It is one of the biggest things to ever happen in the history of software, art, and writing. We're nowhere near the "it's meaningless to talk about why you don't like it" threshold.
TFA raises several points I hadn't heard before. Here's one.
The artifacts we produce define our culture. If we allow LLMs to produce our work, our culture represents that which they understand. But LLMs can't be trained on the entirety of the human experience. "How dare we abandon so many countless traditions and people and ideas and nuances, simply because they are underrepresented in the training data?"
I just feel like that's not performative in the way you're insinuating. That feels like a take to me. Respectful engagement is what I expected here.
But that's not anything new, and even in the same text you can see examples of that.
LLMs are a tool. The brush is a tool, the pencil is a tool. The way we write already is defined by tools. This very comment is remarkably defined by its medium, I can't control its font size! Or the font at all, for that matter, nor the color, hell I can't even control how and where this comment is read! This means I'm generally going to write it in English, a whole different language from my native one! How is that for "defining"???
None of this is new, it's all dictated by human experience in the very same way that the output of a LLM gets dictated by human experience. That's the way memes (as in, anthropology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme?) work.
LLMs don't understand, they just output based on some parameters. We've been here before.
The LLM is the next generation of 20th century culture. Until the early 20th century, all stories (from before homer to Shakespeare, through Dickens and so on), music etc we continual remix and interpretation. But as recording became possible and then film, cultural elements mixed with law adopted expensive production and started to become more locked down. Corporations (which are just machines themselves) made musical acts whose members were just actors playing a role (still happens today with K-pop being the most successful). Disney colonized the public domain and drowned out the origins, with their versions becoming canonical
But consumers were willing participants. Rather than make a costume of your favorite character people now preferentially seek out licensed versions of dolls, costumes, “official” soundtracks etc rather than treating it all as just more raw material for your own imagination.
I’m not saying there isn’t fanfic and remix culture as well but when was the last time you saw a kid with a home-made “character” T-shirt? They even buy sport jerseys with the ads included!
So the mechanical slop infiltrating culture is just the current apotheosis of this process atrophy of the imagination. Truly it is degenerative AI
It's very hard to be happy about things that actively reduce one's happiness. This isn't unreasonable. You have a different experience - that doesn't make everybody else an idiot. In fact, your comment (regardless of attitude on AI) is exactly an example of the kind of attitude that is in opposition to the curiosity, positivity, and humanity that HN historically represents.
> In fact, your comment (regardless of attitude on AI) is exactly an example of the kind of attitude that is in opposition to the curiosity, positivity, and humanity that HN historically represents.
My patience has worn out. I've tolerated the anti-AI sentiment for years, but at this point it's beyond grating.
I've heard all the arguments, I've been called all the names. The anti-AI crowd is frequently uncivil, and that just gets to glide by. I'm tired of it.
I don't go flagging every anti AI voice here, regardless of how hateful or cruel it is.
We've banned this account. Enough is enough. We don't care what your opinion is, and we work hard to make this a space where everyone's opinion can be expressed and heard, but it can't work when people think they have license to go around abusing other community members like this.
Isn't one of the original purposes of HN not discussion and curiosity for purpose of learning and widening our perspectives? The discourse here is some of the most reasonable on the internet (usually), and nothing is better for us to challenge and assess our positions.
I myself am relatively cautious about AI, mostly due to ethical concerns, yet I often open AI related threads to be informed and hear differing perspectives and arguments.
A Hacker News without open conversations and opposing views is a Hacker News that has lost its way and, at least imo, lost its value.
Hey. I've seen your comments in other threads, and have been one of the people who has downvoted you.
>I am sick and tired of anti-AI dogma.
"Anti-AI dogma" does not exist on HN. I see more posts in favor of using AI then against them, and most people on HN I would bet are pro-AI. If you want to see a stark contrast, go read a r/ExperiencedDevs post related to AI.
>I want a healthy, happy community sharing about the new tools and models. Not constantly dumping and complaining
Why are you surprised people dislike ongoing upheaval of their career field(s) and/or the constant FUD coming from the companies driving that change? Genuinely, are you incapable of reasoning about why this would be unpopular? Or you just being dense?
I assume it's the latter.
Also, be the fucking change you want to see in the world. If you want a space free from people sharing their thoughts, go vibe code your own website where you censor anyone who would dare question whether technological progress could have side effects.
Hell, if you do so, maybe you'll take some of the other self-victimizing AI users with you.
Why not vibe code your own HN clone but with different rules regarding AI? If you have trouble finding users you could fire up some claws to post and comment.
Fwiw people are downvoting you not because you’re pro AI, but because people perceive a lot of your comments as being borderline fanatical about it.
I'm sure you can find plenty of subreddits where only pro-AI opinions are allowed and all criticism is banned, if that's what you want. Or better yet, stop talking to people altogether. You have such a low opinion of human potential anyway, just talk to your LLM. It will always give you the ceaseless positivity and optimism you seem to want.
usually the LLM will match against the style in the context, even if the words ask it to do otherwise. since your skill sounds like an LLM wrote it, I would be surprised if it didn't make things worse.
sorta like asking an LLM to get more creative with a visual design, that also never works.
This is 100% true. There are entire nodes/pipelines in programs like ComfyUI that are designed to take a simple prompt and "enhance it" which usually involves making it more verbose, adding detail, etc depending on the target model.
Original Prompt: "Man with Trapezoid Head"
AI Expansion:
Portrait of a man with a trapezoid-shaped head, sharp geometric facial structure, angular jawline wider at the top and narrowing toward the chin, realistic skin texture, detailed pores, dramatic studio lighting, ultra-detailed, 85mm lens, shallow depth of field, dark neutral background, cinematic, photorealistic, 8k resolution.
Note: Most people (outside the generative space) won’t pick up on this but in many cases if don't prompt otherwise, you’ll often end up with a prompt that’s better suited to older, keyword‑based models like Stable Diffusion which rely heavily on specific sets of positive and negative prompt keywords more akin to magical incantations to improve the output.
https://upubli.sh/