Ask HN: Is this the new normal, a generational gap, or an AI psychosis epidemic?

2 pointsozozozd6d ago4 comments

The first question is for people in their late 50s to 70s. I’m worried that the level of quality that I observe with technical work out there may be a generational gap type of change. - When you were in your late 30s or 40s, did it feel like newer generations were just sharing, celebrating and generally putting out “slop” work? Were “we” putting out slop, and you just had to live with it?

If the answer is no, this is the follow-up: - Are we in the middle of an AI psychosis epidemic (pandemic?) that has yet to peak?

AI was supposed to devalue a lot of sophisticated work, but we are seeing the opposite.

And it’s not just the creator of the slop that thinks they are a genius - that’s understandable, they might need that, the sycophantic LLMs tuned for increasing engagement sniped them, etc. But the consumer of the slop also appears extremely impressed with prose that sometimes hurts to read, and lacks any intellectual value or sophistication. With absolutely no validation of value, people are almost charmed like a snake.

Last question: Is it a “hard times, strong men/women, good times, weak men/women” thing, and our generation caught the end of the good times?

I am almost sad that Knuth had to see these days.

4 comments

ufukkaraca6d ago

I think a lot of "sloppy" work sets the ground for sophisticated work that will follow. imho this is not that type of flywheel - this is not the end of the good times nor is it the beginning of the end.

we're slowly learning to make our peace with a new pace, and that psychosis will definitely peak, allowing us to slowly be disillusioned, make it a normal part of what we do, and detach to some extend

gotwaz6d ago

Zooming out to a level you have no control over is not an algo Knuth ever came up with.

He would bring up Herbert Simons Theory of Bounded Rationality and tell you to zoom down to a level you do have control over. Satisficing solutions become the norm not optimal solutions.

rvz6d ago

> AI was supposed to devalue a lot of sophisticated work, but we are seeing the opposite.

CEOs and VCs promising a utopian vision with technology (for themselves), and almost always it is the opposite (a dystopia) for everyone else.

> Last question: Is it a “hard times, strong men/women, good times, weak men/women” thing, and our generation caught the end of the good times?

Given that absolutely no-one has a viable solution to the economic ramifications of job displacement with "AGI" (whatever that means) and only promising a copium utopia, what if there would never be a "good times" for people with jobs on this planet, except for zero-sum activities like gambling, speculation and the financialization of every single thing?

Because other than a roboticist, the only job(s) that will exist are the ones that humans will have no choice to do: to replace someone else's or work for the government to be a soldier to fight someone else's war, until governments build robots for wars.

al_borland6d ago

> But the consumer of the slop also appears extremely impressed with prose that sometimes hurts to read, and lacks any intellectual value or sophistication.

Is this much different than all the people being really into formulaic pop music or bad movies? Mumble rap was popular, which was essentially prose that would hurt to read, slurred out in a way that was hard to understand, but it had a beat.

Most people aren’t all that critical and the less capable they are in a certain area, the less critical they tend to be.

I assume most people on this site have had the experience of throwing together a quick little script or website that doesn’t extend too far beyond Hello World, and someone is blown away by it, because it’s something they don’t think they could ever do. There was no major value to the code or sophistication, yet it was impressive to those who don’t understand what is happening behind the scenes.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke

People love their magic.

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