What are the rules? Is it okay to use autocomplete? Are spell checkers accepted? What if I used an AI chatbot to figure out something instead of a traditional search engine?
None of these amount to AI making something. Before AI, it’s been humans who put the words on the paper, who put the strokes on the canvas, who put the notes on the sheet. Spell-checking and auto-completion have existed before AI and do not fundamentally change the process.
Since this project singles out AI (likely generative AI using machine learning), it seems evident to me that it rules out any involvement which does fundamentally change the process, i.e. what people otherwise do when creating.
(Yes, one could argue that e.g. word processing or printing have also fundamentally changed the process, and that is absolutely true, but each of those has changed the process differently than machine learning has, and clearly this website considers the changes made by AI undesirable in some ways, not the changes made by word processing or printing.)
The question remains. Where do you draw the line? What are the rules?
The site only states "There's only one rule: generative AI cannot be used in the creation of the project.", without defining any further rules, nor does it clarify the exact definition of "creation of the project".
Like, what if you included a library in your project that was vibe-coded (but your main code wasn't), would your project be considered as "human-made"?
> The question remains. Where do you draw the line? What are the rules?
These questions absolutely remain, but their scope is not nearly as wide as some people here make it out to be. Of course, narrowing it down further might be nice.
"You must nail down every single detail in objective terms" is a dishonest requirement we, as engineers, reach for when we don't like something subjectively. It's petty. It's not honest.
If you're an engineer, you'll understand why it's not petty. You do not want ambiguity in engineering. If you cannot even define what it is that you're campaigning for, then it's just random ramblings with no substance. No one's going to take you seriously if you can't even define what you're asking of others.
You don't want ambiguity in a proper engineering project. In a simple webpage denouncing the slop machine and their prevalent sloperators, I've got more than enough to know i appreciate the initiative. I'm personally considering an actual boycott of anything remotely involving AI.
That's fine, but again, you need to be clear on where you're drawing the line. Because boycotting "anything remotely involving AI" means boycotting all mainstream operating systems (Linux, Windows, Android, macOS, iOS) - which means ditching smartphones completely and maybe even mobile phones completely (because I'm not sure if you can find a 4G-capable phone that doesn't use some sort of Linux-based OS).
But this also means you won't be able to work most white-collared jobs, as almost every such job these days involves operating a computer running a mainstream OS. But I guess there are still some jobs out there where you could be operating a legacy OS, such as as some banks and other financial institutions, maybe you could learn COBOL and work on mainframes or something.
And naturally your boycott would also include most of the modern web, because most web browsers these days have some sort of AI involvement or the other, not to mention most mainstream websites as well. So there's a good chance that even though you're working on old-school mainframes, you may still need to do your timesheets or taxes or whatever on a modern website. Or send emails at the very least. So most modern jobs would be a no-go.
So I hope you've got your line well defined, because "anything remotely involving AI" is a pretty loaded phrase that could completely cut you off modern technology and workplaces, and you could end up living the life of a hermit, or a medieval-era farmer or something. Which, I'm not saying is a bad or impossible thing - I know at least a couple of people who quit IT completely, took up farming and have gone off-grid - its certainly doable, so the question is, how badly you hate AI, and how far are you willing to go?
> Like, what if you included a library in your project that was vibe-coded (but your main code wasn't), would your project be considered as "human-made"?
Any dependency on a vibe-coded library, however indirect, makes an application not 100% human made (since the application relies on the library for some of its featutes).
If that's going to be your definition, then it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible to have a 100% human made program, unless you've personally hand-coded the entire OS, or you've verified beyond doubt that no vibe-coded dependency exist in the entire dependency chain - both build and runtime, direct and indirect.
I'm not sure how feasible verification of that would be, unless we have some "certified 100% human" certification program of some sort, with an external auditing agency or something - because you can't trust humans, they will 100% lie.
If "verifying the entire dependency chain" is that difficult for your project, you have a problem in any case (and you're probably using npm).
You don't need to have personally hand-coded the OS, of course, you just need a OS that's not vibe-coded, and hopefully that just means avoiding Windows.
Even if you actually consider the OS a dependency, which is a stretch
And hopefully vibe coding doesn't get as widespread to become hard to avoid it.
> If "verifying the entire dependency chain" is that difficult for your project, you have a problem in any case (and you're probably using npm).
That's a problem for anyone coding a modern app these days, not just npm users.
> You don't need to have personally hand-coded the OS, of course, you just need a OS that's not vibe-coded, and hopefully that just means avoiding Windows.
That's a problem too, because Linux is already accepting gen-AI code, and you can bet your arse that Google and Apple are too. So that just leaves the niche OSes, and although I don't know of their individual stances, the trust problem still remains - how do you know they're not using gen-AI in some shape or form, without some sort of formal certification and auditing system?
> That's a problem for anyone coding a modern app these days, not just npm users
I wouldn't really say that
> That's a problem too, because Linux is already accepting gen-AI code
If it's accurately reviewed it's fine for me, although yeah, it wouldn't fit the 100% human definition.
Just as you can make GPL software for closed-source operating systems, though, I think you could ignore the OS in a definition of 100% human-made software.
We can agree to disagree, but pretty much every modern app uses dependencies at some level, and that's a problem for everyone. Sure, npm is probably the worst of them all, but even the so called "safe" Rust is very heavy on dependencies - just look at any popular Rust project these days. It's only a matter of time until a malicious or poor quality code makes its way in a popular Rust project... or any other project for that matter. Just see the state all the popular FOSS projects are in, they're all getting swamped by LLM-driven PRs, so much so that some projects (like Ladybird) have decided to stop accepting PRs completely.
The problem isn't just about whether or not the code is accurately reviewed, because under pressure, humans are bound to slip up - just take a look at what happened with the XZ project, it has now become a textbook example of how projects can be compromised. LLMs have made the situation worse, it's only a matter of time until we see a second or third Jia Tan due to the pressure maintainers are in - or we see more FOSS projects stop accepting PRs altogether.
In such a scenario, every dependency is a liability.
And if you ignore the OS, that means you're drawing an arbitrary line in the sand - because how would you define what consists of an "OS"?
Going back to our example app, what if the app's dependency is Qt, and if Qt has vibe-coded components - by your original definition a few comments ago, that would make your app not human-made. But many distros also include Qt components OOTB due to some dependency or other (eg for KDE), so that would mean the OS is also not 100% human-made right?
This is dishonest (and very common). You may certainly argue that genAI content should count as human-made, but it's pointless to just gesture at pre-genAI tools like autocomplete and insist that other people do the work of comparing/contrasting.
It's OK to use the term "human made" to mean "not the output of genAI". There's no "gotcha" to be scored here.
i think you need to be more specific: if just the procedural generation was replaced or augmented with AI generation, would that be less acceptable? the procedural part is machine generated either way and everything else is done by hand as before.
the question here really depends on how much the procedural generator is an artwork in itself, and how much that would be lessened by using AI to generate the worlds instead.
I find it interesting how the techies are suddenly losing their minds over technology. We have killed a ton of other people’s jobs over the last few decades and made excellent money doing so. Now it seems it’s our turn
Good. I wish we would kill 100% of the "jobs" out there and we could all start working on the things that we want instead of spending the best years of our lives doing stupid bullshit.
We should work to eliminate all work. That should be something we strive towards. The end of work you don't want to do.
You're trying to argue semantics here, and I am saying, "none of that matters, people shouldn't have to do things that they don't want to do in order to justify their right to survive."
There, is that better? You shouldn't have to do a job you hate (or indeed a job you love) to have the right to continue to exist in our society, and that's the current state of affairs more or less. You work, or society is happy to let you die. I want to end that.
I'm not arguing semantics. I'm doing all the heavy lifting unpacking what you're trying to actually say.
Work is intrinsic to life because it's how you contribute back to the society that enables your continuation of life.
If I assume good faith then your disagreement simply doesn't make sense, but I'm starting to think you're arguing in bad faith. I'm tempted to call you entitled and antisocial, but that would surely end this discussion if I'm incorrect.
It isn't though. Work isn't intrinsic to life. It is currently a requirement in our system because we made it one, but that doesn't mean that there's some law of the universe that says we must work (especially for others' benefit at significantly discounted rates) like dogs from the day we're capable of doing it to the day we die. There's plenty.
When I was flying for a living, I would have gladly continued to do it gratis if all my needs were met, but you can bet your ass I wouldn't be doing it on nights and weekends (except for when I was doing medevac work). Now as an entrepreneur and software person, I work for myself - this is optimal. But I certainly don't think I should have to to justify my right to continue sucking oxygen.
You shouldn't owe society something for simply existing. Full stop. Neither you nor I chose to instantiate into this environment, so us having some sort of moral duty to feed our heart and soul into the economic system is nonsense and we should eliminate that requirement for everyone.
If Bob Smith wants to spend all of his time wanking off, so be it, it's his life to spend. He shouldn't be compelled to work so he can have the continued right to exist. We can do better. We have the ability to.
> Work isn't intrinsic to life. It is currently a requirement in our system because we made it one, but that doesn't mean that there's some law of the universe that says we must work
So I guess I'm correct.
You can go live in the woods and find out how much work it is.
I'm literally building a cabin in the woods lol, I'd suspect I'm far more aware of it than you are. I think we may have different definitions of work here? Or something? Or you're arguing in bad faith? Whatever.
Look man, you don't owe anyone anything for existing. Nor does anyone owe you anything. This idea that we have to grind down the best years of our lives into an apparatus that doesn't give a shit about us so that we can justify our right to keep breathing? That sucks. I want to end that. I think people should be able to do the things they want to do. I think we should make that a priority.
I mostly get to do the things I want to do and largely work for myself on projects I pick. I think everyone should have that opportunity. My wife does too - she's doing exactly what she wants in life. I think that's a good thing, and I think everyone should have the opportunity to live like that.
And if they don't want to do anything at all? I'm fine with that too.
I'm just going to quote my original comment from the top of this thread:
> I don't think it's possible to infer your definition of "work" from what you wrote. If you are doing something, that's work. You are against doing things you don't like. That's a different topic.
As a person who likes hand made items I'm for this. I will pay a premium for someone who hand makes an item. Bonus if it's someone older who provides old school craftsmanship.
This is a really good idea. I have zero interest in seeing something that someone couldn't be bothered to actually make themselves. And while we can't control the fact that people choose to outsource their creativity and thinking to a machine, we can choose to celebrate and highlight those who do not. I hope we see more of this as genAI becomes more and more of a blight on the quality of work out there.
This was my earliest use-case for LLMs and it remains to this day as the most compelling value proposition of all the fancy new LLMs.
I have always tried to abide by DRY in my programming career with the huge exception of writing unit tests. I made the mistake, early in my career when Test-Driven Development was all the rage, of making unit tests reflect the inheritance structure of the actual code. It just made sense. Needless to say, it quickly descended into the most bizarre manifestation of inheritance hell as tests randomly failed with no correlation to the changes done in the core code.
Hence, I resolved to make unit tests the huge exception to DRY. The more straightforward your tests are, the better. Endeavor that each test method up to a test class should read understandably on its own.
This, of course, made tests quite a mechanical chore to write. Which makes it the perfect use case for these large, verbose, and humorless daemons. Bonus that they are also very good at vibing out the set-up needed for a test so I can focus on specifying the test cases I want rather than setting up mock after stub after fake.
The output is also very easy to review and verify. I see no moral quandary in this kind of usage.
If the only interesting thing about a work is it's provenance is that work actually valuable?
actually in all honesty human works are predominantly crap, and a bit passé. If I'm going to visit a site whose whole shtick is provenance I'd rather see some really, objectively good, ai stuff. that would be way more interesting.
I don't mean to piss on your parade but llm generation is human output just like a car welded by robots is a human product. This contrived dualism between llm generated things and human generated things makes the llm into an independent agent (it is not, it is a statistical approximator) and denies the human origin of automated creations. do we say numbers calculated by hand are less authentic than by boolean logic? do we say books printed by press are less human in origin than medieval calligraphy? Ai is a tool. Its output is the result of human intention / attention.
When people say "hand-made furniture", everyone knows what that means. No one is struggling with the definition of "human-made work" except those who seem offended by its existence.
I'm not entirely sure what "100% human-made" even means. Also, what is the difference between 90% and 100%? Is any website (of the modern era) 100% human made?
Lucky for you, the website answers these questions in the very few sentences of text that it contains, so you can just read those sentences if you actually want your questions answered.
When I use AI to produce a work, it’s human-made, just the same as when I use a computer to synthesize digital works using human-developed automation tools like word processors. All built on top of operating systems that manipulate bytes of all natural human-made data.
When slop-jockeys get so triggered they pretend they can't even comprehend the premise and start to hyperfixate on semantics and pedantism you know it's a good idea.
Work generated by AI is extremely mediocre, and the entire cult of enthusiasm around it is forced. The GenAI cult can kindly fuck off to their AI waifus and leave those of us who still find value in being human alone.
From the name I was expecting to be humans doing things to force work. Like my child pouring milk on the table. Now I get to do work cleaning. It's human-made work. It's pretty easy to make work for others.
I don't understand what "human-made" means. Are they going to write assembly code themselves or are they taking a big pile of sand to create some transistors?
I understand some of the concerns about AI but they are either a problem of our economic system or of people not caring about what they are doing. Economic problems are probably the most important because robotics and AI have the potential to break our current capitalist system.
Time and time again I see these people spazzing out about human made work, as though humans should have to do any work at all that they don't freely choose to! Like, there's some moral puritan value to toiling in the code mines until you wither and die.
We're finally approaching a world where humans could work less and the only thought people can think about is how jobs might go away or some other such bullshit. Capitalist Realism has gotten so bad that I've seen anarchists cheering on copyright law and "so called" leftists wishing for the halcyon days of 30 years ago - just like their parents did in the 90s.
It's wild how conservative of an era we're in right now.
There is nothing wrong with walking or riding horses to get to where you need to go but I wouldn't celebrate that. It's a nice hobby bit not efficient. The same will probably happen to most of "human made code". It's fun but doesn't make much sense economically.
I enjoy pressing keys and entering code; I find it to be the most efficient way to communicate with my computer. Why would I not spend my time doing something I enjoy?
I thought you were talking about economic efficiency, not maximizing enjoyment. You can do anything you want with your time if you're not worried about economics, but that sort of contradicts your original statement.
> There's absolutely nothing wrong with using AI and it's something we should be celebrating.
In many cases, there are clear disadvantages to using AI, be it the effect on human psyche, the considerable resource consumption, the style of the output, or the fact that the resulting work was not authored by a person, which is a very subjective preference, but one that many people have nevertheless.
I agree that AI is a great technological achievement, but it’s not as if great technological achievements don’t come with any downsides. Celebrating them is reasonable, but also situational.
Horrible? You could have argued that celebrating both things is fine. But you didn't. The implication is simply the opposite: That I should be ashamed if I enjoy or am proud to have made something by hand.
Technology is not a universal good. That's a simplistic idea.
We have taken thousands of years to develop all sorts of horrible shit with more downsides than upsides - things that only exist because they are inevitable, not because they are purely beneficial to the spirit or even the practical wellbeing of humanity.
Take a example. You could be a hunter gatherer, you could grow all your own crops from scratch, you could forsake all modern medicine and rely on superstition - would you be considered a wise person? You figured out things a lot of people didn't, you took the harder road - but most people would say this approach is just dumb.
What's wise isn't forsaking technology, it's using technology to improve things, and developing new technology as well. What's wise is using AI as a power user and seeing how you can contribute to the intelligence age.
Celebrating a foregone past where human intelligence was more valuable is hopeless and naive at best.
That's not an example, it's an analogy. I don't see the value in shifting the conversation to identifying all the differences in an (extremely removed) analogy. It's rhetorically low-quality.
Different people value different things. Some people run even though they could have taken a Waymo. Some people are into paperclipmaxxing. I avoid AI to the extent that it's easy and practical, but I don't do it to call myself wise. I just don't like it. Am I being inefficient? Possibly. There are some things I do where I'm not optimizing for KPI though.
Do you think it would be a good thing if all music (for example) was made with AI and not by humans? What a lot of people in tech right now don’t seem to get is that art is about how it transforms the artist, not just the final product.
How is digital intelligence different from every technology that has ever and will ever exist, in your comment? Why does your comment apply to it, and not to other things (nukes, bioweapons, slot machines)? Is every technology inherently worth celebrating?
Your comment begs the question. It's worth celebrating because it's a great achievement because you said so.
