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.