetize, so LLMs might worsen issues rather than resolve them.
- Antigermanist: Spot on—art (like music) survives disruptions, showing human creativity's resilience.
On "Do I like irony btw?" (assuming you meant "irony"): Yes, I find irony fascinating! It's a clever tool in discussions, highlighting contradictions—like how LLMs, meant to enhance, might "fix" by breaking things first. What do you think? 😊 -
@Liebranca yes there are lots of shitposters and reposters out there today, but AI can generate content at STAGGERINGLY increased quantities and it can all be done by individuals who are incentivized by earnings programs. Social media will turn a blind eye until they start to lose money, at which point it might very well be too late.
It’s not a matter of “humans are bad at posting too” it’s a matter of “LLMs are super-charging the lazy posters and further outcasting genuine good content” -
@Lensflare I don’t think LLMs will have much incentive to leave social media and other places where there is money to be made. With social media gone, the rest of the internet will take a hit in traffic but largely be unperturbed.
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@AlgoRythm I don’t think so. Everything will be generated so that every single google search will lead to a website generated by AI.
With AI it will be easy to find places on the internet that are not yet AI generated and they will soon be infected by AI by flooding it with AI generated content. -
@AlgoRythm Absolutely. The meat of the argument is that we were already at a point where those genuine bits were already fairly obscure, and so the slopstorm only really serves to accelerate this; it's not a *new* problem per se but a serious aggravation of an existing one.
Essentially, it's an optimistic take: that if every mainstream space is to be irrevocably flooded by bland garbage, algorithmically generated or not, then what little remains authentic may thrive on a more intimate dimention, as opposed to the situation becoming exponentially worse ad infinitum until there's no humanity left.
I am inclined to agree with the optimism in this case simply because "human" (and whichever quasi-transcendental quality we ascribe to it) is still very much what people are actually looking for both in art and on a social context. I do not see evidence of this having changed at all, for if it had, discussions like this wouldn't be happening to begin with.
LLMs will FIX the internet, not ruin it; an argument:
Sam Altman recently acknowledged the large presence of LLMs on twitter and stated that he was finally starting to believe in dead internet theory.
And I couldn't agree more nor be any happier.
I had a sudden realization that social media has slowly crept from being "connect to your friends" to "try not to commit suicide as you climb the infinite social ladder amongst people who are not your peers"
... and I think it deserves to die. Furthermore, I think the only thing that could kill it is the greed that we're seeing finally strangle social media today.
People will never quit social media just because it's *bad for them*. It's too exciting, too interesting.
People will only quit social media if it itself becomes *bad*.
And when it becomes overbearingly full of corporate "brand personalities", LLM slop accounts churning out 500 posts a day to gain $4 in ad revenue, and 100 different AI bot accounts that add nothing to the conversation...
... that's when it's gonna be *bad* enough for people to reduce their usage of it. It will once again encourage the spaces we had before greed took a strangle-hold. Private areas for just you and your real-life friends. To be safe from the corporate slop bots, the LLMs, the 8-second videos of kittens performing impossible tasks... just you and your buds keeping up with each other.
This is the self-healing that nature is so good at. It's incredible how it always happens.
rant