I was reading along, thinking "Hmm, I don't usually disagree with Venkat this much" and then finding out it was written by AI, that feeling made more sense. I disagree with AI written text regularly.
It's evocative writing, but subtly off and way too confident and pretend cohesive. The metaphors don't feel playful enough. (Could you add a prompt for more playful use of metaphors?)
I think my main counterpoint is something like: publics have always been contested. The public sphere of the internet is a new ground in which this is happening, but rumors of its death are premature.
Ah yes. The ouroboros of slop. I always assume if an essay touches on the detriments of ai it is written by a human but it almost never is. This is a good one though. Would like to see it with a more human voice
If you read this as being about the detriments of AI you kinda missed the point. Quite the reverse. It locates what are seen as detriments of AI in an unrelated contemporaneous human failing. And nope, I see zero marginal value in doing a human-voiced version. This is an unabashedly slop-positive newsletter that aims to advance the read/write literacy of generated content. Human-centricity is deprecated around here. Writing as/for humans is considered a failure mode by default.
Whatever form the new forest takes, it has to have a big IRL / meatspace component. If it seeds and grows behind a screen again, it is condemned to be be DOA.
Nah that’s too restrictive and idiosyncratic. In fact I think the reverse. A meatspace dependency amplifies the reactionary collapse process and makes a proposal DOA. The whole value of a digital cosmos is you’re not restricted to or trapped by IRL bubbles.
What you might want is representation and valuation of IRL stakes. Not a component.
I'd be all for such a cosmos if it were possible, but if it is to have any defense against the worst impulses of the worst humans, IMO it has to be more IRL than digital. Otherwise, we are just iterating on the same thing again. Now to be clear, this isn't some ideological or luddite resistance. It is just the biggest lesson I have drawn from the structural causes of the enshittification of the public the last time around. There is every incentive (and method to go with it) to corrupt any new public, so unless a strong resistance is built into it, I don't see it working. An integral IRL component only raises the bar somewhat, admittedly. I would be all for another digital public, if it accurately identifies the real root causes of what we're dealing with now and builds in strong enough structural fixes for them. I am just not very optimistic about it.
Lol, no...more like, this last apple tasted great at first, but it was also ridden with all kinds of maggots. If we can breed the next one in a way that isn't as vulnerable to them, sure, let's do it. If not, let's be prepared to eat an orange. Or a mango. Anything without maggots, really.
I was reading along, thinking "Hmm, I don't usually disagree with Venkat this much" and then finding out it was written by AI, that feeling made more sense. I disagree with AI written text regularly.
It's evocative writing, but subtly off and way too confident and pretend cohesive. The metaphors don't feel playful enough. (Could you add a prompt for more playful use of metaphors?)
I think my main counterpoint is something like: publics have always been contested. The public sphere of the internet is a new ground in which this is happening, but rumors of its death are premature.
Did an ai write this? I’m too interested in this to find my eyes glazing over…. But maybe it was the poboy I just ate.
Funny and sad if this is ai
Yes. There’s a note right in there that says so.
Ah yes. The ouroboros of slop. I always assume if an essay touches on the detriments of ai it is written by a human but it almost never is. This is a good one though. Would like to see it with a more human voice
If you read this as being about the detriments of AI you kinda missed the point. Quite the reverse. It locates what are seen as detriments of AI in an unrelated contemporaneous human failing. And nope, I see zero marginal value in doing a human-voiced version. This is an unabashedly slop-positive newsletter that aims to advance the read/write literacy of generated content. Human-centricity is deprecated around here. Writing as/for humans is considered a failure mode by default.
As a human who likes your ideas I think it’d be nice for you to write for humans
Didn't you use to post the prompts for Sloptraptions? I always found the prompts to be the most interesting bit.
Whatever form the new forest takes, it has to have a big IRL / meatspace component. If it seeds and grows behind a screen again, it is condemned to be be DOA.
Nah that’s too restrictive and idiosyncratic. In fact I think the reverse. A meatspace dependency amplifies the reactionary collapse process and makes a proposal DOA. The whole value of a digital cosmos is you’re not restricted to or trapped by IRL bubbles.
What you might want is representation and valuation of IRL stakes. Not a component.
I'd be all for such a cosmos if it were possible, but if it is to have any defense against the worst impulses of the worst humans, IMO it has to be more IRL than digital. Otherwise, we are just iterating on the same thing again. Now to be clear, this isn't some ideological or luddite resistance. It is just the biggest lesson I have drawn from the structural causes of the enshittification of the public the last time around. There is every incentive (and method to go with it) to corrupt any new public, so unless a strong resistance is built into it, I don't see it working. An integral IRL component only raises the bar somewhat, admittedly. I would be all for another digital public, if it accurately identifies the real root causes of what we're dealing with now and builds in strong enough structural fixes for them. I am just not very optimistic about it.
this is like saying “because this apple isn’t great the next apple we breed must be an orange”
Lol, no...more like, this last apple tasted great at first, but it was also ridden with all kinds of maggots. If we can breed the next one in a way that isn't as vulnerable to them, sure, let's do it. If not, let's be prepared to eat an orange. Or a mango. Anything without maggots, really.