Could this not be simply summarized as ZIRP fueled a bubble in tech long before AI? Mass layoffs have been cycling on and off since ZIRP stopped. I doubt we will see that change anytime soon.
I think you have to be aware of how you use any tool but I don’t think this is a forever treadmill. It’s pretty clear to me since early on that the goal is for you the user to not have to craft the perfect prompt. At least for my workflow it’s pretty darn close to that for me.
If it ever gets there, then anyone can use it and there's no "skill" to be learned at all.
Either it will continue to be this very flawed non-deterministic tool that requires a lot of effort to get useful code out of it, or it will be so good it'll just work.
That's why I'm not gonna heavily invest my time into it.
Good for you. Others like myself find the tools incredibly useful. I am able to knock out code at a higher cadence and it’s meeting a standard of quality our team finds acceptable.
The world is built at a balance between good taste and good economics. AI slop is still slop. Reminds me when there were massive booms on outsourcing software to low cost labor markets. Most of the software born out of those markets was slop and not much different than what we see today. Good taste still matters in most work. I am pretty big proponent of AI but I don’t think AI can write a book that I enjoy. Similarly I don’t believe AI can write software end to end without a humans input of good taste. Sure you can brute force it but like those early years of outsourcing I bet it won’t be maintainable or well running.
This might be one of those “the market can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent” cases, though.
And for arts and entertainment, where the long term value is less important economically than the immediate click, AI slop is good enough that the percentage of people unable to tell the difference means there’s no point in creating any more except at the highest end or for the love of it.
I’m watching people listen to AI-generated music and not notice (or even prefer it over human-produced music). I’m watching people on FB who can’t tell the most ridiculous AI-generated imagery from reality.
It may not be good enough for you or me; but the average consumer is not all that discerning. They’ll choose whatever gives them a dopamine hit.
I think we are thinking about different things. Slop content has existed long before AI. I agree on the music front there is a possibility but I don’t see it much different than all the low effort lowfi music that flooded the study stations. I don’t see a future yet where engineers or other folks making tasteful content have to worry about their job security. When that time comes there are going to be real concerns from more than just the creative types.
I am not sure why this was flagged but I don’t think it’s wrong. I am not sure if it’s a uniquely American thing but the internet has caused an unfortunate case of brigading for almost anything. I like to think I sit fairly middle in a lot of American topics I lean left on some items, taxes, healthcare, free school lunches and right on others but I remember how easy it was a number of years ago to be labeled a racist. You really cannot have an opinion about much these days without someone labeling you something unfavorably. It’s unfortunate.
I don’t think it’s ironic and my point was not the act of labeling itself but more of how America has become a brigading culture. Free speech should be protected, even for things that we know are wrong but we have this decay of the internet and culture where you are either with someone or against them.
I am not objecting to people expressing disagreement or labeling as an abstract exercise of free speech. I am pointing to a pattern that has become common online where disagreement quickly turns into coordinated pile-ons, identity assignment, and social signaling rather than substantive engagement with the argument itself.
Free speech protects the right to do that, but it does not mean the behavior is healthy or productive. When discourse collapses into binary alignment where nuance is treated as hostility, it discourages honest participation and pushes people toward silence or extremes.
So yes, others are exercising free speech. My concern is about the cultural outcome of how that speech is increasingly used, not whether it is permitted.
Increasingly society in America is either you are with us or not and at least for me my view of the world is more nuanced and day to day.
> I am pointing to a pattern that has become common online where disagreement quickly turns into coordinated pile-ons, identity assignment, and social signaling rather than substantive engagement with the argument itself.
It's easy to fall prey to the fallacy that disagreement with you means the disagreers are failing to engage substantively to the topic, and are simply "social signaling".
It's easy to dismiss many people disagreeing with you as a "coordinated pile on".
In my experience, these accusations are usually a result of the "piled on"'s failure to understand and consider the others' perspective, and their unwillingness to change their mind.
Not to say that they must understand and consider others' perspectives, or that they must be willing to change their mind either! But engaging with a society means facing social pressure to conform with social norms. There's always not engaging with society in any meaningful way, as an option.
I agree those are real failure modes, and I am not denying they happen. People absolutely misread disagreement as bad faith, or assume coordination where there is none, especially when emotions are involved.
Where I differ is that I do not think this is only an individual perception problem. There are structural incentives online that reward signaling, amplification, and rapid norm enforcement over slower, substantive engagement. That does not require explicit coordination to function like a pile on, and it does not require bad intent from participants.
Social pressure and norm enforcement are inevitable in any society, as you note. My concern is about degree and speed. When the dominant response to a nonconforming view is immediate identity assignment or moral framing rather than argument, the space for persuasion narrows quickly. At that point, engagement becomes less about exchanging ideas and more about sorting people.
Opting out is always an option, but that feels like conceding that meaningful public discourse online is no longer worth defending. I am not convinced that is a good outcome either.
> There are structural incentives online that reward signaling, amplification
Those same structural incentives reward people organizing around a topic about which they're genuinely both passionate and informed. So how are you determining the difference?
> and rapid norm enforcement over slower, substantive engagement
Different people have different opinions over whether violation of norms should be tolerated, and how quickly. Note that this is different from tolerating disagreement, but some disagreement is so heinous as to violate norms in and of itself (e.g. a nazi salute).
> That does not require explicit coordination to function like a pile on, and it does not require bad intent from participants.
Sure, but a "pile on", which I'll refer to by the more impartial term "many people disagreeing with a person or their take" or "many people validly expressing that a person has violated norms" is totally okay and valid in a society. The speed and degree of that enforcement is itself a social norm, and if it seems people prefer a high speed and high degree, then that is the norm.
I could speculate why that has become the norm, but I'll just generalize that there is a lot of hurt going around, and a lot of callousness to it, and a lot of failures of the traditional ways of addressing it, like shame.
I do not think there is a clean, mechanical way to distinguish passion and expertise from signaling in the moment, and I am not claiming omniscience there. My point is about aggregate behavior and incentives, not adjudicating individual intent. Systems that reward visibility, speed, and alignment will naturally select for responses that optimize for those traits, regardless of whether participants are sincere, informed, or acting in good faith.
On norms, I agree there are cases where the content itself is the violation, not merely a disagreement. Extreme examples make that clear. Where it becomes tricky is that the boundary of what counts as norm violating has expanded and become more fluid, while the enforcement mechanisms have become faster and more punitive. That combination raises the risk of false positives and discourages exploratory or imperfect reasoning, even when the underlying intent is not malicious.
I also agree that many people disagreeing is not inherently a problem. What I am pushing back on is the framing that this is always just neutral preference aggregation. When enforcement becomes immediate, public, and identity focused, it changes the cost structure of participation. The fact that a norm exists does not automatically mean it is optimal for discourse, only that it is currently dominant.
Your last point about hurt and callousness is important. I suspect that is part of the explanation. But if widespread hurt leads us to default to faster and harsher sorting rather than engagement, it seems reasonable to ask whether that tradeoff is actually helping us understand each other better, or just making the lines more rigid.
> The fact that a norm exists does not automatically mean it is optimal for discourse, only that it is currently dominant.
> if widespread hurt leads us to default to faster and harsher sorting rather than engagement, it seems reasonable to ask whether that tradeoff is actually helping us understand each other better, or just making the lines more rigid.
I agree with these totally valid points. I think what we're seeing, though, is people are prioritizing "stopping the hurt" above "optimal for discourse". Most hurt animals will lash out and otherwise act in ways less rational than if they were feeling good. And as for the current scenario, where people are actively continuing to pile more hurt on? Forget about it.
I think it’s all part of the same culture of brigading. My comment was more an extension of thought to the parents that America has gone down a hole where dialogue no longer exists.
> You really cannot have an opinion about much these days without someone labeling you something unfavorably. It’s unfortunate.
That is free speech. And the violence you see is direct consequence of a culture that tuts tuts "this is rude" when someone says "these right wing people are fascists" rather then look at what those right wing people openly talk about.
It is but you’re missing the point. Just because something is free speech does not make it any less unfortunate. It’s pretty clear in some of the threads here how polarizing things have become.
I am going to vouch for this comment because this is a great example of what I was describing. People jump to whatever conclusion they want and you are either with them or without. It’s sad what has come to be in society.
People jump to the conclusion because a lot of the time they've had this exact argument already, and they know how it tends to end.
Proclaiming oneself a centrist might seem like a noble, moderate position. But in 2026, with the Overton window basically being shifted outside the frame?
What argument are we having? I see someone struggling to hold their own words steady, and you claiming that I am proclaiming something when I only mentioned it because of this exact problem. I do not really think of myself as left or right within the current American political system. I do not follow either political party, and my opinions often zig zag across existing party lines. If anything, maybe “centrist” is the wrong or overly loaded word. I do not follow any particular political movement in America.
The point still stands brigading is a massive problem in America.
I'm not having an argument. I was just trying to explain that "I'm not left or right" sounds like "I am perfectly fine with how things are right now" to the people who think the current state of things is an absolute disaster.
Maybe it’s not obvious but you compared the thread to an argument. I see no argument. Just a boneheaded reply from someone which was a great example of exactly what I was describing.
Your follow up is pretty on point too, somehow we go from the topic of brigading to maybe me being ok with the current state of things. This is a really great example of the problem I was describing. Thank you.
> The point still stands brigading is a massive problem in America.
So why is it that self proclaimed centrists consistently talk in right-wing talking points? That's my entire point, you talk in cancel culture/culture war talking points as if those are real issues and even the single most pertinent issues in America. Even though in reality they are purely artificial constructions of right-wing propaganda, spread by Fox News, Heritage Foundation and other right-wing think-tanks and media figures. When I hear those mirrored back to me by someone who claims to be a centrist, I can't contain my frustration.
It's like this political illiteracy that gets on my nerves, it's people fed propaganda they internalized as some political congruent position that reads to me as completely incomprehensible gibberish. It's like a proto-fascist is in power that is rounding people up and putting them in concentration camps and you are undecided IDEOLOGICALLY, I'm sorry but that's just lack of very basic political education and being a severe victim of neoliberal depoliticization. Read a book.
I was going to write out more but realized it’s probably not productive. Just remember you are part of the problem. I have outlined no political affiliation other than stating that America is extremely polarized these days and sadly polarized people see you as either with them or against. You are proving that point pretty well. I genuinely feel sorry for you and I hope sometime you can self reflect and realize that you are part of the problem. You are rude and come across educated but not well spoken. I am not your enemy.
Anecdotal to myself. I shamefully sometimes use TikTok, I particularly like recipe clips and even I noticed something in the last week, most noticeably around this weekend where the algorithm for recommendations changed. It’s like they completely wiped my preferences. I try not to watch anything political so I cannot say much about censorship of content but something was noticeable in the last week.
I noticed exactly the same thing. I don't recall which day it started (probably this past Sunday), but it was as if a switch flipped. My For You Page no longer has anything to do with my preferences. I'm familiar with Tiktok nudging me in different directions in the past, but I was always able to steer it back to videos I was interested in within 10-15 minutes. Three days later, and it's as if Tiktok not only has forgotten everything about my watch history, it also hasn't learned. That said, it doesn't seem to be entirely about politics. I had a mix of political/protest related content, native plant content, and woodworking videos on my For You Page. None of those are showing up for me.
Very similar for me as well. And yes no connection to the politics angle. It was very pronounced for me because I would like a video and then every other video it showed me was someone else’s version of it. It was very bizarre.
Same experience here, and also I noticed several channels I used to be following I was no longer following after the hand offs. The feed is completely different now.
It’s amazes how confident people will describe your lived experiences and say you are wrong. No this was entirely different and coincided in time with the complaints of censorship.
From my read you said something different from what OP said. They voiced that there was a wiping of preference that was noticeable, where you said "it does this all the time." Sure both can describe the same thing, but they don't have to be. Why double down instead of accepting that this time it might be different?
Because this exact conspiracy has been going on since the elections for 2020. And it's well known and documented. Are you essentially asking me why I wouldn't encouFrage a conspiracy theory based on the anecdote of someone who says they hardly use the platform they are suggesting is forcing propaganda/censorship on them?
There are polarizing events getting more coverage right now, by far, than anything else in the USA, and HN user infecto is subscribing to the idea that the algorithm isn't going to try to check if these important ongoing events interest them.
It's very unlikely that "this time might be different"; the far more likely answer is that this is run-of-the-mill algorithm exploration injection.
Infecto replied me I said "you are wrong". I didn't. My original comment was assuring, in good faith, made to let them know that TikTok changing theit FYP feed is normal. They hadn't yet mentioned they already knew about algo resets and that they were leaning in to the conspiracies. Their reply to me was not in good faith, and did not respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what I originally commented.
> There are polarizing events getting more coverage right now, by far, than anything else in the USA, and HN user infecto is subscribing to the idea that the algorithm isn't going to try to check if these important ongoing events interest them.
No conspiracy theory here. Long time user of TikTok. The sometimes part is that I am not hooked on it but I do use its regularly. I started using it after being a user on Douyin.
Like I already said I have no input on the censorship but just anecdotally to me something’s dis change that was out of the norm for my usage that I never experienced before. If you want to say that’s normal ok but I am suggesting it was out of the norm as a long long time user.
Not sure why you are lumping me with a conspiracy theory just sharing a datapoint that something did change weather on purpose or not.
Sorry to offend you but please don’t misread and lump me into a conspiracy! I explicitly said I had no opinion or datapoint on the censorship but there was a massive change in the feed. Wild how many hoops you are jumping through here. You continue to call out my own experience as wrong and now pump me into a conspiracy theorist. Nutty.
That's not how these words work. A reasonable person wouldn't think these phrases are interchangeable when taking about something addictive -- in this case TicTok. Someone who "smokes sometimes" and someone who "smokes regularly" are very different groups. This isn't an attack; I understand you now, I'm just trying to get you to see where I was coming from.
> Like I already said I ... that I never experienced before.
You had not said that yet, you just said I said you were wrong.
> this was entirely different and coincided in time with the complaints of censorship.
If you think this statement isn't reasonably interpreted as you implying and leaning in to, or in the very least encouraging, this conspiracy theory, then I think you are being disingenuous.
I was trying to provide helpful information by giving someone who only "sometimes" uses tiktok some assurance that these changes are typical.
Please stop backpedaling and attacking me. You don’t know me and you have not acknowledged the lies you have already used for absolutely no reason. I apologize my words upset you that was not my intent but I am concerned you continue going down this route.
You’re reading into my words far deeper than you should. I have used the App for a long time off and on but enough to know something changed whether intentional or not over the last week.
I already stated in the very beginning that I have no comment or opinion on the censorship. That’s not my corner of the world but was sharing an anecdote that something most definitely changed in my feed around the same time. Could be related or not but it coincides with the timeline. Even with the timeline similarity it may simply be a bug in the recommendation engine. I was only sharing an anecdote and no it was not exploration injection. The anecdote was just that my experience and saying it follows the same timeline is not suggesting a conspiracy is happening but that yes something happened/broke in the feed and it aligns with my timeline.
Please stop attacking me. I have apologized for my words already they carried no ill intent but still amazed how you continue to invalidate my experience while also attacking me. Maybe you should take some of your advice.
"I said you were right" is not doubling down, and looks like an accurate description of the conversation to me. OP got hostile for no good reason. If it's different, they can talk about how it's different instead of going on the attack against someone that listened and tried to provide information.
No hostility just amazing how I can share a datapoint as a long time user that something did interrupt the feed engine in a negative way and I get told it’s normal when in my experience it’s not.
Sloppy analogy time: Imagine you came in and said your vacuum cleaner broke and someone said "Yeah, that brand loses suction after six months, it's obnoxious." They're telling you it's normal for that type of vacuum, but they're not calling you wrong, they're trying to agree with you. If your problem is different, go ahead and correct them, but they're not denying your lived experience!
(And don't say they should have inferred you knew about that behavior and known you meant this was different. That's too close to expecting someone to read your mind. Especially when your original post didn't mention you were a long time user with enough dedication to notice that.)
I usually try to steer clear from replying to your full time posting but cmon. I am saying this experience has nothing to do with exploration injection. Could I have replied differently, sure but they also are whipping up some wild conspiracy theories and I have no time to be associated with that.
> I am saying this experience has nothing to do with exploration injection.
Yes.
But the guy you're talking to had no way to know that, and you shouldn't have taken insult at what he said.
> wild conspiracy theories
What?
Edit: Also for your first sentence, have we been in an argument or something? But apparently I've made 5 comments a day all-time and 7.6 comments a day in the last year. If that's full time then I need to become a brand promotion contractor ASAP.
I no longer use TikTok, but I was pretty hooked for a while, and I felt those “waves” every now and then.
It was pretty noticeable because each time I started getting extreme right political content from my country, and I neither consume anything local nor right wing content.
Yes I have and this reset was very different than anything I have experienced. I would like a specific recipe and then they the feed would show me someone else’s attempt of that recipe. I haves used the app for years off and on.
I don’t think trendy is really the right word and maybe it’s not state of the art but a lot of us in the industry are seeing emerging capabilities that might make it SOTA. Hope that makes sense.
LLMs are indeed the definition of trendy (I've found using Google Trends to dive in is a good entry point to get a broad sense of whether something is "trendy")! Basically the right way to think about it is that something can be promising, and demonstrate emerging capabilities, but but those things don't make something SOTA, nor do they make it trendy. They can be related though (I expect everything SOTA was once promising and emerging, but not everything promising or emerging became SOTA). It's a subtlety that isn't super easy to grasp, but (and here is one area I think an LLM can show promise) an LLM like ChatGPT can help unpick the distinctions here. Still, it's slightly nuanced and I understand the confusion.
I think the point may have flown over your head. I am suggesting you are being dismissive with a distinct lack of thought on your reply. Like said I don’t think state of the art is the right way to describe it but I think trendy is equally wrong from the other side of the spectrum. Models that can deal with vision have some really interesting use cases and ones that can be valuable, in a lot of ways I would say state of the art could describe it but I know to folks that are hopelessly negative, it’s a hard reach so I was trying to balance it for you. Hope that makes sense.
My confusion maybe? Is this simulator just flying point a to b? Seems like it’s handling collisions while trying to locate the targets and identify them. That seems quite a bit more complex than what you are describing has been solved since the 1930s.
That’s a pretty boring point for what looks like a fun project. Happy to see this project and know I am not the only one thinking about these kinds of applications.
The right tool would likely be some conventional autopilot software; if you want AI cred you could train a Neural Network which maps some kind of path to the control features of the drone. LLMs are language models -- good for language, but not good for spacial reasoning or navigation or many of the other things you need to pilot a drone.
Doesn’t that kind of exist already across a couple sites? Thinking consumer labs does this across lots of supplement categories. I have seen a few others too.
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