If we are moved emotionally by slop, does it matter? If AI can produce something to make you think and feel, does it matter? It made you think and feel.
This is copying, not stealing. Stealing means taking someone else's ideas, not their final output.
Copying creates trends, where everything looks and feels the same. Stealing an idea and creating something of your own, AKA remixing, is a much more valuable skill.
I have been experimenting with methods of reading books and creating software for these methods.
For example, I was inspired by the activeness of typelit.io when reading - typing out an entire book helped keep my mind from wandering when reading. But typing the whole book is too tedious. I wrote a few scripts to mirror the words on an epub, which does help with focus but isn't quite good enough.
My current epub reader software I use requires you to press a button to reveal the next word. This has dramatically improved my reading comprehension, prevents inadvertent skimming, and keeps my mind from wandering.
I'm still experimenting but for those who have ADHD or are borderline ADHD, it's quite a revelation - I can finally read without my mind wandering.
If you use the broswer verison of apps you can also inject custom scripts. I have one for Instagram that completely removes the recommendation feed. Works great.
I do judge people for using AI. Especially engineers.
Oh, you're not smart enough to know how to write your own code? You need your hand to be held? You need to write your little prompts because reading documentation is too hard? I'll keep my skills while your brain turns to mush.
There is a difference between a run of the mill CRUD React app and solving specific, complex UI problems.
I have been a programmer for a long time and CSS is still the hardest language to master. There are countless quirks and APIs most people have never heard of that solve extremely specific problems.
For example, using @starting-style with allow-discrete to use display: none on CSS transitions. Knowing that you would need to use this API, what it does, and how to debug your CSS is a skill that will be hard to replace with an LLM because of the fine grained detail needed for CSS. If you do not know how this API works and you need to use it for whatever reason, and then need to adjust your transitions later, it's probably faster to have real CSS skills than to constantly have to prompt an LLM for you.
No. Nondeterministic output is not revolutionary. Technology forced down our throats by a few companies and executives who are licking their lips at the idea of laying off people, even if laying those people off means garbage products, is not revolutionary. Slop is not revolutionary.
Perhaps what people forget is that every great product builds on the past in a way to improve it. Buggy software and lame copywriting and kids not learning is not revolutionary. The people continuing to prioritize quality will be the revolutionary ones. Garbage is not revolutionary.
I do this too. I generally skim PRs just to make sure the person isn't doing anything too crazy. I trust my team to write good code. Pulling a branch and testing the code is usually a waste of time unless it's a critical bug or feature.
What the author fails to understand is that merely consuming text is not the be-all-end-all of being an educated citizen. I am wary of trusting an author who is screaming from the rooftops about how the bad thing is coming, how the world sucks so much more now.
It's my opinion that writing is by far a more effective way to understand the world and the nuance in it. You could, theoretically, watch a video on YouTube, understand it, think about it, and then write out your thoughts and ideas and would be far more educated than someone merely reading a novel.
There is always a strange disconnect with egg head types where they fail to understand that information input is not the only way to become smart. And valuable information exists everywhere: a book, a blog entry, a podcast, a video, a movie, in the real world, etc. Thinking that text, which by the way is one of the most inefficient methods of information consumption, is the only way to be "smart" is incorrect. Critical thinking is what is desperately needed.
Any website that isn't some landing page or basic blog is going to need human intervention in the code (craftsmanship, essentially). And any website that's a landing page or basic blog already has a million tools for GUI design.
I would be surprised if this takes off as site builders are already an incredibly crowded space.
Or read magazines and newspapers from reputable publications. My grammar and writing have improved tremendously from reading quality magazine articles, e.g. stuff from The Atlantic or The NY Book Review or whatever.
Both magazines and books are valid forms of information consumption and books are not the only way to improve your writing, reading, and understanding of the world.
Maybe PC manufacturers will finally get a wake up call to stop making plastic shitboxes. Maybe Microsoft will get a wake up call too. Though, I kind of doubt it as the incompetence in PC land is comical.
Even though my Focal Bathys headphones are more expensive and have worse noise cancellation, I'm still sticking with them because the Airpods Max are so damn uncomfortable.
I worked at big newspapers as a software engineer. Please do not blame the engineers for this mess. As the article says news is in a predicament because of the ads business model. Subscriptions alone usually cannot cover all costs and ads will invariably make their way in.
For every 1 engineer it seems like there are 5 PMs who need to improve KPIs somehow and thus decide auto playing video will improve metrics. It does. It also makes people hate using your website.
I would constantly try to push back against the bullshit they'd put on the page but no one really cares what a random engineer thinks.
I don't think there's any real way to solve this unless we either get less intrusive ad tech or news gets a better business model. Many sites don't even try with new business models, like local classifieds or local job boards. And good luck getting PMs to listen to an engineer talking about these things.
To make a different point, a regular consumer does not care about tech specs. They want a laptop that can browse the web, stream Netflix, and maybe open a Word doc. They will be more sensitive to hardware problems in my opinion. A janky touchpad is going to be annoying no matter what computer task you're doing. A wobbly keyboard will be the same. To me an average consumer is more interested in the "feel" of the computer rather than what it can do.