Norci t1_jdq62nu wrote on March 26, 2023 at 9:18 AM

Reply to comment by RamsesThePigeon in Silicon Valley Elites Are Afraid. History Says They Should Be by Mynameis__--__

> It’s the equivalent of being unable to distinguish between a chef-prepared meal and something with the Lunchables logo on it.

> Chat-bots produce painfully average offerings; works that check all of the surface-level boxes, but that are completely flat. They still scare me, though, because they’re revealing the fact that people who are willing and able to recognize as much are apparently in the minority.

I know it sucks not having one's effort as a creator appreciated, but frankly, you're kinda being a bit of a pretentious drama queen here. Your comment with the poem received 2k upvotes with only a couple heavily downvoted users implying it was made by ChatGPT (which is currently a trend to use in reddit comments). Obviously, they are in the vast minority, not the ones that recognized your efforts.

There's nothing new or controversial here, there have always been arrogant and/or ignorant people online eager to question and diminish professionals and creators, with or without AI. For every topic there are dozens of armchair experts waiting for their chance to jump into the conversation, AI or not.

However there have always been hundreds of shitty creators too, producing content that is as bad, or worse, than AI generated one, being cheered on by a cohort of yes-men, so you can't exactly fault people for not being able to tell the difference. I went to an open mic last week, and honestly, AI would produce more enjoyable poetry than some of the people there if we are to talk strictly about the structure and content.

Maybe to you, someone skilled in the craft, the difference between human and an AI's poems is day and night, but to the average Joe it all looks the same, and it's not their fault, the simple truth is that it takes knowledge and expertise to appreciate skills and effort. I'd bet if you were shown artwork done by AI and by humans, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference either. But since most people do have experience with food, anyone would be able to tell Lunchables from a professional meal. I know it's an exaggeration, but AI vs human content is nowhere near as obvious to average people.

Mind you, none of this should be some kind of shocking news to anyone, AI is not the culprit here. The reality is that many people have no sense of taste or quality. That's why you have garbage content being popular, be it TV shows like Jersey Shore, generic music, r/funny or asset flip games. It always has been and always will be the case, many people simply don't care about arts and won't be able to tell apart good one from bad, AI or no AI. Personally, I'm into board games and it's same thing here, the amount of people who likes Monopoly, despite it being a shitty game all things considered, is massive. Ironically, I too started out my journey into the hobby with it.

It's tough being a creator and realizing that most people have no appreciation for one's craft, but many do. Unfortunately that's what decades of shitty media does to society, and few have time and effort to learn the better, nor do many need too either. You just gotta try to filter out the noise and focus on people appreciating your art.

RamsesThePigeon t1_jdq83xj wrote on March 26, 2023 at 9:48 AM

You know, I’d be willing to take that bet.

I don’t think that a person needs to be an expert in order to tell if something has “life” in it; they just need to care enough to look. You suggested as much yourself: It isn’t a lack of experience (or even taste) that causes junk to become popular; it’s apathy, and that same apathy is being enabled by the incredible amount of “content” available to people nowadays.

Granted, you could make the claim that humans just default to gorging themselves on garbage, and it isn’t much of a step to go from there to the idea that predators – be they television executives or designers of Skinner boxes masquerading as games – will rush to exploit that… but even then, on some level, people tend to realize when they aren’t actually enjoying themselves. That realization might take a while to grow from a vague sense of boredom to a conscious conclusion (and a person could very well move on before the transition takes place), but I’m pretty confident that everyone is capable of experiencing it.

Back to my point, though, the fact that the accusations were downvoted isn’t really relevant. What saddens me is the fact that said accusations were made at all. Yes, you’re right, the accusers are just armchair experts who aren’t really qualified to discuss the topic… but aren’t you the least bit bothered by the fact that folks like them are currently shaping the narrative about ChatGPT and its ilk?

Maybe I’m just getting old, but as that same narrative gets increasing amounts of attention, all I can see is a growing audience that’s going to waste a lot of their limited time on feeling dissatisfied.