AI companies and users of AI are littering all aspects of public space with “AI slop”, but does this term reflect what it really is? We have terms like visual pollution, sound pollution, etc. In a way, "AI pollution " seems a proper term, but AI also pollutes meaning, like with AI generated text. Is AI pollution a new form of “microplastics”? Everywhere and in everything?

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
    82·
    16 hours ago

    Ironically, I see far more visual pollution from people whinging about AI slop than actual AI slop at this point. People will incessantly complain about AI everywhere, derailing conversations and adding noise. If somebody spots an em dash somewhere then a whole thread turns into a discussion of whether something written by an LLM or not, and whether it’s acceptable for humans to use em dashes. It’s frankly exhausting.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
      5·
      14 hours ago

      To be fair, I think this is a Lemmy issues moreso than the broader internet. I could be totally off base there, though. It just seems in my experience that Lemmy is particularly anti AI, while the rest of the Internet seems to be fairly neutral towards the technology as a whole, and potentially upset about the environmental impact and increasing prices for computer components.

      Again, I may be off base, though, as Lemmy is the only social media I use, so I’m not tapped into that side of things.

      I will say, if I notice people use the word “quietly” (as in “it will quietly revolutionize X” or “this has quietly changed my habits”) I do immediate assume it’s Chatgpt. Lol. And for what it’s worth, I’m not against AI in general, I think it’s great as a brain storming tool, a useful way to collect your thoughts, to bounce ideas off of, and to use when stuck on a project. But it’s uses are so limited compared to what it’s billed as that it is in no way this magical gift from on high like some think, but nor is it a completely and totally useless thing. The problem is that it’s being shoved down the throat of every website, device, and user of the Internet at such incredible rates that we’re choking on it. And the fact that it can “talk” like a person means people are anthropomorphizing it and that is very, very dangerous long term to the mental health of humans as a whole.

      My $0.02, anyway

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
        1·
        13 hours ago

        Yeah that’s definitely my impression as well. Fediverse as a whole has become a place where people love to come to rant about LLMs now.