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> I fully admit that we have been surpassed by the machine in the ability to entertain. Why though? Daily here on HN, posts are pilloried for being AI generate

> I fully admit that we have been surpassed by the machine in the ability to entertain. Why though? Daily here on HN, posts are pilloried for being AI generated and full of AI tropes. AI generated content might be drowning out human generated content, but I wouldn’t say that it’s surpassed human content in a qualitative way.

un-diletante 2mo ago
I think in order to notice and take offense to those tropes, you already have to be prejudiced against them. And you probably also have the pretense that what you're reading was thought important enough by another person to write. So when you realize that this isn't the case you become disappointed. But some people just don't care, and are just in it for novel rearrangements of the narrative structure. I'll give you that I don't notice this so much with literary content, but I have seen people being entertained by AI generated music and videos quite a bit, especially children and those who in general are uncritical of what they consume. For example, the other day I was at a restaurant where they were playing some AI abomination of Frank Sinatra called "Take me to the Moon", and nobody really seemed to notice or care while I was becoming nauseous to my stomach. You have to already be biased to notice it, let alone to even be bothered by it.
doug_durham 2mo ago
Most popular fiction is formula entertainment like Tom Clancy novels. Tom Clancy novels are their own industry now. I have zero doubt that AI tools can generate countless variations of good guy US special OPs going after bad guy terrorist books. The "AI tropes" are over sold on HN. With the correct prompting and iteration today's AI tools can make nuanced fiction which avoids the low effort tropes. BTW "high effort" work with AI tools is but a small fraction of what of the effort using traditional means.

un-diletante 2mo ago

I think in order to notice and take offense to those tropes, you already have to be prejudiced against them. And you probably also have the pretense that what you're reading was thought important enough by another person to write. So when you realize that this isn't the case you become disappointed. But some people just don't care, and are just in it for novel rearrangements of the narrative structure. I'll give you that I don't notice this so much with literary content, but I have seen people being entertained by AI generated music and videos quite a bit, especially children and those who in general are uncritical of what they consume. For example, the other day I was at a restaurant where they were playing some AI abomination of Frank Sinatra called "Take me to the Moon", and nobody really seemed to notice or care while I was becoming nauseous to my stomach. You have to already be biased to notice it, let alone to even be bothered by it.

doug_durham 2mo ago

Most popular fiction is formula entertainment like Tom Clancy novels. Tom Clancy novels are their own industry now. I have zero doubt that AI tools can generate countless variations of good guy US special OPs going after bad guy terrorist books. The "AI tropes" are over sold on HN. With the correct prompting and iteration today's AI tools can make nuanced fiction which avoids the low effort tropes. BTW "high effort" work with AI tools is but a small fraction of what of the effort using traditional means.