[HN Gopher] Something exceptionally grim is happening on the Int...
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Something exceptionally grim is happening on the Internet
Author : rapnie
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-03-21 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mastodon.lawprofs.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (mastodon.lawprofs.org)
| barbazoo wrote:
| That mastodon instance does not seem to be ready for HN
| reaperman wrote:
| Works fine for me, 10 minutes after this was posted. I'm not
| sure if this thread unrolled caches responses or not, but if it
| does maybe those who can't get through can read it here.
|
| https://mastoreader.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.lawprofs....
|
| or
|
| https://unroller.zachmanson.com/tree/https://mastodon.lawpro...
| jacooper wrote:
| Hugged?
| AlienRobot wrote:
| It seems the site is down so I typed
| cache:https://mastodon.lawprofs.org/@jtlg/112052299948819084 on
| Google and checked the text version. Here's what it says:
|
| >To use the Mastodon web application, please enable JavaScript.
| Alternatively, try one of the native apps for Mastodon for your
| platform.
|
| That's very grim indeed.
| jbm wrote:
| I managed to connect. I don't know how much I can copy, since
| it's quite a long thread, but here is the first message.
|
| > Something exceptionally grim is happening on the Internet.
|
| > In the last few months, the constant flood of algorithmically
| generated junk content has kicked into an AI-powered overdrive,
| and it is cutting a swath of destruction as it overwhelms
| search engines, filters, and moderation systems
|
| > Call it Gresham's Law 2.0: bad content drives out good.
|
| > I'm starting this thread to document it, because there is a
| _lot_ happening all at once.
|
| > #greshamslaw20
| AlienRobot wrote:
| With everything in consideration, I think the real problem
| are incentives.
|
| When human-created content competes and loses against AI-
| generated spam, the system is ill-designed.
|
| This is the culmination of algorithms that have rewarded
| engagement over everything else. Creator platforms look at
| content made by experts that are high quality and take time
| to make and effort to consume, and judge it worse than trashy
| content full of controversial drama pushed every week without
| research or effort based on arbitrary metrics. Now we've
| reached the point where the creator is unnecessary and all
| that matters is engagement.
|
| Creator-less engagement will be the future of the web. A
| technology that triumphed by connecting people around the
| world will die connecting you with nobody but an AI that acts
| as wall and filter between you and the rest of the world.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> In the last few months, the constant flood of algorithmically
| generated junk content has kicked into an AI-powered overdrive,
| and it is cutting a swath of destruction as it overwhelms search
| engines, filters, and moderation systems
|
| Nothing that wasn't happening already since some 15 years or so.
| squidsoup wrote:
| I think you are massively underestimating how quickly AI
| generated content is going to dominate the web. This is
| something new.
| squigz wrote:
| I don't know. People have been saying quite confidently that
| "AI" is "going to" "take over" the web since ChatGPT was
| announced. I live online and my only exposure to AI-generated
| content (that I recognize, of course, but that's another
| discussion) has been on purpose - when I look for it, use it
| myself, or others share what they're doing with it. I guess
| I'm still waiting for it to take over?
|
| I think what people mean by "the web" is really just the 4-5
| large social media sites. Those have been utterly filled with
| spam/scam/fraud for many years, so I fail to see a
| difference.
| krapp wrote:
| >I think what people mean by "the web" is really just the
| 4-5 large social media sites. Those have been utterly
| filled with spam/scam/fraud for many years, so I fail to
| see a difference.
|
| No, as the linked thread shows, this is happening
| everywhere, not just the 4-5 large social media silos.
| There is another completely separate thread knocking around
| on HN somewhere about how AI spam is filling up OpenAI's
| chatbot store, and it's been well documented as a problem
| with Google image search, Quora, Linkedin and numerous
| other sites.
|
| It's apparent that you yourself don't notice the problem
| but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
| squigz wrote:
| > It's apparent that you yourself don't notice the
| problem but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.
|
| Well that's true, but likewise, just because people
| notice the problem more in their own lives, doesn't mean
| it's as widespread as some say.
|
| (Neither of these comments are meant to say that this is
| not a problem - it is - I'm just tired of the crazy-
| overstated FUD surrounding it all)
| barbazoo wrote:
| It's hard to know where SEO ends and AI content begins but
| it's definitely a www phenomenon, not just "4-5 large
| social media sites".
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > when I look for it, use it myself, or others share what
| they're doing with it. I guess I'm still waiting for it to
| take over
|
| Dunno if you follow gaming news at all, but AI spam has
| become the rule if you look for anything on new popular
| games
|
| If you want to know how to solve a puzzle or compare two
| characters or something, it is almost guaranteed that you
| will come across pages of search results that seem like
| generated content
|
| They are usually wrong, too
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Current amount of SEO spam is nowhere near the 2007
| levels, when the entire first page of Google results was
| your search query with stuff like "xxx", "2007 crack", or
| "download free" attached to it.
|
| _> If you want to know how to solve a puzzle or compare
| two characters or something, it is almost guaranteed that
| you will come across pages of search results that seem
| like generated content_
|
| This kind of content was _never_ genuine. It was always
| low effort trash made to cheat search engines. It was
| either outsourced to copywriters regurgitating the same
| content over and over, or automatically generated when
| possible. Automating it with LLMs simply made it obvious.
|
| Amazon book scams is the age-old tradition at this point,
| it exists for well over a decade and is a result of
| Amazon not willing to spend even one cent on manual
| curation.
|
| OP might have a point, but it's still mostly typical
| microblogging ragebait with unrelated stuff mixed in.
| klyrs wrote:
| > This kind of content was never genuine.
|
| Maybe not in your lifetime, but in mine, high-quality
| game walkthroughs with in-depth statistics were pretty
| ordinary for even fairly niche games.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > Dunno if you follow gaming news at all, but AI spam has
| become the rule if you look for anything on new popular
| games
|
| At least in regards to game articles, this has been my
| experience for at least a decade. It wasn't AI spam, but
| it was spam everywhere non-the-less. I'm sure it's even
| worse now, but it was bad enough even 10 years ago that
| I've stopped bothering using google to find most game
| information years ago.
| a_vanderbilt wrote:
| This was a plot point in the Cyberpunk lore. The Internet got
| overrun with AI to the point that they had to build a new
| Internet in parallel for humans, with mega-companies being
| the stewards of course. In a way, Pondsmith called this
| decades ago.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| "nothing ever happens"
|
| Believe it or not, sometimes things happen.
| ilamont wrote:
| _" Google is taking action against algorithmically generated
| spam. The search engine giant just announced upcoming changes,
| including a revamped spam policy, designed in part to keep AI
| clickbait out of its search results."_
|
| Even before the AI floodgates were opened, there was a huge
| problem with ads and SEO-optimized junk written by humans
| clogging up Google, and pushing the good stuff into the SERP
| netherworld. People complained for years (including here) with no
| discernible improvement.
|
| It's one of the reasons HN turned into one of my go-to places for
| finding the good stuff - obscure blog posts and social media
| threads and websites that share facts, recollections, opinions,
| and expert insights that can't be found anywhere else. However,
| HN and a few other high-quality discovery sites can only go so
| far in surfacing such content.
|
| Now it looks like Google, Amazon, and other Lords of the Internet
| are going to cause further damage with inevitable false positives
| as "AI spam detection" is unleashed on the Internet. Of course,
| there will be no recourse other than victims pleading for human
| intervention on a forum like this or hoping it goes viral on
| social media.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Did this collection of links warrant a post? See the many
| discussions about AI-infiltration and "Dead Internet Theory"
| around here:
|
| _The AI bullshit singularity_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39422528
|
| _The internet feels fake now. It 's all just staged videos and
| marketing_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39551035
|
| _X becoming a 'ghost town' of bots as AI-generated spam content
| floods internet_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39535310
|
| _The Internet Is Full of AI Dogshit_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38952526
| araes wrote:
| Some of the articles linked, are basically issues I was already
| aware of (such as all product review sites are turning into copy-
| pasta).
|
| I at least have sympathy for the folks at:
| https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/
|
| However, mostly Google's included comment is personally
| hilarious. The weird craziness some people at Google must have to
| deal with.
|
| > Lily Ray, 'when we told our client, they said "that's literally
| not going to be possible"'
|
| > Google, 'Genuinely curious, what's impossible in guidance like
| "discuss benefits and drawbacks based on your own research"'
| dpifke wrote:
| I somehow missed that article when it first appeared on HN[0],
| thanks for linking to it!
|
| Surprised to "^F FTC" the article and comments, and not find
| any mention of the Federal Trade Commission. Given some of
| their prior rulemaking on fake reviews and undisclosed
| compensation for endorsements, it seems the sort of thing that
| could be easily be prosecuted under false advertising laws.
| Unfortunately, I'm inclined to believe that the decision to let
| dying legacy media companies get away with fraud is probably a
| political one.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39433451
| zachmu wrote:
| What's interesting to me is how quickly AI generated art came to
| be expected, unexceptional. Every random blog post has a couple
| AI generated images now, they are completely unremarkable and
| uninteresting. The novelty wore off basically instantaneously.
| They're just the new corporate art style.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| It's only been a year. As SORA shows, state of the art images
| and videos will soon be undetectable by human eye and it's very
| soon coming to proliferate every "content" you interact with.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Does it really matter? AI will generate the images or video
| according to the introduces prompts so the creativity falls
| in the one entering them, you could be an excellent piano
| player but that doesn't make you a composer.
| tivert wrote:
| >> What's interesting to me is how quickly AI generated art
| came to be expected, unexceptional. Every random blog post
| has a couple AI generated images now, they are completely
| unremarkable and uninteresting. The novelty wore off
| basically instantaneously. They're just the new corporate art
| style.
|
| > It's only been a year. As SORA shows, state of the art
| images and videos will soon be undetectable by human eye and
| it's very soon coming to proliferate every "content" you
| interact with.
|
| Even if the "AI" generated images will be "undetectable by
| human eye," they'll still be _at least_ "completely
| unremarkable and uninteresting" and more likely crappy and
| stupid (even if all the people have the right number of
| fingers now).
|
| I predict the floodgate of that "AI" generated stuff will
| reduce the production of _actually good and creative_ art and
| images _and_ make what is produced harder to find.
| ecronant wrote:
| I think it is like if you gave everyone spray paint cans and
| said go paint, you wouldn't expect all the buildings around to
| have giant Basquiat inspired murals everywhere.
|
| It would just be ugly, shitty graffiti, everywhere.
| parl_match wrote:
| For a year or two now, I've been saying this is inevitable. It's
| also going to heavily impact open forums like reddit and 4chan,
| and maybe even HN.
|
| It'll be hard to identify a spammer who posts like a normal
| person but occasionally leaves a comment about enjoying a
| product.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| More "Enshittification".
|
| It is just happening so much faster than expected.
|
| For a little while there were studies about AI training data
| being poisoned by the AI generated content online. AI digesting
| AI.
|
| It was expected to happen 'in the future' not 'the day after
| tomorrow'.
| polemic wrote:
| I ran into this today while searching for a way to merge channels
| in Slack. A google search turned up this result
| https://www.process.st/how-to/merge-channels-in-slack/ which
| describes an in-app method that _does not exist_.
|
| That entire website should be banned from Google.
| amluto wrote:
| It should also be banned from AI training data sets. Good luck
| to anyone trying to train an AI!
|
| As far as I can tell, GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 are extremely
| aggressive about making up features of widely used software
| that don't actually exist. I lost count of how many tables and
| columns in MySQL's INFORMATION_SCHEMA they made up for me
| yesterday, often complete with elaborate SQL commands to query
| them.
|
| The next generation of models will train on this crap.
| logtempo wrote:
| Maybe it will put emphasis on the social aspect of internet.
| Maybe people will be more sceptikal. by having t know your
| source, having small but trustworthy network based on real
| people...
|
| maybe that will change the shape of internet and lead to premium
| internet service where experts are paid to provide currated
| informations.
|
| does not sounds too bad tbh.
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(page generated 2024-03-21 23:02 UTC)