Why Should I Read Something You Couldn’t Bother To Write?

Over the past year, I’ve been disappointed to see dozens of people I follow because their work relating to sustainability use generative AI to “write”. It’s like, how could you miss the point so bad? These are people who’ve voiced a desire for a radically different future, where we’re living in harmony with nature and each other, abandoning the cheap trappings of modernity for something true and beautiful. People who work damn hard at that dream. And then they post some of this fucking garbage.

I hesitate to voice the full vitriol of my opinion on this because I worry it verges on elitism. Some argue that generative AI increases the “accessibility” of writing. The same accessibility argument is used for all sorts of energy-guzzling stuff: “But what about disabled people?” But it’s often used disingenuously, as a sort of trump card. I could just as easily say, “What about the environment? What about the future people who will be born into it? Including the disabled ones?” Stalemate, huh?

Here’s the thing: there is a difference between tools making life easier for disabled people and CHURNING OUT MOUNTAINS OF WORTHLESS MARKETING CONTENT, OR GETTING SHITTY ADVICE ON YOUR VACATION PLANS. We can talk about the environmental tradeoff on the first one, but we need to get a grip and realize the frivolity of the latter. There are more important things in the world, no matter what entitlement you feel towards the convenience of pumping out content.

Staying your hand from consulting ChatGPT on your latest minor life question requires something that is unfortunately hard to come by: a recognition of the severity of humanity’s predicament on Earth, and an acceptance of the consequences of our actions. In short, the strength to look at reality as it is, and the courage to take responsibility. See previous post.

But best of all, generative AI isn’t worth it because the content is actual garbage. And I don’t want to call people stupid, but like, can’t you all tell? I’m not just talking stylistically: I can clock AI slop in mere moments due to its lack of having anything worthwhile to say. The style, the em-dashes and short hyperbolic sentences, is simply what fills the void left by the lack of meaning.

I would 100% rather read your imperfect attempt at writing your thoughts, than a gussied-up, 10x-too-long slop that says nothing more, besides that you feel too important to spend time on your missives. I’d rather know you than the facade you want me to see you as. And anyway, the mask is going to have to fall at some point, if we are to have a real relationship.

Frankly, I feel offended when I realize a few sentences deep that I’ve wasted my time on ingesting slop with my eyes. It’s the lack of respect for my time. It’s the presumption that we’re all stupid enough to be swayed by the empty gesticulations of… word association.

Clearly we can’t rely on the general public’s reading skills to ascertain value. So what do we have left at our disposal to separate the chaff from the grain, the VC clowns from the deserving initiatives?

Well, my first idea is to throw out anything with generative AI in it. That should do a pretty good job. I’m honestly all out of patience for it. Sure, I might throw out a few babies with that bathwater, but if I’ve learned anything from the ensloppification of everything, it’s that it’s fantastically relieving to be in a room with people who also have the same basic agreement that stuff matters, and we shouldn’t lie to each other constantly. The immediate disgust from clocking AI has also been quite effective for stopping doomscrolling.

Slop is simply a culmination of the attitude of lying and cheating that underlie so much of the modern world and makes it suck. It’s especially apparent in the world of tech, where the horrifyingly normal attitude is “How can we light up pixels to trick more money out of people?” In the techno-futurist world, there is no concept of integrity, no concept of earning the right to something. It’s a real “rising tide lifts all boats”, trickle-down economics sort of attitude. Let’s just make more of everything! What a nice non-partisan stance that perfectly enables billionaires to keep on getting richer!

Something obviously evil is going on when CEOs aren’t letting their own children use their products. It’s a natural result of the philosophy of “if I got money from you without pointing a gun at your head, it’s all good and fair, and in fact, I am a superior person for having been so clever.” I was first introduced to this attitude at Columbia University, the diploma factory/networking snake nest for wannabe elites, finance bros and dilettantes. It’s given me a great distrust for anything that comes out of those circles, which is unfortunately, most things with lots of money.

In a comical, slow ourobouros, even the AI-heads are realizing that they don’t like reading other peoples’ slop. LinkedInfluencers are backpedaling, emphasizing the importance of proofreading and editing what ChatGPT spits out. When I tried ChatGPT like one time last year (correction: two years ago), I found that as I edited the output, I ended up rewriting the whole thing, and I would have been better off starting from a blank page, rather than detangling some confusing crap. Hey influencers: go one step further. The writing isn’t all in the editing. It’s in the writing itself.

The sooner we can all accept that generative AI is garbage, the better. What we need is to focus, laser-like, on the one important thing: providing for people’s basic needs without destroying the planet. We are material beings, with material needs, and power comes from being able to meet those needs. Boots on the ground, hands in the dirt, ChatGPT forgotten and irrelevant.