jaredcwhite

I keep feeling "surprised" that people who seemingly would know better post stuff that obviously sounds like an LLM. But then I remember, you and I aren't the audience. The audience is investors. And investors seem to love LLM-voice, because…in large part…the LLMs sound as vapid and unhelpful as the VCs.

But yeah, you're completely right.

Who's "we" ??

I and a significant number of people I know and interact with on a regular basis are creating and publishing stuff for the human indie open web much like we have for years and decades. The underlying specs and hardware and tools and such get better (sometimes, the ones which haven't enshittified), but the techniques largely stay the same.

Put down the AI pills, maybe go touch grass!

I'm not surprised many here are upset. Many here don't seem to understand the outrageous harms that a totally out-of-control tech industry has been foisting upon the planet. It's time to take a stand for a better path forward.

Meaningful percentages of people already hate the obvious slop being thrown in their faces. The more they learn of the slop infecting the inside of the digital products they use—and the resulting enshittification—they will seek out worthy alternatives.

It's not discrimination to ban a practice which has been proven to be harmful. AI slop is harmful to readers, as well as being harmful to produce. Whatever issues one might raise, for instance someone who is not a native English speaker, we can find alternative solutions which are better for the environment and better for human minds.

It's not childish in the least for someone who does know the background to point out those issues.

(Because it's true.)

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can call out wealth inequality and oligarchy, and also talk about the very real water issue with regard to data centers (and electricity, and loss of rural land, and other many other aspects).

And I don't even golf.

"Now he tells me!"

bonk

That largely turned out to be complete and utter hogwash. The instant capitalists realized they had extracted enough out of that myth to gain ultimate power and reassert dominance, they pounced. 2020-2026 has been a boiling-frogs-in-pots shift from collectivism to an extreme sort of New Oligarchy. Software engineers weren't making the world a more fair, creative, and democratic place. LOL! The exact opposite, in fact, has occurred.

Yes, of course we're grieving. But using agents to generate "code" isn't the issue. That's merely a symptom, one among many. The root cause? Societal systems based on pure greed and bigoted supremacy which were NEVER properly dismantled. The new leftism of tech? Nothing but a mirage. Millennials got played.

And wow did we fall for it.

My only hope at this point: Gen Z will succeed where we clearly failed. Our best hope is to listen to them, partner with them, help them channel their rage into action, and take control back from the tech moguls and oligarchs.

Perhaps one could argue "well, that's not because it's certified organic, it's because it's a smaller farm that uses these other crop-growing techniques blah blah blah". OK. Irrelevant. The point is, when I buy conventional produce, and then I buy organic produce, the organic stuff is clearly higher quality. Even better? Go to a farmers market and buy directly from the source.

After all, don't be snarky!