Comment by vouaobrasil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vouaobrasil | Hacker News Reader

> For the time being, though, avoiding A.I. is up to you. If it were as easy as posting a message of objection on Instagram, many of us would already be seeing a lot less of it.

It's true that it is quite hard, but there are ways to reduce it for sure. Here is what I have done:

1. I've deleted accounts for websites that promote AI. I have already deleted LinkedIn, Github, Medium, and a few others.

2. I have stopped supporting businesses that use AI/support ones that are against AI. For example, the company behind the Procreate iPad app is 100% against AI so I support them. Also, in my professional life, I have already refused to collaborate with three separate companies due to their promotion and use of AI.

3. I've deactivated any tools that could be AI based like assisted writing tools in Gmail.

4. I do not click or read any articles with AI-generated images or text. Nor do I watch any videos any more.

5. I am reconnecting with friends and share with them through email and other means.

In my opinion, the internet has gotten WAY worse with the introduction of generative AI. Generative AI itself is not the root cause of course: the aggressive capitalistic takeover of the internet is, but AI is the apex tool for that and it makes the internet a rather horrible place.

A commendable effort (those are some serious sacrifices/actions - no videos!?) but it's a bit at odds with posting about it here which puts into question how much reduction in AI content specifically is occurring vs how much reduction in general consumption (which isn't necessarily a bad thing though). I.e. Y Combinator invests in hundreds of AI companies, >25% of the front page posts are regularly about AI, it was an original investor in OpenAI, users here regular post and discuss about how the latest AI models are even harder to catch. Even if you try to use the site in the most human way possible (filtering explicitly AI content, not engaging with comments referencing it, etc) it still seems like there would be a ton of AI content at a place that does more with AI than most of the companies listed.

All that isn't to scare you from Y Combinator or anything, it's just to get your thoughts on how much you think these actions have really changed your consumption ratio vs your overall consumption? And how have you come to any certainty in the measurement of e.g. whether an article you're about to click on has AI images or text (that would seem near impossible to do much of the time even after reading?)

> your thoughts on how much you think these actions have really changed your consumption ratio vs your overall consumption?

Well, in terms of overall consumption, I also write and talk extensively about the dangers of AI using these examples so I think they might help my audience

> And how have you come to any certainty in the measurement of e.g. whether an article you're about to click on has AI images or text

The idea is to build a web of trust. Often, I ask. If I am uncertain, I don't read. Also, I help run a small magazine and we ask all authors to submit a statement that says they did not use AI. Of course, we have to trust people but what are you going to do?

I also work for a magazine where all of us dislike AI and we don't use generative AI for any of our articles. I know my coworkers well so I trust them too.

> I have already deleted [...] Github

Given that Gitlab and GitBucket are also integrating AI, is getting out of these two platforms even a realistic choice for 99% of devs working for a regular company ?

On the other hand, convincing your CTO to get your organization out of any major code management platform feels like a pretty exciting chalenge to tackle.

Eh. Gitea is a thing. I wonder how the creator of Fossil feels about AI. Clearly the juggernauts will keep juggernauting but theyre not the only options to collaborate on a codebase. My dream is that more people learn to Just Use Git without the megacorp baggage

Yes, and it's pretty important there's commercial alternatives left on the market.

A few decades ago it would be a different story, but as of now the appeal of going for Github/Gitlab is usually not the git integration and more the rest of it: the issue/MR/PR management, the whole integrated workflow, the CI ecosystem, user and right access management, etc.

I think there must a decent number of organizations keeping a private/local code repository but sync it to github/gitlab to get all the other benefits.

It's not really a realistic choice I guess but since Git is very distributed it's not an impossible one. Luckily for me, I'm really the only one who codes in my own small organization so I don't have to use Github.

> 4. I do not click or read any articles with AI-generated images or text.

How can you possibly know the articles you read have no AI-generated images or text?

So what if his criteria has false negatives? AI or not, ignoring noticeable slop will be a net positive.

> So what if his criteria has false negatives?

Then he unjustly undermines the livelyhood of human authors.

The AIs will applaud him.

If I'm reading your post correctly, I meant the opposite, he's still better off dismissing AI content even if some of it gets through.

But even the case I think you suggest, dismissing some human works because they feel AI generated, won't undermine anyone's livelihood: All audiences dismiss works based simply on their tastes, and "feels like AI" is just a new distaste to account for, independently of AI being involved or not.

Not OP, but it’s extremely easy to tell if an article uses AI images.

Are there vague images padding the article for SEO purposes?

If so, is there attribution to an artist? If they contain images and don’t attribute, I avoid the website. Either they use AI to make SEO bait, or they steal artwork. I’ll avoid in either case.

AI text is much harder to detect, not sure of a good way to avoid it at the moment.

Lack of attribution doesn’t tell you anything. If they’re licensing their images from a stock photo site, attribution likely isn’t required.

Hadn’t thought about that, you make a good point. However in that case the author didn’t feel it necessary to explicitly say the image is not AI generated, which means they likely share very different views about AI artwork and I’ll probably avoid.

Even without that caveat, if they feel it beneficial to pay for stock photos for an article I’m probably good giving it a pass. Most major stock media companies are buying fully into AI generation anyways, and I can’t think of too many cases where stock images really add anything to an article aside from adding to the page size by an order of magnitude.

Generally speaking, the human brain likes pretty pictures, and we're more likely to be engaged by an article if it has a pretty picture. Text-only sites don't draw as many eyeballs. Sad but true!

>If so, is there attribution to an artist? If they contain images and don’t attribute, I avoid the website. Either they use AI to make SEO bait, or they steal artwork. I’ll avoid in either case.

I'm not sure why you think every use of AI generated images is "SEO bait". I'm sure some (most?) are, but it's perfectly plausible a well written article uses AI art in place of a generic image off unsplash or whatever.

> I'm not sure why you think every use of AI generated images is "SEO bait"

Most of the internet is SEO bait. It’s the safe default assumption.

> If they contain images and don’t attribute, I avoid the website.

And if the images have AI-generated attributions?

> How can you possibly know the articles you read have no AI-generated images or text?

I use a web of trust. I have a network of known writers who don't use AI. I avoid others...I mean, most articles on the internet are relatively useless anyway and just for entertainment so I don't really "need" those in my day to day life.

The ones in my web of trust are enough for me,

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