I remember this kind of slop from times well before the LLM explosion.

I'm specifically thinking of a print magazine that was designed to make you feel like you are a smart reader of science articles, without any useful information about the actual science or technology.

Yes, the article acknowledges this in the first paragraph by citing Harry Frankfurt’s „On Bullshit“ (1986). Of course bullshit (as well as even more insidious misinformation/propaganda) have always been around, but the incredible advances in its production and dissemination are worth considering. At some point, sheer quantity turns into its own quality. Indeed I would argue these issues have always been underconsidered. The article is a kind of inoculation against bullshit that every generation requires again and again. People aren’t born nearly skeptical enough, and the game keeps ever changing.

I actually don’t think the article is sufficiently vehement in calling out just how brain-frying this is. And how destructive on a societal level. The razor’s edge between being too uncritical and too cynical is hella narrow.

> I remember this kind of slop from times well before the LLM explosion.

Even if that were true (which I don’t think it is, this is a different kind of worthless content), you most definitely don’t remember it at this scale, and that’s a major point.