Here's a thought experiment.

Imagine a stamp mark with the words "Made with #AI" on it.

If you see this mark on a picture, illustration, mobile app, song, movie, or story - do you get the notion that this product is of higher, lower or unchanged quality?

If you see two identical products for the same price, where one has an AI mark and the other doesn't - which one would you buy?

(Please retoot this #LLM #poll for wider reach)

@sjn
The use of AI is not relevant for quality. One produces good or bad products with or without AI use.
It is definitely dependent on the human side, whether or not her/his homework is done. Let me say that I saw shitty code produced by humans and AI, as well as good enough code.

@gisgeek I think that strictly within the software development field, you may have a point - under the right circumstances.

Sadly, these tools aren't _only_ used for supporting highly skilled software developers.

Just take a look at your profile photo - clearly generated! What do you think this tells people about yourself?

This is what I'm asking in the poll: Does the next person seeing that image associate it with a positive, negative, or no change in quality?

Makes you think, no?

@sjn
Ah nice example the image. Let me explain. Incidentally, I'm perfectly able to draw a self-portrait of myself in Moebius style. But I had no intention to do that for a series of reason, including the time to dedicate to use ink and colors for that (I'm an old fashioned amateur comic book artist). I deliberately choose to not doing that. So the use of AI says exactly nothing about me (i.e, it is not relevant) which is the point. Did you draw your avatar personally?

@gisgeek My avatar image was drawn by an illustrator on a commission. I don't have the skills to draw. 😅

(That reminds me, I really should reach out to them to commission an update)

Though my question wasn't about your intention with the image, but rather what the audience/reader associates with it, when seeing it.

I think that their thoughts matter, though of course this doesn't have to mean their thoughts matter _to you_. (And that's fine, really. You do you! 😸)

@sjn I understand the point of view of artists and creators. Being used for neural net training is not something many of them have ever contemplated. Which is fine, but licenses and copyright exist for that.
But it's a totally different matter. Again, it is not about quality, and I could cite that photography was not considered art in the old days. At that time, a drawing was art, a photo a mere reproduction of reality. Perceptions of such things change a lot. We live in interesting times.

@sjn It is also one (not the main) reason why none of my drawings have been published on the web by me. Sure, I could add a license and copyright (but I would probably use a CC-BY license), but that would not prevent possible abuses.
Of course, creators are now extremely worried about their role and future, but none did the same when CGI was introduced in cinema (and that is largely computer-generated, with no ridiculous marks).
So maybe people should b more ehm, coherent...

@gisgeek what do you mean with "be more coherent"?

@sjn Simply, I see such AI things as yet other tools; it is not the end of the world, and fighting against them is no different from fighting against cameras, digital art, CGI in cinema, the whole cinema (versus theatre), and so on. So why AI mark only? One could add the Handcrafted mark vs Industrial. Is that a quality marker? Not necessary so: a lot of handcrafted things are simply bad products, plain and clean.

@sjn
Anyway, thanks for your poll; it sparked a possible blog post where I could better articulate why quality is a human-driven goal, not something intrinsically present or absent in AI-aided design. High-quality or good enough are often the choices in many fields, regardless of tools.

@gisgeek I get your analogies, though I'm afraid they might be failing you.

The #LLM tools today aren't like CGI or digital art or the introduction of television.

Your examples are are tools of the hand and of trade and markets.

#AI tools are tools of the mind. They aren't just a support for thinking, but increasingly a _replacement_ for thinking, and this includes all the consequences that come from this.

We regulated the use of tools to avoid the bad behavior. Maybe do the same with AI?

@gisgeek I think polls like these are useful for identifying where it would make sense to introduce a "Drivers license for #AI".

Clearly, this tool is being used to hurt people today – in too many ways to list here.

Does the few positive/constructive use cases weigh up against the damage that is done by #LLM tools today?

Clearly not.

And this is important because we don't live on our separate software/tech bubbles. We live in a society, together with everyone else.

@sjn Ah sure, the impact of AI on society is a much larger topic, my observation was only about simplicistic labeling of quality for human-only vs AI-aided tasking. I'm worried too for many aspects of the AI-revolution, but which are largely due to our (as a whole society) total incapacity of managing changes in a proper way, for instance in order to avoid leaving people behind.

@gisgeek The impact of #AI on society isn't actually such a large topic.

We can easily cut right through the rhetoric and complexities, and ask one simple question:

Does using #AI help us create a society that is better for all of us?

Those who say yes tend to be of the techno-optimist type, always hoping, looking forward, maybe a bit naïve?

Those who say no tend to be the realist type, looking at what happens today and shaking their head in dissent.

Those who are deep experts, shout #NoAI!

@sjn ROTFL, if the world were in black and white, we would have lived in a perfect society for ages. Unfortunately, there is nothing that is good or bad a priori, and the future is always in the fog. If one were to base a decision on what it seems at the present time, we probably would still live in a forest. Changes are never good for all people, so the logical decision would be no changes at all.

@sjn I don't necessarily expect lower quality, but I do at the very least know that creative rights have been violated in creating it, so I would be less inclined to buy/use it.

@sjn

@sjn Assuming by AI we mean LLMs, this stamp would essentially say "no one cared to think this through".

@sjn you omitted the option 'completely useless if not for propaganda' here, sorry