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Comment by zoogeny | Hacker News Reader

I recall some controversy over AI generated kids YouTube channels. Some people here seem to assume the target market for this AI generated stuff is Hollywood blockbusters or AAA video games. But really, we're going to see an explosion of content made for toddlers.

I'm imagining some kind of TikTok like algorithmic magic combined with this AI generated stuff is going to be a huge thing in the near future.

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It kinda seemed like creating automatic garbage content-churning machines for children was already a solved problem and I'm not sure what new AI would add to it.

There were content farms pumping out "finger family" videos where the same video would be uploaded thousands of times but with a different JPEG swapped in so this video is "Spider-Man" and this video is "Joker" etc. And kids gobbled them up apparently. They'd sit there watching finger family videos on autoplay for hours.

It may have already been solved, in the way that cars were "already solved" by the model-t or airplanes were "already solved" by the Wright brothers. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement in this space (for some definition of improvement).

I just see a lot of people in this thread (and other related threads) seemingly suggesting that since these videos aren't already better than Pixar or some other arbitrary level of quality they've decided that the technology "isn't ready". I'm suggesting that is a short-sighted viewpoint. Kids (and that actually includes pre-teens and teens) are not going to care. If people generate funny or captivating stuff using this technology then they will definitely overlook the uncanny valley. And the volume at which this content will be created, re-mixed and re-shared will soon outpace any other kind of content source.

I find it a bit amusing since I bet a bunch of nay-sayers probably grew up watching equivalents of Rooster Teeth Halo Red vs. Blue, which was garbage quality for its time. I predict that we'll see at least one massive new studio rise using these "not ready" technologies in the next couple of years.

edit: (As another data point, consider the huge success of Roblox with kids. It certainly isn't due to the visual fidelity of the game. Consider the Roblox equivalent of YouTube that is going to exist pretty soon.)

I think the room for improvement is much smaller when it's content aimed at toddlers. I don't find it improbable that we've already reached the "peak".

Hi Kiro, sorry for the random contact on a thread, but you posted a game of mine a couple of months ago (a 3D Minimalist Tetris game) and I only just now discovered your post - which explains the massive amount of traffic I got for a couple of days. I wanted to say thank you for posting.

I'm new to HN, but can see that the thread is no longer active (as in I can't reply). There was lots of great (and entertaining) feedback on the thread (especially about the terrible font). I would love to reply to those who fed back on the game and the page, now that I have ironed out some bugs with the game, and importantly changed the font to something that is much more readable (and with much better CSS). I've also released a mobile-friendly version of the game. Do you know of any way I can engage with those that commented?

Again, thanks for your interest and the two days of excitement I had looking at those analytics.

Hey!

That's funny. I checked out your Twitter after the submission started trending on HN and saw that you posted the traffic stats. I actually wondered whether you would figure out where it was coming from, so I'm glad you eventually did!

Regarding your question I don't think there's any good way to engage with people after the thread has been "archived", especially since there are no DMs on HN.

Glad I could contribute to some excitement nonetheless. I posted it because I thought it was a cool and novel approach to a classic problem. I also really liked the article (and your homepage/games in general). Keep up the good work!

Thanks Kiro, I really appreciate it. What's your twitter handle? (If you care to share).

BTW - There's a mobile version of the game too now https://nonzerosum.games/tetrings_mobile.html

It was really cool seeing all those comments about the terrible font, and the game of course.

Can’t wait for that to happen with zero research into the long term effects that’ll have, but who gives a shit right, we can make money now and not give a fuck later.

It's not like that's something new or exclusive to tech, right? Coke had cocaine and cigarettes were physician tested and approved. We should have learned from those things but we didn't, and so history will rhyme.

>Coke had cocaine

We removed the wrong additive...

What's the alternative? The government banning AI TV for 30 years until the long term studies are done?

Young kids already have access to the internet at a young age and that's screwing them up royally anyway

Is this a serious argument in favor of doing nothing to protect children because they're already being screwed up? "Why not let it get worse"?

Plenty of stuff is already restricted as "adults only", it wouldn't be unprecedented to also restrict this. I can imagine various arguments for it - for example, "since it's generated by AI nobody can be held accountable if the content is inappropriate for children and there is no way to ensure the AI adheres to content restrictions, so it can't be shown to children"

sounds like the real problem was lack of human review before hitting publish, not that it was AI generated.

I'm what way are things actually restricted to adults only? Idk how you plan to put that into action

I mean, they SHOULD BE. I as a man am still unpacking unhealthy ideas about sex and women some twenty fucking years on because I got access to pornography WAY too fucking soon and it warped my views of sex when I was too young to properly process it, much less do so with the help of understanding adults who could give me context?

I agree that it's bad. I'm just saying that there is no way to stop it without some sort of massive government intervention, and even then it's going to happen anyway.

And you can say the government SHOULD do that, but the government is so split that it never gets anything done.

AI is coming, and I'm sure it's going to continually erode what's left of what we call a society.

> I agree that it's bad. I'm just saying that there is no way to stop it without some sort of massive government intervention

"Massive Government Intervention" used to have a much less scary sounding name called "Public Policy" or "The Law" and it gave us all kinds of good shit, things like the highway system, the National Park system, an electrical grid, building codes and standards, a currency that is practically the world standard, on and on. We have tons of things that would not exist without lawmakers who were well advised by experts coming together and putting pen to paper. Was it always good? No, nothing human made ever is. But their track record beats Silicon Valley's output by MILES.

> AI is coming, and I'm sure it's going to continually erode what's left of what we call a society.

Yeah and the frustrating thing is everyone working on it seems to believe this to one degree or another, and yet they're all still building it.

If you think a technology is fundamentally corrosive to society, then STOP BUILDING IT.

If you think your product will further the divides between people for profit, STOP BUILDING IT.

Like YOU CAN THINK. You can choose what to do based on what you believe will lead to a better tomorrow. Maybe if you did more of that and less soullessly chasing whatever some rich asshole wants you to build for a bag of money you'd be both A) more personally fulfilled and B) not furthering the collapse of civilization in your children's lifetimes you absolute cretins.

Yeah but all that is wishful thinking

This is called a multipolar trap. “If I don’t build it, someone else will, so I might as well cash in”

> What's the alternative? The government banning AI TV for 30 years until the long term studies are done?

YES!

YES. Holy shit yes. We don't allow medicines or food additives that are substantially different from previous ones into our food supply FOR THIS EXACT REASON.

You know what would be even better than a ban? If these tech companies gave even the slightest ghost of a shit and maybe didn't immediately sprint to market with half-finished products the effects of which are completely unknown simply because there is no law that is explicitly preventing them from doing so and getting some goddamn information first about them and then bringing them to market. And that would be even better for this, what with a whole bunch of these companies also funneling money into think tanks dedicated to making sure the AI's they are burning money to build don't fucking kill us.

Holy. Actual. Shit. Like imagine being this incredulous at the notion of taking some fucking time to research the effects short term and long term of a new kind of entertainment BEFORE we just shotgun it out into the fucking world to our most impressionable and vulnerable population. Heaven forbid a modicum of reasonable caution, we have INNOVATION TO DO!!!

Christ.

So you want to ban AI for 30 years, that's just completely impractical. It's also the government insisting that they can know whats good for you better than you can.

We allow all sorts of food additives that are only now being banned because they turned out to be bad. I'm not saying we should allow them, but in general we do.

All of your complaints may be valid but you are living in some sort of fantasy land if you think that is going to happen. That's just not the way the world works.

> So you want to ban AI for 30 years, that's just completely impractical.

Yeah I'm sure there was a legion of corporate whining when they said the same thing about banning children working in coal mines. We'll adjust.

> It's also the government insisting that they can know whats good for you better than you can.

I mean most AI researchers seem at best unsure about the technology they're building. That being said, I don't know if AI is bad for us long term, but I know damn well AI driven by profits is terrible for us right now and I'm cool with banning that for eternity.

> All of your complaints may be valid but you are living in some sort of fantasy land if you think that is going to happen. That's just not the way the world works.

Just because you can't imagine a better world doesn't mean everyone else can't.

Sure I can imagine a better world but that's not gonna happen

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