The upshot is that having everything be AI slop could be what breaks our collective addiction to chronic screen time/usage.

People will argue that if a shortform video is human made or AI generated it doesn't matter, it's domamine-triggering filler either way.

But I do think that the parasocial relationships and discovering new influencers is a big part of the hook for many people, and taking that away may cause many to have a "what the hell am I even watching" moment.

It's easier to justify the addiction when it feels like you're "hanging out with a friend." When content is AI generated from concept to production, it's just...talking pixel soup.

The only winning move is not to play.

First I removed the Instagram app from my phone, because it was full of dark patterns meant to keep users scrolling.

Endless reposted stories from people you follow, endless suggested posts when you ran out of posts from people you actually know, and then the slop bucket known as reels. I found myself sucked in too often.

I used the web app version on my phone for a bit, which has a lot fewer dark patterns, but eventually I ditched that too because I found myself checking it out of habit.

Now I still have a login on my desktop browser, because for whatever reason some businesses insist on only sharing hours/menus etc via an Instagram post. But I'm close to pulling the plug on Instagram altogether.

Is there an xcancel equivalent for Instagram that lets me bypass the login wall in a pinch?

I also added a ublock origin filter list for tuning out social media distractions. Now my YouTube and Reddits are essentially blank feeds - no suggested posts, stories or recommendations.

https://github.com/BevizLaszlo/UBlock-Filters-for-Social-Med...

Perhaps you meant 'upside' .. if so, well played.

A large number of extremely smart people are being paid ungodly amounts of money to enhance the addictiveness of AI output. I'm not optimistic about them failing.

Nothing will happen to it. Someone will eventually complete the loop between slop generators to human reward systems to turn the first order derivative of content supply back up to pre-COVID levels.

For a few perhaps. I finally got mad enough at facebook slop to quit checking every day. I still have an account, but check it maybe once a month if I think of it (generally because my kids do something cute and I want to share the photo with my family). I don't want to see the right/left wing "you need to be outraged about this evil thing the left/right wing just did" (both sides do it, if you don't see it either you need a more diverse group of friends, or you are not honest about people you mostly agree with). There is value in facebook, but it is at most 5 minutes per day - and that doesn't pay their bill so they want the slop.

Of course I lose the most from the above. There are a number of events that are only spread on facebook and so I don't find out about them. Facebook has mostly replaced craigslist.

It certainly offers strong motivation, in my experience, to revisit or commit to analog based hobbies. Recently I did a sewing class at a library. I’ve got a watercolor painting kit for about $30 all in and - as this article indicates - seeking info by surfing the web to use the web as a benefit, well I do recommend it.

There still is plenty of information superhighway infrastructure online - more than ever! It’s a matter of disengaging from the AI “slop trough” as I like to call it. Good article framing the discussion.