Lia's recent activity
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Comment on YouTube’s new ads will ruin the best part of a video on purpose in ~tech
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentIt's not really a paradox as this is rarely the only reason why people are against. I'm critical of plastic surgery (I don't want to ban it, I just don't recommend it) and have often found that...It's like the plastic surgery paradox (which I've mentioned on Tildes before). People say they hate plastic surgery because it looks awful and they'll never get it, but that's only because they notice bad plastic surgery.
It's not really a paradox as this is rarely the only reason why people are against. I'm critical of plastic surgery (I don't want to ban it, I just don't recommend it) and have often found that people have a hard time understanding the other reasons to be critical besides the most superficial one. This is not surprising because pro-surgery people are probably more focused on superficial things in general, and perhaps less capable of understanding more abstract concepts.
Some downsides:
- It's giving a hungry man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish. The way we perceive our own appearance depends on our emotional reality and self-acceptance to a staggering degree. Therefore, working to fix your self concept internally is the more sustainable way to happiness. Physically altering whatever is bothering you about your appearance makes it harder to improve your self concept because you removed the indicator you could have used as a guide in this process.
- If you alter a feature that your child inherits, how are you going to teach them self acceptance when you yourself didn't learn it?
- Tampering with living tissue comes with risks. The results are either non-permanent or when intended to be permanent, they require revisits later. Each time the risks are higher than before because the area has already been tampered with. Some results that were said to not be permanent have in fact shown to be more permanent than intended - but not unchanging. Fillers that were supposed to dissolve don't and are instead migrating inside the tissue, creating unintended results. Fixing this requires more tampering and may not even be fully fixable.
- What humans consider attractive is influenced by trends. Something that didn't look artificial when it was made will start to look more artificial once the trends shift, because we aren't able to extract how the current trend influences our thinking. What seems like universal beauty now may look ridiculous in a decade.
- Human involvement also means individual taste and skill will influence the outcome. While some plastic surgery will come out as intended, some won't, and you won't know how yours goes until you've already gone through with it.
- While it may be true that when done tastefully, surgery is no problem visually speaking, that doesn't really reduce the harm done on an individual level. Not everyone has great taste. If you have poor taste, you won't be aware of this until you experience personal growth and your taste develops. If you've already had surgery by then, you may not be able to fix the results. This argument seems somewhat victim-blamey, in the vein of "it's your own fault if your surgery looks awful".
- Finally, the more people try to achieve a particular type of appearance (if they are successful), the more twisted society's beauty standards become, which also effects the people who don't want surgery or can't afford it.
This is a decent analogy, because also in the case of AI there are people who only consider the most superficial and short term effects. Accepting the downsides that fall outside of that consideration seems like a poor tradeoff for getting the benefits, as the downsides are deeper and graver in scale. A careless attitude can cause substantial personal and societal damage.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentThat's because you are a human who put in a lot of effort in the past. An inexperienced artist who hasn't yet developed a voice will not be able to create valuable art in an instant on their first...Sometimes when I am composing music, it takes hours upon hours with refinement upon refinement. Sometimes it just flows. Many instances of beloved music that was composed if not on the fly, perhaps in a single take or two, essentially improvised into existence.
That's because you are a human who put in a lot of effort in the past. An inexperienced artist who hasn't yet developed a voice will not be able to create valuable art in an instant on their first attempt - (except perhaps by rare coincidence).
AI generated content can be brought to existence in a split second because many people put in a ton of effort in the past, and the fruits of their labour got stolen. But AI doesn't have a voice, and it can't have one because developing one requires having a personality through which the voice gets distilled over time.
The person prompting the AI may or may not have a voice. If they don't, they won't be able to prompt something out of an AI that qualifies as art. It's either an uncurated amalgamation or a plagiarisation of other people's voices.
I think considering time in the judgement is valid; I think requiring time as a part of the judgment will be wrong in many cases.
Agreed.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia (edited )Link ParentI agree with your comment, but staunchly disagree with the statement I responded to: Emphasis mine. It isn't. In the future, even less so. Unfortunately the decoupling of personal effort and art...I left a comment here
I agree with your comment, but staunchly disagree with the statement I responded to:
it's all authored by people
Emphasis mine. It isn't. In the future, even less so.
Unfortunately the decoupling of personal effort and art production means that hoardes of people who aren't motivated enough to put in effort will now be able to produce something they try to pass off as art. The people who have developed the mindset of an artist will use AI responsibly. The rest will not.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentI probably didn't understand your point here. Sentence-level quality is only one component in the overall quality of a written piece. If an AI generated piece has credible enough language that I...I probably didn't understand your point here.
Sentence-level quality is only one component in the overall quality of a written piece. If an AI generated piece has credible enough language that I can't immediately tell it apart from human generated content, this makes things worse - not better. It will keep me engaged with the piece a lot longer, sometimes all the way to the end.
I don't understand why you make a point that you don't care.
If you go see an art exhibition that has an interesting looking painting on their ad, and a plausible-sounding artist's statement, and you invest your time (and in some cases, money) in seeing it, will you really not care if most of the work is underdeveloped and the statement proves disingenuous? Then why do you not care if the same happens wrt written content?
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Comment on Choosing a sewing machine in ~hobbies
Lia Link ParentI was going to say something similar to this comment, but I'm nowhere near as experienced and wouldn't have been able to give as detailed info, so I'm glad someone could! I'll add that I've used a...I was going to say something similar to this comment, but I'm nowhere near as experienced and wouldn't have been able to give as detailed info, so I'm glad someone could!
I'll add that I've used a fair amount of modern domestic sewing machines and none of them make a good buttonhole reliably. You can go to a store to test the function and they'll give you pieces of fabric without seams in them and it'll work fine. Then you go home and find that as soon as your buttonholes are near a seam that has any sort of bulk, the machine will fail. Not all the time, but even one failed buttonhole is a PIA to pick out and redo.
The completely superior way to achieve high quality buttonholes every time is to get a vintage buttonhole attachment. There are models for machines that can do straight stitch only and others for machines that can also do zigzag. The exact model you need depends on the machine's shank type. Low shank buttonholers are a lot more common.
In conclusion: I would recommend getting a low shank machine.
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Comment on Swedish senior diplomat arrested on suspicion of spying – security service investigating if there is a link with sudden resignation of national security adviser in ~society
Lia Link...Aaaaaand this person seems to have deceased, less than three days after the article. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-diplomat-spy-suspect-has-died-his-lawyer-says-2025-05-16/...Aaaaaand this person seems to have deceased, less than three days after the article.
Police told daily Svenska Dagbladet they had opened an investigation into the death, but "there is no suspicion a crime has been committed".
The man had denied any wrongdoing and had made a complaint against the police over the handling of the case, Strand said. He also sought medical help after his release from custody.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentSure, and I'll make sure to read your comment later, but as long as this type of content creation is taking place (including the slightly more involved protocols that still don't qualify as...Sure, and I'll make sure to read your comment later, but as long as this type of content creation is taking place (including the slightly more involved protocols that still don't qualify as authoring), LLM-generated content cannot be defined as "human authored" as a whole.
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Comment on YouTube’s new ads will ruin the best part of a video on purpose in ~tech
Lia Link ParentThis seems awesome. My current desktop YouTube setup is UBlock Origin + Sponsorblock + an extension called "You're fired". The last one lets me hide content based on keywords and it's been a...This seems awesome.
My current desktop YouTube setup is UBlock Origin + Sponsorblock + an extension called "You're fired".
The last one lets me hide content based on keywords and it's been a blessing, because the YT algorithm won't stop showing me content I don't want to see, no matter how kindly I ask. I watch lots of technical instruction videos and every now and then a new channel will pop up that offers unhelpful clickbait content designed to look like the thing I'm looking for. I don't think YouTube would be usable for me at all if there wasn't a way to permanently hide those as soon as I see one.
By a quick glance, Grayjay doesn't seem to have this feature. Other than that it looks great!
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentConstructing your argument to hinge upon this isn't something I'd recommend. First of all, some part of people are already unable to identify some AI generated content. Second, you and I will also...the slop regurgitated by an automated system will be identifiable as such (for now)
Constructing your argument to hinge upon this isn't something I'd recommend. First of all, some part of people are already unable to identify some AI generated content. Second, you and I will also be unable to identify some of if in the near future. We can't even know for certain that this isn't the case right now. Unless you want your blog to age like milk, I'd suggest considering some other logic that has better chances to survive the test of time.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentI meant a short time relative to the length of the generated content. Per your own title, the context here is written content. That said, if you were to generate spoken content that passably seems...I meant a short time relative to the length of the generated content.
Something spoken live, which is the shortest time possible?
Per your own title, the context here is written content.
That said, if you were to generate spoken content that passably seems like it's being produced live by a human, I bet it would take a fairly long time to make, and the quality of the verbal content itself would be sub-par to that of text generated on the same topic and the same amount of time used to work on it.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentSomething taking a long time to write may not guarantee high value. But taking a very short time to write something does guarantee low value.Something taking a long time to write may not guarantee high value. But taking a very short time to write something does guarantee low value.
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Comment on Scientists reveal how DMT alters brain activity and consciousness by lowering control energy in ~science
Lia Link ParentI'm not an expert, but I know that some people's brains can be altered even without any chemical input because mine can. Example: When I still had a car, I used to go to one particular supermarket...I'm not an expert, but I know that some people's brains can be altered even without any chemical input because mine can.
Example: When I still had a car, I used to go to one particular supermarket for groceries. One day I was distracted and accidentally started driving in the opposite direction, and once I realised this I had to get creative and ended up going a completely different route. I have ADHD and messing up like this tends to bring up a fairly strong emotional reaction, which I think is related to how this works. Next time when I went to get groceries, I automatically took the wrong route. The next time, I was able to force myself to go the usual, shorter route, but it was quite painful for my brain (yes, brain pain is a thing). The time after that I still had to deliberately focus to get it right. And a few times more, until the normal route got programmed back in.
I guess that different people are susceptible to this to differing degrees, and that chemicals can be used to artificially induce similar states, but they too will effect different people in different ways. So making meds that would achieve this effect in a controlled way might be very hard.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentAnd not just comments, like you say. Organisations and governments will be able to set up systems that generate a never ending stream of news articles, fiction writing, music, videoclips etc., all...you can very easily set up an API key, prompt it to generate "realistic sounding comments that are 5 sentences long" or something and then blast it out like there's no tomorrow
And not just comments, like you say. Organisations and governments will be able to set up systems that generate a never ending stream of news articles, fiction writing, music, videoclips etc., all tailored to influence audiences the way they want. A part of such a system could be an LLM that's monitoring online search trends and tweaking the system's prompting activity accordingly, ensuring that whatever people search for, every single search result will be AI generated, every time.
Even though I said elsewhere that I don't mind AI content not being labelled as such, in this scenario reliable labelling would be the only way to enable searching for content that isn't AI generated.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentNot just the writers, us readers too. When the gap between competent writing and good research vs. low effort attention-seeking is as wide as it is, it's disappointing that these tools are being...I think writers who publish stuff like this, that goes beyond low effort and into a kind of flippant disrespect for the reader's time and intelligence, perhaps even for writing itself, irritate a lot of people. And when AI helps these writers hide their rotten non-output under a veneer of grammatically correct professionalism, it really irritates the writers who actually put in the time and effort to write, from scratch, articles that are interesting, logical, informative, and which were used without permission to train this AI in the first place.
Not just the writers, us readers too. When the gap between competent writing and good research vs. low effort attention-seeking is as wide as it is, it's disappointing that these tools are being used to intentionally obfuscate what's what. It doesn't serve any valuable purpose to make scammy presentation easier to apply (albeit I agree with you that AI has good uses as well). It just results in deteriorating online spaces.
A comment saying "I don't care" is, then, irritating by extension. Not as irritating as the people who gleefully generate Miyazaki-style image content that glaringly goes against the original creator's values, and when called out, say "Fuck Miyazaki". But it seems to belong to the same broad phenomenon where people sacrifice human values for the chance to try to make themselves minutely relevant, for a split second, in the eyes of some random audience they don't actually even care about.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia (edited )Link ParentThe article is titled 'I don't care whether you use ChatGPT to write'. If the point actually was "I don't mind if AI writing doesn't come with a label", then sure, I agree. Low quality is low...The article is titled 'I don't care whether you use ChatGPT to write'. If the point actually was "I don't mind if AI writing doesn't come with a label", then sure, I agree. Low quality is low quality regardless of labels.
Noise, waste and slop creation is something I do care about. I could get behind "I don't care whether you use AI to write, as long as you make sure the output isn't welfare-reducing". But some part of people won't be able to evaluate that, and those people in particular should not be using AI to fill the world with content that doesn't deserve to exist and that they didn't put in effort to create.
at the end of the day it's all authored by people
What does "authoring" mean to you? To me, writing one sentence and pressing a button to produce an article length text doesn't qualify as authoring. There are ways to use AI for writing that do qualify, but most likely those are not practiced by the majority or AI users.
Secondly, it probably won't take long until the human "prompt artist" is obsolete because organisations can just use LLMs to prompt other LLMs to create whatever content they want in order to serve their (nefarious) objectives. This is an added step further away from human-authored content.
An article where the main point is "not caring" doesn't add much substance and even if well-meaning, it can serve to accelerate the above negative developments by influencing other gullible people to adopt the same uncaring mindset.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia Link ParentAs AI generated text becomes better, it also takes more time to determine whether a long text is slop or not. That has the awful consequence that anyone who has something of value to say must...it takes much more effort to read something that's unnecessary long
As AI generated text becomes better, it also takes more time to determine whether a long text is slop or not. That has the awful consequence that anyone who has something of value to say must clearly demonstrate that value upfront.
No more slowly developing storylines that culminate in the fireworks of everything coming together in the last paragraph - a format that used to be my favourite.
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Comment on I don’t care whether you use ChatGPT to write in ~tech
Lia (edited )LinkOkay, so you don't care. I do. Not because I believe all human-authored text is superior to AI in every case. It isn't. I just hate exposing myself to the following: low quality unnecessary length...Okay, so you don't care. I do.
Not because I believe all human-authored text is superior to AI in every case. It isn't. I just hate exposing myself to the following:
- low quality
- unnecessary length
- poor layout
- poor sourcing and referencing
- hidden marketing schemes
- lack of purpose (slop)
All this takes up my time and focus and leaves less resources to direct on the things I want to focus on. I am equally against this type of content whether it was AI generated or not, but AI is a lot worse because it makes it easy to flood every nook and cranny of the internet with this trash.
Some people are purposefully out to hurt others (scammers, propaganda makers). Others are simply unaware what they're doing, for example: people who don't have anything to say trying to make themselves relevant now that it's technically achievable to produce content regularly. Some are somewhere in between, like the people trying to make a quick buck from spreading copied content around in their own name, in hopes of getting more views than the original. Even those whose intentions are pure are contributing to the issue of flooding.
I want to be able to consume content that I like without first spending insane amounts of effort to dig it out from amidst the slop avalanche, and without having to start reading numerous texts only to discover they are yet another piece of slop. Exposure to this stuff hurts my brain. I do not want to get hurt when I'm online. I would also like my own content to remain discoverable to others.
Edit: typo
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Comment on Why aren't Americans filling the manufacturing jobs we already have? in ~life
Lia Link ParentYep. Personally I try to help dismantle the built-in taboo factors that certain words carry, by using the word itself in a blunt way (it gets people's attention) and then immediately making a...Yep. Personally I try to help dismantle the built-in taboo factors that certain words carry, by using the word itself in a blunt way (it gets people's attention) and then immediately making a corrective statement such as "being more intelligent doesn't make you a better human". But this isn't always practical, especially if I need to ensure social harmony, because there's always some part of people who get offended.
In that case, it's advisable to refer to people's behaviour rather than their traits, like you did above.
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Comment on Why aren't Americans filling the manufacturing jobs we already have? in ~life
Lia Link ParentI'm into psychology too and I also happen to have ADHD. :) Let me first fully come out of my closet: I actually don't believe in the truth of the above statement at all. Unlike I just said to dear...I'm into psychology too and I also happen to have ADHD. :)
Let me first fully come out of my closet:
I actually don't believe in the truth of the above statement at all. Unlike I just said to dear @sparksbet, I don't think it even approximately true.Then why did I say so? Because it all comes down to definitions and we could be discussing those all day, but what actually matters in the context of this conversation is @Carrie 's definition. In particular, how they experienced/perceived the intelligence of their colleagues and how that changed when changing jobs. So I cut corners and just used that definition - whatever it happens to be. I don't need to know what exactly it is to assume normal distribution. And I don't need to ascertain that assumption is exactly correct because if it's at least approximately correct, that's already enough for the purposes of the point I was trying to make.
However, if this were a conversation about IQ specifically as it is measured by "standardised" tests, then I'd be staunchly against that same statement. I've seen good evidence that people's results do not actually follow the bell curve and the only reason we believe they do is because the original researcher tampered with his data. I've forgotten all the details by now but here's the presentation if anyone is interested.
This seems awesome, thanks for the mention! I'm going to look into it next time when I'm updating my systems and practices. :)