YouTubeās system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
YouTubeās system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
I had to have a good think about this, because no, performative or unproductive effort doesnāt add anything. Butā¦
ā¦I think this gets closerāthat the idea is important enough, that they cared enough, to put in the time and energy. But it has to be meaningful effort; the running-a-mile analogy wouldnāt qualify, but thereās a difference between someone serving me cookies that they worked at for hours to bake, and the same person handing me chemically-identical cookies that they purchased at the grocery store. Knowing that they cared enough to do that means that what theyāre trying to express means a lot to them (or at least that I do).
Sloppers donāt have any messages that mean anything to them. They just care about the quantity; and in the case of AI, they literally canāt care about the message. But the Chobani animators and the poster designers in 19th century Paris have a message that means a lot to them, and they bury it under the advertisement so that their art gets out there and they can also feed their family.
Oh man, remember Windows Vista? That was a slop-y and sloppy trip.
Yeah, I think partially because itās superficially quite polished. If you look closely you can see AI artifacts, but on a first glance it looks like an uncanny valley version of a polished, final product.
Hmmm. Iām going to have to think about it, but I really do think that the people there actually are putting in a ton of effort. And sometimes doing a bad job anyway, but I donāt think they put out a large enough quantity to reasonably call it slop. Still, Iām intrigued by the question.
Interesting. I donāt agree, but because at the end of the day, slop isnāt made for humans, so it canāt ever be objectively (granting your premise) good to the human palate. Guilty pleasure, sure. Perverse curiosity, yeah. But that isnāt saying much, as the āLove Islandā conversation is about to talk more about.
That said, I think I see where youāre coming from. I do like me some sloppy joes and biscuits and gravy. Not all together, though.
Nah, I knew the risks when I signed up for this gig.
Dang. That sounds awful. Why do people subject themselves to that sort ofā¦oh, prize money, right
That is one impressive bit of self-awareness, honestly. lol
That unfortunately tracks with overall American culture and it having deeply ingrained protestant work ethic. I was really hoping there was something more to it though
Why? Even my āall ads are slopā position doesnāt preclude ads from having a message the creators and/or artists do care about. I unfortunately do think that most slop peddlers do genuinely, and often passionately, have a specific message/idea/belief they are trying to communicate/perpetuate.
The problem comes from not having rigorously interrogated that message or engaged with it in any fundamental way. I would agree that an issue with AI is that it shortens the time from idea->creation such that the creator has even less time to engage with what theyāre creating and is even less likely to interrogate the message being spread. I would point to āDear Aliceā as a perfect example of how thatās not an exclusively AI thing though.
You mean back when windows was good :P
Ooh, thatās a real good phrase! Iām stealing that!
I would agree! And I do understand they do seem to be trying to do their best given the environment they exist within.
Would comparing them to a prison chef be a good metaphor? Itās a hard job that takes a lot of work and theyāre doing the best with what theyāve got, but the final outcome is still slop. Theyāre prisoners like the rest of us and I understand why they donāt defy the guards(funders and platforms) and raid the commissary, serve us the same meals that they provide for the guards, show up in solidarity during a strike, etc. but I do respect them significantly less for it.
I can see the distinction youāre pointing at but I donāt see the difference, it āfeedsā millions of people.
I donāt follow. Then who is it made for?
ā¦ On self reflection I might have a problem with high slop tolerance because I immediately went āif done right that could actually be pretty good!ā
To be fair, I guess half the āfunā of Love Island is the lack of personality? The explanation I got was that it was like watching someone stream playing āSimsā. The streamer then fucks with the āsimsā to see what happens giving the audience the āwhats going to happen next!?ā high. As the audience you can project whatever personality you want onto the characters and the soullessness gives a blank canvas that allows the viewer to fill in the blanks which allows for a better reality tv show with broader mass appeal than could otherwise be created?
ā¦ Yeah I donāt really get it, but to each their yum.
Iām definitely not a grindset guy. I donāt mean this in a āprove yourselfā sort of way, I mean it in a āmaking stuff that doesnāt matter is easyā sort of way. Maybe Iām too manipulated by the modern world, but I canāt think of a way to show that something matters to you aside from making some kind of sacrifice; of time, or energy, or whatever. I donāt mean ātoiling for weeks on a tweet,ā I mean āat least thinking about it for a few minutes.ā
I think thatās the distinction Iām trying to make, though. If itās slop, the creator doesnāt care about it. Doesnāt care enough to put in any actual effort, tries to flood the zone instead of thinking about it long enough to produce anything meaningful.
Yeah, so I think here youāre applying my definition to your example and pointing out that it doesnāt match. Which is what I would expect. Hence the conversation (which is excellent, incidentally).
Thatās more or less what I mean by āeffort,ā though said in the negative. Well put.
Iām not sure what you mean by that.
Oh man, we were having such a nice conversation, and now weāve gotta fight? Bummer. ;ā -ā )
With my warmest regards.
Fantastic analogy. Especially:
Agreed, same.
But now I think Iām starting to see that our disagreement is more one of very small degrees than of anything substantive. Maybe you figured that out a while ago.
The algorithm. It just has to pass muster long enough that the algorithm serves it up to a real human. I guess in this analogy, the algorithm is the uncultured swine. I think I buy that.
I think the problem there would be the tomato. Itās too sweet and tangy: I donāt think thereās much way to make it work with the creamy flavor of the sausage gravy. Source: sometimes I get a bit of jam in my biscuits and gravy, or ketchup in mac and cheese, with a somewhat unpleasant result.
When you put it that way, Iām annoyingly much more ok with it. So itās a dating sim that youāre just not playing.
Not my thing either, but I guess I get it a little more now.
Sorry, definitely didnāt mean to imply you were just meant it in a āah yes that makes sense in a broader cultural contextā way.
That is exactly what Iām pointing at with a āprotestant ethicā but it really comes down to specific definitions of āsacrificeā. A night out with friends could be described as a āsacrificeā of time and money to show care/affection for those people, but if itās something you enjoy is it really a sacrifice? As an example, I enjoy making things, and making things for others is a good source of both inspiration and ādisposalā for lack of better word. Making sure the things I make find good homes and not just making junk is a form of care in my opinion.
If it is something you donāt enjoy does that sacrifice actually show that care for others? Personally, I can think of few things worse than a night out with someone who doesnāt want to be there and isnāt having fun.
Watching Love Island with my friend wasnāt a sacrifice because I got the fun of watching a psychological horror film, they got their āsimsā playtime and we had an interesting/fun/silly discussion afterwards. In the same way that the time Iām spending talking to you isnāt a sacrifice because itās providing interesting thoughts and perspectives that I might not run into otherwise is a useful challenge to my own beliefs/perspectives. Hopefully itās the same for you?
Itās hard to understate the damage the āself-sacrificeā mentality can cause. A lot of relationships are ruined by two people trying to show they care for eachother by deliberately and intentionally sabotaging themselves at every opportunity. A lot of āactivismā is people sacrificing their time and energy doing things that are well meaning but nobody asked for, help nobody, and often cause harm.
I do think it shows a desire or intent to care, but I donāt think it automatically or necessarily translates.
But if they spent a whole week thinking on that tweet then surely itās more important to them than someone who only spent a few minutes! /s
I think this is a big piece actually! I would agree that spam is incapable of communication a message. Not that it doesnāt have one, but by āflooding the zoneā at best it gets filtered and ignored, at worst it triggers a severe reactionary response.
I do feel like there is still something we keep circling around here but Iām unsure what it is or how to suss it out.
The original commercial promotion a company that in reality is the antithesis of everything āsolarpunkā and which deliberately and intentionally does everything in its power to prevent the sort of future imagined in the commercial.
BRING IT! :P I think we can both agree 7 was actually pretty good. The extreme drop in quality from 7 to vista was shocking plus it now being old and dated makes comparisons hard. However, I would argue that 11 has more bugs, more adware/spyware, worse performance, less customization and less āsalvagabilityā than Vista. It just doesnāt feel as bad thanks to the slow enshittification that was 8, 8.1, 10.
My original comment was coming from that assumption but you, and others, did not think so and honestly it does still feel like Iām missing something big and important but weāve spent how many words trying to find it? And I still donāt know what it could be. I do very much appreciate you being willing to explore it with me though! Thank you!
I was definitely coming from the perspective of the humans are the swine and the algorithm was the gatekeeper, logistics, feeding machine, etc. The prison analogy was partially to communicate that humans do often treat other humans like swine.
However I am realizing thatās a bit of a dated perspective and with the modern Internet the āalgorithmā is still the gatekeeper, etc. but the goal is primarily to feed bots to better sheepdog the humans. So the root miscommunication comes from conflating āslopā, aka ādogfoodā with āslopā, aka āprison foodā. So when I call ātablescrapsā slop itās confusing because thatās neither food for dogs nor low quality dogfood, itās premium dogfood! Describing the ingredients doesnāt clarify anything because itās not really any different other than process and packaging. I think thatās the exact sort of insight I was looking for! Thank you! Does that all track for you as well?
Oh yeah. Itās definitely not a haphazardly mix together kind of thing. But a creamy bolognese sauce on biscuits? Itād be weird. But Iād try it!
ā¦Thatās such a better description of what we took 2 episodes to figure out how to communicate!
For the purposes of this definition of slop, yes, that counts as effort! Even if itās a thing you like, you did put time into it. You did show that itās valuable to you, and that you care about the outcome. If youāre an excellent cartoonist and a whip-smart comedian, a 10/10 comic strip you dashed off in five minutes about a topic youāve been thinking on for weeks might well represent the culmination of decades of honing your craft and contain within a great wellspring of thought and consideration. Absolutely not slop.
In fairness, Iām the same way as you, so I might be biased here.
I think that gets more into the weeds about whether or not itās good art, in terms of the idiom weāve been using. Because youāre right about that, but there are also few things more comforting than a friend showing up somewhere that they donāt want to be just because they know you need them.
But what Iām saying is that it was a sacrifice. Not a large one, of course; and not one that cost you much. But you couldāve spent that time playing video games yourself, or cooking, or writing a book, or hang gliding, or whatever. You also chose to sacrifice that part of you that didnāt want to watch Love Island, which is again not much, but not nothing. You chose to spend it doing something with them; something that it turned out that you enjoyed, though not for the same reason they did.
Thereās something to the words āeffortā and āsacrificeā that you donāt like, and I think I see why (as weāll talk about later). Does the word āchoiceā hit you better? It isnāt exactly what I mean, but Iām starting to think it might have more to do with an opportunity cost that is evaluated and intentionally selected, than more broadly expending some kind of energy. AI has no opportunity cost, at the individual level, which means that no one is choosing specifically to do it. They arenāt putting anything of themselves in it. It has no value because it isnāt them. (This isnāt a framing that Iāve been able to get a good handle on yet, so right now itās just a topic for conversation. Seems like I can trust you with that.)
One hundred percent. This has been a pleasure. In a lot of ways I figure out what I think by writing it down, so this has been a very useful challenge. Iām really enjoying and getting benefit from it. But you and I could be doing something else; the fact that weāre both choosing to be here, honing our arguments, is meaningful.
This may be a silly analogy, but itās kind of like the old phrase, āwe know you have a choice when it comes to air travel, and we thank you for flying with us.ā Itās not a sacrifice in the sense of giving up something good or deep, but if you select Delta, youāre sacrificing a flight on United. Youāre making a choice. With slop, you donāt have to make a choice. You can send an agent on all of the flights at once!
Yeah, I think thatās definitely the dark side of this conversation. But like eating, exercise, saving money, alcohol, sex, and so many other enjoyable or even good things, sacrifice can become a disorder when taken too far. In the example you gave, I donāt think those two people are sacrificing and sabotaging themselves for each other, but for the feeling of āwinning the friendship.ā The activist is sacrificing, not for the movement, but just so they can feel good about themselves. So I get why you donāt have a positive association with the word āsacrificeā (because of my upbringing, I donāt see it as a necessarily negative word).
āIntentā is another good word that we could probably use here for what Iām calling āeffort,ā though itās also inexact. Slop has no intent.
lol. As someone who has labored over a text message for hours that ended up being sent as literally the phrase āok, thanks!ā, I canāt say I entirely disagree, but I do recognize how ridiculous it is and that Iām not normal in that.
This is basically what I meant by saying that Kurzgesagtās output wasnāt enough to call it āslop.ā Though thatās probably subjective.
Weāre getting close with āintentā and āchoice.ā Itās not exactly those, or āeffortā or āsacrifice,ā but almost likeā¦the midpoint between all four terms.
Oh, yeah. Itās a great irony that Chobani paid for it. I suppose itās kind of the modern version of patronage, though, isnāt it? The Medicis were brutal, violent, and manipulative, but they sponsored some of the most enduring artwork of the European Renaissance, including that of all four Ninja Turtles. That doesnāt make them good, but it does mean that some stuff they did caused goodness as a second-order effect.
No argument there. Vista was the low point between the high points of XP and 7.
No argument there, either. I switched to Linux a couple years ago because I was tired of that dance. And now weāve completed the Lemmy carcinization: all conversations eventually evolve into either Linux conversations or socialism conversations (and the night is still young for us to hit both!).
Very much a pleasure! There are probably as many definitions of āslopā as there are people on the internet, and maybe Iām the one whoās wrong. But I think youāve got the spirit.
I think so! And with the gift of āintentā earlier, I think we can extend the metaphor a little bit.
The intent of a home-cooked meal is to express love to your friends and family. The intent of the food at a full-service restaurant is to be the context about which you spend time with loved ones, or to impress or experience. The intent of fast food is to impart energy in a way thatās convenient and enjoyable enough that others will pay for it. Even the intent of a dog treat is to encourage or reward behavior in a beloved pet. All of those intents cause the cook to make particular decisions regarding ingredients, preparation, presentation, and so on; the decisionsā outcomes donāt matter to this conversation, just the fact that they were made.
But with slop, the farmer has no intent. He just shovels it into the trough so that the pigs will shut up until theyāre fat enough to slaughter. (Howās that for an overwrought metaphor?)
Honestly, reading back on this again, I realize that I was thinking about this like adding tomato to cream. But adding cream to tomato, a la cheese on chili, or tomato soup made with milk, or penne rosa? Or even tacos with cheese and salsa? Maybe this is just a framing thing, or a concentration thing.
In your defense, you were watching Love Island. That probably slows down the brain.