AI hype is drowning in slopaganda

ft.com

39 points

Bluestein

2 days ago


11 comments

metalman 2 days ago

It is quite evident that a great deal of artificialy generated content is of no value , and is getting put up with no human review or editing, as it lacks any internal or external coherance, just automated verbal aphasia as a wrapper for the adds. Unfortunately, there has been no outright calls for it to stop, and certain people are?? possibly enjoying it??, mayyybeee, and it will get cheaper and cheaper, so, it's here to stay The only plus side is that it makes crazy people look good in comparison. And now that everyone on the street is talking to there phones, with the other side of the conversation in there buds, schitsophrenics are also doing better, or have at least become invisible, as no one notices someone in teddy bear pajamas, walking down the street, talking to themselves. So it's all some kind of wierdness leveling happening right now.

mrandish 2 days ago

> "Much ink has been spilt and many keys pressed to figure out whether AI is a bubble."

Are there any technologists following this left who don't think AI is most likely currently in a significant financial bubble?

  • jfengel a day ago

    There are some. But more importantly, many of those those who know it is a bubble find value in it.

    Bubbles pop, but they don't always vanish entirely. Sometimes they do: tulips, NFTs, Mississippi. But many have a nugget of value in there, and when the bubble pops, the people who got it right still made a ton of money.

    The dotcom bubble produced the FAANGs. People who invested in competitors lost everything, but if you bought stock in one of those, early on, you did pretty well.

    Today, you can invest in 10 AI companies. Nine will fail; one will be worth 100x what you bought it.

    Maybe. Or the entire thing could prove to be a vast boondoggle of no value whatsoever.

    I think it's closer to the former than the latter, even though I don't believe they're on the path to general AI and will get only incremental improvements from here. But I'm also not investing right now.

  • add-sub-mul-div 2 days ago

    None of this makes sense to me unless the people behind it believe that (1) they're on the verge of creating what's essentially life, in which case the invention transcends economics, or that (2) they'll be able to displace most human labor, which turns economics on its head.

    • mrandish 2 days ago

      It's also possible that some people believe one of those will eventually happen (but not in the next three-ish years) AND those same people have a personal vested interest in continuing the current hype that's bidding up valuations as if there will be huge payout within the next three-ish years. Making those people "true believers" long-term but compelled by self-interest toward short-term dishonesty (either by omission or commission).

      And beyond the insider founders and employees, there are legions of investors who have sunk serious money into AI bets. While many of those investors have pulled back on making more AI bets (probably due to now realizing it's a bubble), they have every reason to keep that realization to themselves and continue amplifying the hype. Finally, as the article observes, there's a huge ad hoc carnival of AI newsletters, pundits and media benefiting in smaller ways from perpetuating AI hype.

      • add-sub-mul-div 2 days ago

        Yeah, I'd believe simultaneous grift and delusions of grandeur.

camillomiller 2 days ago

The reckoning can’t come soon enough.

jaredcwhite 2 days ago

The "Age of AI…Slop" is taking down the open web. I am counting the days until these Big Tech companies fall and are held to account for their digital crimes against humanity.

  • Bluestein 2 days ago

    How? Genuinely curious how you mean.-

quantified 2 days ago

> When I asked his view on the AI newsletter economy, Ed Zitron — writer, PR man and scourge of slop — was characteristically excoriating. “It’s content built for people who don’t really read or listen or know stuff . . . It’s propaganda under a different name,” he said.

Sounds a lot like US political information too.