A Deluge of AI Gibberish is Invading Medium with Unstoppable Wit!
“AI Slop Is Flooding Medium”
“Artificial intelligence has a hall-of-mirrors quality these days. Avid consumers of AI news may have stumbled across what seemed an impressive feat last week: A bot that reportedly ‘wrote’ an article on data privacy that reached the top spot on the technology category of Hacker News.”
Just when we thought we’d seen it all, apparently we’re entering the era of AI taking over the blogging landscape. How quaint. Not long ago, we marveled at the thought of artificial intelligence learning to play chess; now, they’re penning opinion pieces and creating ripples in the online news community. Oh, how far we’ve come.
The article in question supposedly reached the pinnacle of Hacker News, sparking debates about the future roles of humans and AI in content creation. It feels rather like we’re all stuck in some kind of sci-fi movie, doesn’t it?
However, before surrendering our keyboards and notepads to our robot overlords, it’s imperative to add some clarity to this narrative. Discovering that the blog’s author was a bot could be baffling for some, reminiscent of a ‘they stole our jobs’ outcry. But we’re not exactly dealing with a techno-Shakespeare here.
Of course, there’s no denying that OpenAI’s GPT-3, the AI model behind the triumph, exhibits a remarkable advancement in AI capabilities. Its ability to mimic human-written streams of thought, albeit with sporadic coherence, is definitely intriguing. So much so that it captured the audience of Hacker News with its rather unorthodox perspective on data privacy.
But (and it’s quite a resounding but), let’s be clear, it wasn’t exactly employing the same eloquence or critical thinking that experienced human writers bring to the table. It’s no George Orwell. Nor is it exactly spewing out groundbreaking insights or opinions – it simply rattles through pre-existing data and follows content prompts.
In the grand scheme of things, what this event emphasizes most is the increasing need for stronger content moderation. It’s now more than ever necessary to discern automated content from human-based pieces. Even if only to prevent plagiarized content or irrelevant drivel from surfacing in the sea of insightful human-authored works.
So maybe let’s not throw in the towel just yet. AI can creatively regurgitate data, yes. It can even manage to pass off as a human on an online platform, sure. But when it comes to delivering thought-provoking, compelling and original content? Well, we’ll stick to our beloved human authors, thank you very much.
For now, let’s jump off the bandwagon of prematurely hailing AI as the new reigning champ of content creation. Let’s soberly remember: these bots are simply sophisticated puppets, dancing on strings of programming and existing data. They have their uses, but they’re no Jack Kerouac or Ursula K. Le Guin. At least, not yet.