> AI-generated code feels like progress and efficiency, while AI-generated articles and posts feel low-effort

I've noticed that attitude a lot. Everyone thinks their use of AI is perfectly justified while the others are generating slops. In gamedev it's especially prominent - artists think generating code is perfectly ok but get acute stress response when someone suggests generating art assets.

AI-generated code is meant for the machine, or for the author/prompter. AI-generated text is typically meant for other people. I think that makes a meaningful difference.

Considering the rise of transformer-based upscaling today (like the newest DLSS), lots of game devs are already indirectly ok with generated art. Sure the assets themselves might be handmade, but if the render pipeline involves a generated, upscaled image at the end then the line between AI and not AI is obviously very blurry.

Also, is a hand modeled final asset built based on AI-generated concept art still "AI"?

Who cares if a bush or a tree is fully AI-generated anyway? These "no AI whatsover on any game" people virtue signal too much to make a fair argument for whatever they're preaching about. Sure, I agree with the value of human creativity, but I also want people to be able to use whatever tools they like.

Ya i hate the idea that theres a difference, Code to me has always been as expressive about a person as normal prose. LLMs you lose a lot of vital information about the programmers personality. It leads to worse outcomes because it makes the failures less predictable.

I think there’s an uncanny valley effect with writing now.

Yesterday I left a code review comment that someone asked if AI wrote it. The investigation and reasoning were 100% me. I spent over an hour chasing a nuanced timezone/DST edge case, iterating until I was sure the explanation was correct. I did use Codex CLI along the way, but as a power tool, not a ghostwriter.

The comment was good, but it was also “too polished” in a way that felt inorganic. If you know a domain well (code, art, etc.), you start to notice the tells even when the output is high quality.

Now I’m trying to keep my writing conspicuously human, even when a tool can phrase it perfectly. If it doesn’t feel human, it triggers the whole ai;dr reaction.

Wehad a junior engineer do some research on a handful of different solutions for a technical design and present the team, he came up with a 27-page document with 70+ references(2/3 of which were reddit threads), no more than a few hours later after the task was assigned.

I would have been more okay with AI generated code, it would likely have been more objective and less verbose, I refused to review something that he obviously didn't put enough effort himself to do a POC on. When I asked for his own opinion on the different solutions evaluated he didn't have one

It's not about the document per se, but the actual value of these verbose AI-generated slop, code that is executable, even if poorly reviewed, it's still executable and likely to produce the output that satisfies functional requirements.

Our PM is now evaluating tools to generate documentation for our platform based on interpreting source code, it includes description of things such as what is the title and what the back button is for but wouldn't inform valid inputs for the creation of a new artefact. This AI-generated doc is in addition to our human made Confluence docs, which is likely to add to spam and reduce quality of search results for useful information.

the gamedev version of this is wild. i'm working on a mobile game right now and the internal calculus is genuinely confusing: using AI to help write networking code feels totally normal, using it to generate placeholder UI feels fine, but using it for the actual visual identity of the game feels like cheating, even though technically it's all "content creation."

i think the real line is about whether the AI output is the product or a tool to build the product. AI-generated code that ships isn't really the product, the behavior it creates is. but AI-generated art that ships is the product in a way the user directly perceives. the uncanny valley isn't in the quality, it's in the relationship between the creator and the output.

A flavor of the Primary Attribution Error perhaps? It’s not a snug fit, but it’s close.

My perspective as an eng lead is it’s all shit. Words, code, the lot. It’s literally an enabler for the worst characteristics of humanity: laziness and disinterested incompetence.

People are happy to shovel shit if they can get away with it.

> Everyone thinks their use of AI is perfectly justified while the others are generating slops

No doubt, but I think there a bit of a difference between AI generating something utilitarian vs something expected to at least have some taste/flavor.

AI generated code may not be the best compared to what you could hand craft, along almost any axis you could suggest, but sometimes you just want to get the job done. If it works, it works, and maybe (at least sometimes) that's all the measure of success/progress you need.

Writing articles and posts is a bit different - it's not just about the content, it's about how it's expressed and did someone bother to make it interesting to read, and put some of their own personality into it. Writing is part communication, part art, and even the utilitarian communication part of it works better if it keeps the reader engaged and displays good theory of mind as to where the average reader may be coming from.

So, yeah, getting AI to do your grunt work programming is progress, and a post that reads like a washing machine manual can fairly be judged as slop in a context where you might have hoped for/expected better.

The author is a blogger (creator and consumer) and coder though. They are speaking from experience in both cases, so it's not apt to your metaphor.

It's worth pointing out that AI is not a monolith. It might be better at writing code than making art assets. I don't work with gaming, but I've worked with Veo 3, and I can tell you, AI is not replacing Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn. That statement has nothing to do with Claude though...

Generating art is worse than generating code though IMO. It’s more personal. Everything exists on a spectrum, even slop.

Turns out it's only slop if it comes from anyone else, if you generated it it's just smart AI usage.