Data hoarding doesn't just hurt the individual, it's bad for everyone.
The data-selling model will always have a strict competitive advantage against the good actors and so you as the user will end up with no options other than allowing that "legitimate" interest or not being able to access such a service. This has slight "people peeing in the community pool" vibes. Sure it may be "easier" for the individual doing it, but long term everyone just ends up with an unusable pool.
I can understand it for AI generated text, but I think there are a lot of people that like AI generated images. Image sites like get a ton of people that like AI generated images. Civitai gets a lot of engagement for AI generated images, but so do many other image sites.
People who submit blog posts here sure do love opening their blogs with AI image slop. I have taken to assuming that the text is also AI slop, and closing the tab and leaving a comment saying such.
Sometimes this comment gets a ton of upvotes. Sometimes it gets indignant replies insisting it's real writing. I need to come up with a good standard response to the latter.
> People who submit blog posts here sure do love opening their blogs with AI image slop.
It sucks, but it doesn't suck any more than what was done in the past: Litter the article with stock photos.
Either have a relevant photo (and no, a post about cooking showing an image of a random kitchen, set of dishes, or prepared food does not count), or don't have any.
The only reason blog posts/articles had barely relevant stock images was to get people's attention. Is it any worse now that they're using AI generated images?
> I need to come up with a good standard response to the latter.
How about, "I'm sorry, but if you're willing to use AI image slop, how should I know you wouldn't also use AI text slop? AI text content isn't reliable, and I don't have time to personally vet every assertion."
Trying to gaslight your enemy is certainly an option for something, not always the best nor the one in line with HN guideline. Frankly it just rarely reduce undesirable behaviors even if you're in the mood to be manipulative.
Well, I wouldn't call that gaslighting, just a statement of fact. I guess you could go with "Sorry buddy, I don't trust your content because you used AI slop for your images." If you think saying the same thing with more words is manipulative and gaslighting.
Also, "enemy"? That's a little harsh, don't you think? I would never consider a random doofus on an internet forum to be my enemy.
The person posting an AI header likely isn't getting the reflexive gastric discomfort that anyone feels looking at one that doesn't happen with stock photos. They just can't even tell, and there's no path for them in that kind of antagonizing responses to lead them to the realization that others readily can and aren't liking it.
That is an excellent point. Thank you. As the article points out. AI slop is already so pervasive it's showing up in supposedly historical posts. And it's harder to identify AI generated images than text.
> I don’t understand the problem with AI generated images.
Depends on what they are used for and what they are purporting to represent.
For example, I really hate AI images being put into kids books, especially when they are trying to be psuedo-educational. A big problem those images have is from one prompt to the next, it's basically impossible to get consistent designs which means any sort of narrative story will end up with pages of characters that don't look the same.
Then there's the problem that some people are trying to sell and pump this shit like crazy into amazon. Which creates a lot of trash books that squeeze out legitimate lesser known authors and illustrators in favor of this pure garbage.
Quite similar to how you can't really buy general products from amazon because drop shipping has flooded the market with 10 billion items with different brands that are ultimately the same wish garbage.
The images can look interesting sometimes, but often on second glance there's just something "off" about the image. Fingers are currently the best sign that things have gone off the rails.
That’s not the issue though, it should be marked as such or be found in a section people looking for it can easily find it instead of shoving it everywhere. To me placing that generated content in human spaces is a strong signal for low effort. On the other hand generated content can be extremely interesting and useful and indeed there’s an art to it
I agree. AI generated text and images should be marked as such. In the US there was a push to set standards on watermarking AI generated content (feasible for images/video, but more difficult for text, because it's easier to delete). Unfortunately, the effort to study potential watermarking standards was rescinded as of Jan 22 2025.
I've been wondering for a while now if our indoor lighting is too dim. Even in the shade during midday you're looking at 20,000 lux. Overcast days look dark and dreary and they're on the 1000-2000 lux range.
Meanwhile home lighting is well below the 500 lux range, if not even in the 100-200.
I even suspect that the current near-sightedness epidemic is caused by people spending too much time in dim lighting. Maybe if our indoor lighting was brighter our eyesight would not adapt to become near-sighted as much.
> I even suspect that the current near-sightedness epidemic is caused by people spending too much time in dim lighting. Maybe if our indoor lighting was brighter our eyesight would not adapt to become near-sighted as much.
It's not that eyes are adapting to low light so much as the fact that exposure to 10k lux stimulates the release of neurotransmitters which prevent the eye from growing too quickly. Last I checked, the recommendation is for children to spend 2+ hours per day outdoors in sunlight. Morning and evening aren't sufficiently lit so it really comes down to school and after-school care scheduling enough outdoors time.
Yeah there's definitely that aspect too. Though nowadays, led lighting is so efficient that you can get a lot of brightness on reasonable wattage.
That's not enough for the light to feel natural though, you also have to have the parallel rays. And then there's also challenges with brighter lighting to set it up so it's not uncomfortably bright in your field of view or blinding you :-)
>But Ctrl+C are two key presses: reacting to type them both in under 100 ms is equivalent to a writting speed above 200WPM.
I think people don't really type/press buttons at a constant speed. Instead we do combos. You do a quick one-two punch because that's what you're used to ("you've practiced"). You do it much faster than that 100ms, but after that you get a bit of a delay before you start the next combo.
As menctioned, pro-gamers train combos for hours daily. The best of them can press up to 10 keys per second without thinking. For example, the fastest StarCraft II player Reynor (Riccardo Romitti) can sustain 500 key presses per minute, and do short busts of 800. He has videos explaining how to tweak the Windows registry to achieve such rate (it involves pressing some keys once and the OS autorepeats faster than you can press), because it can't be done with the standard config dialogs. And you are trying to tell me that you can do double that... not only double that, "much faster" than that.
I dare anyone to make a script that, after launching, will ask you to press Ctrl+C after a random wait between 1000 and 3000 ms. And record your reaction time meassured after key release. It's allowed to "cheat" and have your fingers ready over the two keys. Unless you jump start and get lucky, you won't get better than 150ms.
You don't make a typo, press enter and then start reacting to the typo.
You start reacting to the typo as you're typing. You just won't get to the end of your reaction before you've pressed enter.
The point of my combo comment is that pressing Ctrl + C is not the same thing as typing two random letters of a random word.
Combine these two things and I think it's possible for somebody to interrupt a command going out. The question is whether you can press Ctrl+C while typing faster than 100ms, not whether you can react to it within 100ms.
Also, people regularly type faster than the speed that pro StarCraft players play at. The sc2 players need the regedit because they will need to press Z 50 times in a row to make 100 zerglings as fast as possible, but you don't need that to type.
for single mouse click, 225ms is pretty typical for me after a bit of warmup. sub 200 is not consistently reproducible. i dont think i've ever cracked < ~185ms
These people think that minimum wage "fact checkers" who delete posts that don't agree with their handbook are "freedom", not "censorship". So they think they have principles.
This is an absolutely unhinged take. The US doesn't allow more than 25% foreign ownership of broadcast media. That's not some "free speech" violation. If a foreigner wants to say something, they have many ways to do it. But they don't have those privileged ways.
But would you want the rest of the world to operate the same way?
If ycombinator wants to show HN to somebody in Germany then they would have to spin off a company owned by Germans to be able to show HN there? Same for France and the other 170-200 countries in the world.
This is obviously an unreasonable way for the internet to work.
Are you trying to say there's some utilitarian principle where countries should allow companies from other countries to operate unrestricted?
I'm a fan of free trade! That's a good thing! But tolerance is not a moral precept. We don't have to allow companies that report to hostile foreign governments to operate!
Even among friendly nations, the European governments are fairly opinionated about how US tech companies are allowed to operate in Europe.
Let's say it's the same situation as now. They made a super addictive app that doesn't have any overt nazism but it's fully under the control of the NSDAP, we don't know how the algorithm works, and they can bias it anytime they like. It's extremely popular and most young people use it. Would you say this is fine, yes or no?
> Even if they can tune the algorithm at a whim to include just a bit of antisemitism
You mean like all the US social networks banning or severely restricting the content on the slaughter being perpetrated in Palestina, mostly against innocent people and kids, while tik tok allowed it?
The answer is still yes, instead of the holocaust I will gladly take an app with just a bit of antisemitism, that, BTW, is not lacking on the platforms we all use and originated in the USA
Now, that's not what's happening on tik tok, that's what's happening in your mind, as a thought experiment I would accept nazitok and tell my kids to not use it, instead of the holocaust and having no power to stop it in any meaningful way.
Wouldn't you?
Would you really reproduce the holocaust, just so you don't have to educate your children and explain them the right from the wrong?
I don't understand where "instead of the holocaust" came from. I'm talking of a hypothetical modern-day Nazi Germany that's just as awful as the real one, and whether you would allow their funny dancing app. There's no either-or.
> I don't understand where "instead of the holocaust" came from
Since we are speculating, a modern day Germany has not perpetrated the holocaust, or it would not be allowed to exist in the European Union.
> Nazi Germany that's just as awful as the real one, and whether you would allow their funny dancing app. There's no either-or.
But what tik tok has to do with that?
If nazi Germany was still alive and kicking, it means we would all use their apps, because we would all speak German.
It would be what the USA are today.
We in fact use American apps or buy American devices even though they allow very bad content or are produced where labor protection laws are inexistent and worker are treated like slaves.
No one said anything about the European Union. Let's say our hypothetical modern Nazi Germany is in fact conducting the holocaust. Would you be okay with your kids using their funny dancing app?
Why is that such a big problem for you to understand that China is not the nazi germany and tik tok is not spreading dangerous ideas, it's simply less controlled by the US monopoly? (who are the nazi germany in this your little experiment)
But hey, you want an answer? of course I wouldn't be onboard with whoever is committing a genocide, just like I'm not on board with Israel and I boycott them and their products, as I am not onboard with the US foreign policy of the past 80 years (CIA was responsible for more than 90s changes of regime) and if it was for me US social networks would be banished in my Country.
I don't see many differences between the modern US and the nazi germany, besides the holocaust (which is not a small feat, I know, but hey, dangerous ideas are dangerous too)
It doesn't matter what I think, I am a no one, a genocide is not when USA say their adversaries are committing it but stay silent when their allies are condemned by internationally recognized courts (here, in the West).
BTW if you consider the Uyghurs issue a genocide, I got news for you: you should consider 80% of the countries of the World genocidal.
If you wanna play that game, no one should trade with the USA or use any of their apps and, god forbid, have access to their cultural (propagandist) material.
Take for example what's been happening at the Mexican border for decades
The US says more than 1.7 million migrants were detained along its border with Mexico in the past 12 months - the highest number ever recorded
By contrast "only" 1 million Uyghurs have been detained to date (according to our sources, that are not official sources, we don't even have real evidence, just wild guesses).
You don't know how much you don't know my friend, when I read something like this I always think: tell me you are american (or plainly ignorant, they are synonyms) without telling me.
This is obviously an over-the-top response. I quoted what you said:
> of course I wouldn't be onboard with whoever is committing a genocide
And asked if you were familiar with these particular atrocities. These particular atrocities are fairly different from the American/Mexican border in enough ways that your conflation is fairly bizarre (is there forced sterilization at the US Mexico border? What about forced labor? Or do you consider those to be unfounded claims that I would only believe because I'm an American?)
Tbh mostly the US and their allies seem to prefer not talking about the Uyghurs. And, I mean, what is the US supposed to do about it, anyway? (Contrast this with Israel/Palestine where the US continues to arm Israel with relatively few conditions on the usage of those weapons)
I am curious how you think the US should handle its southern border? My understanding is most European nations similarly struggle with large influxes of refugees. This is a global crisis, and you have actual data about it because the US doesn't kill journalists who research it.
I'm not saying "America shouldn't trade with China because of what's going on within their borders." (We are a huge trade partner with China. We were a huge trade partner with Russia before they invaded Ukraine)
I do think it's reasonable for America to ban TikTok.
Now let's talk about segregation and eugenics politics that inspired the Hitler third reich and went on until the 1970s and are having a come back now with the resurgence of neo confederated ideologies and literally the KKK .
a place with the largest incarcerated population of the world where the police is as brutal as in some developing country where the mob and drug cartels rule and where people shoot at each other at the same rate of countries at war.
For comparison in USA there are every year 20 thousands intentional homicides, while in China they are 7 thousand, but China has almost 4 times the population of the USA.
Would you use an app coming from such a place?
> And asked if you were familiar with these particular atrocities
It's not a genocide.
> I do think it's reasonable for America to ban TikTok.
I do also think it's reasonable for China to ban US social networks and Europe should do the same thing.
Now you have to explain how 2024 China relates to the Nazis, though.
Nazism is an 100% western creation, had many supporters in the west and in the USA, and Hitler himself was inspired by the segregation laws in the United States for his reich.
I'm not comparing China to it, it's just an extreme example. If you are such a free speech absolutist that you think all foreign-controlled media should be allowed (and encouraged to do business in your country), does that include the nazis? And if not, where do you draw the line?
> If you are such a free speech absolutist that you think all foreign-controlled
You said all, I never said all, I just said instead of the holocaust I prefer tik tok.
You are the one that prefers the holocaust to tik tok and has to live with it.
> where do you draw the line?
I'll gladly answer: I draw the line where illegal or seriously dangerous stuff is happening.
For example I would have banned any social network that promoted the so called "challenges".
But the tik tok case has nothing to do with that, it has to do with the fact that if the US cannot control the narrative, they do not want Americans to use it.
Which is the exact same thing the nazi did, back then.
They did not trust their people to make the right choices.
I think Path of Exile does this kind of procedural generation of areas very well. Generated maps of a specific area will feel similar with some landmarks and the direction you're traveling in, but this is a good thing, because they can be used as guide posts where to go if you're an experienced player.
PoE2 on the other hand is some of the worst map generation iv'e ever seen. Like a copy and paste of the same exact thing hundreds of times to give you a large lifeless drudge of a map.
It might be enough. Google says a human needs 300-550 liters of oxygen a day. That equals to about 6.8-12.4 cubic meters of air for the 3 of them for 36 hours.
The space does seem like it could be large enough to hold that much air, especially if it's compressed a little.
Or the large amounts of community efforts (not exactly crowd sourced though) for diffusion fine-tunes and tools! Pony XL, and other uncensored models, for example. I haven't kept up with the rest, because there's just too much.
The user can simply choose not to use the service?
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