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they seem to think they will benefit more from producing slop that talks about the current thing than they will be harmed by the association with slop
Where do you think that tradeoff ultimately lands?
I also feel like there may be nothing new to this. When I looked at the list of top YouTube content creators by ad revenue, I felt like you could characterize them as mostly producing mass market slop
I'm worried that our ability to notice slop (or be repulsed by it) dwindles. I'm even a little worried that my own ability to write well is being harmed by reading the slop. The cadences and tones are getting into us whether we like it or not.
Not to be overly dramatic, but it might mean the era of great writing is over (just as many of the great artistic crafts -- sculpture, painting, epic poetry -- seem to have fallen from their golden ages. Maybe the pressure to do more in life has left us without the ability to spend a life doing one thing.
In the case of writing, I'm not sure we are going to see very many more truly great novels.
I imagine there will be new forms of storytelling (short form video?) and we will see virtuoso performances in the space. I have no doubt humans will continue to be creative and to tell stories, but probably not the way they once did.
Fair enough. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that aesthetic standards change over time.
Now that I'm over 40, I have a distinct feeling of being an old codger who thinks everything modern is trash and longing for the glory days of my youth.
Yup
there are clearly a great number of influencers and businesses who are more than willing to accept the slop-quantity trade-off: they seem to think they will benefit more from producing slop that talks about the current thing than they will be harmed by the association with slop.
And the peeps who truly appreciate excellence/non-slop are few and far between, plus combined not that much money. Better go for a lower quality product and hit the mass midwit market
It feels like in the case of those who "create and amass words for a living" AI is diverting returns to those who are willing to produce low-effort content. This may sound like whining, but where AI speeds up my research, I still care enough to work on the writing and attempt to make it good. At the same time, there are clearly a great number of influencers and businesses who are more than willing to accept the slop-quantity trade-off: they seem to think they will benefit more from producing slop that talks about the current thing than they will be harmed by the association with slop.
In the world of writing, the AI returns will go to the midwits.