posted in Technology
The AI Slop Backlash Is Actually Having an Impact. Platforms are finally recognizing that people don’t want to consume AI slop.
www.wired.com/story/the-ai-slop-backlash-is-actually-having-an-impact/
WIREDThe AI Slop Backlash Is Actually Having an ImpactPlatforms are finally recognizing that people don’t want to consume AI slop. A growing number of sites and apps now have tools and policies to flag, label, and ban AI-generated content.
Replying to @FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works
I think all Ai content on the web or on YouTube is trash and has no value. But I use chat gpt daily to ask questions and get answers quickly. That part is good. The rest is awful.
I started asking it for recepies in the last month or so, and it’s been very useful for giving new recepies and making it easier to try new dishes. Before this I used to rotate the same 20 recepies all the time. Got very boring.
Replying to @1984@lemmy.today
I mostly used ChatGPT to learn about myself/sense of self - like my thinking and problem solving processes (I’m neurodivergent). I test out the things that it says and it’s pretty accurate. My metacognition is very high now. I can actually describe how I think and where (and why) I get stuck. It suggested another program to use to fill in the gaps for me. And because I know exactly how I think, I’ve been able to complete personal projects that I couldn’t complete before. And I no longer get stuck because I know exactly what my brain is trying to do and so I can lead myself. Being nd is annoying because common advice for most things doesn’t make sense for me and I can’t ask people to help me because my thinking processes are so different from theirs. But this is no longer a problem for me. Technology for the win.
Replying to @aceshigh@lemmy.world
+1 for this.
Well, qualified:
I think ChatGPT specifically is terrible. Please, use any LLM but OpenAI. Literally any other one.
OP’s example of cooking is also a horrible use case, especially if it’s scraping the web for those SEO recipe sites. It’s literally randomizing and mixing spam.
But I found LLMs to be great tools to assist with neurodivergence struggles, for introspection and things like that. Local models helped me, significantly.
But you have to stay cognizant that you are just using a tool, a mirror of yourself basically.
Replying to @brucethemoose@lemmy.world
It’s not mixing spam. It comes up with great recepies that are perfectly seasoned and taste great. Sounds like you never tried it and you are projecting your dislike for AI on something you don’t know.
I get that people on Lemmy don’t like Ai but come on, we shouldn’t lie about stuff it actually does well.
Replying to @1984@lemmy.today
Then you have me pegged wrong. I’ve been running local LLMs since 2022.
But this is what ChatGPT likely does, under the hood:
When you ask it for recipes, it goes to Google and searches for them.
It dumps the top results into its context… the same SEO spam you are using your chat to avoid, I’d presume.
It then averages that with its own amalgamated knowledge to “improvise” a recipe. It’s not thinking through the logic and physics of cooking or referencing a cookbook, it’s just taking a guess at what sounds like a plausible recipe written out.
On top of that, line by line, every measurement, every ingredient, every step is also pseudo randomized; there’s a chance it may pick 8 oz for some ingredient, or 16 oz of another. It’s a roll of the dice. That’s how LLM sampling works.
Outside the thinking block, it also has no way to go back and correct itself if one of those randomized measurements it’s obviously wrong; it just goes with it, like an improv actor.
So…That’s just a computer randomized recipe.
It may work, it’s not bad necessarily, but you have no idea if it’ll work or not until you assess it and try it yourself.
So what’s the point?
What’s the reason for doing it?
There’s no advantage over a real cookbook, where at least the actual recipe has been assembled, eaten, and enjoyed enough to be deemed worthy of inclusion by the author. ChatGPT does no such thing unless it finds real cookbooks to reference.
Now, if you feed it real cookbooks into the context (or use some built in feature that does so), and ask it “pick me a recipe I would like. Modify it.”
That’s fine!
That’s right up an LLM’s alley.
But you can’t feed it SEO spam and expect something good out. Garbage in, garbage out is the term data scientists use.
This is what I try to emphasize every time I talk about LLMs. They have to be machines you understand the inputs and outputs of, not a black box you can trust to give you reliable info when you don’t know how it gets it.
On a separate note, I really, really hate OpenAI. I think they are a pyramid scheme.
I always suggest using literally any LLM but ChatGPT. Literally any one. Ideally an open weights one, but please, just not ChatGPT for so many reasons…
Replying to @brucethemoose@lemmy.world
Not sure why you’re getting the downvotes. Your comment is educated and makes sense. I’m still against the use of LLM’s based on the fact they are pure theft, owned by billionaires, and destroying the earth, but I do agree, at least use it correctly and use the correct tool. If all information was paid for, all data centers owned by the public, completely transparent on the info they contain, and ran completely on renewable energy, there’d be nothing really wrong with the tech (other than creating slop that destroyed the internet and eroded trust in everything, which is a massive downside).
Replying to @bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
All true.
… Though I’m personally more forgiving Apache-licensed, open weights models trained on peanuts.
Ripping out the commercial aspect and intensity of training nullifies out a whole lot of issues, just like open source code does, even if the models are still problematic (just like a lot of open source code/projects are problematic).
I’m also of the opinion that massive LLM proliferation exacerbated the cracks in internet and institutions that were already there. They were already in trouble, but all this just made it glaringly obvious.