I had this moment when we designed shirts for the marathon we ran as a group. Instead of Brainstorming something funny, we just prompted ChatGPT and chose one of the results.

I felt lost immediately. All the creativity, the humanity, the endless hours of putting soul into something. Gone

For one hour or so I had some kind of existential crisis. Just because of a funny slogan on a shirt. And sometimes I still feel empty on new projects. You can produce so much things so fast, but if it should be something original - it is hard to get it generated by AI while still feeling that it is something that you came up with

Ever since I started experimenting with AI coding, I've totally lost that feeling of accomplishment. For projects I actually developed by typing in the code, it feels like I actually did something--like here's something I built and am responsible for bringing into the world. When I finish an AI-built project, I feel...nothing. Just that empty: "Code now exists where it didn't exist before, but I didn't really do anything." Without any sense of ownership or attachment whatsoever. If someone DMCA'ed one of my GitHub projects and made me take it down, I'd be pissed. But if someone DMCA'ed an AI-coded thinggy, I'd probably delete the repo and never think about it again in my life.

It really depends on your goal. If your goal is to spend the evening coming up with funny things to say with your friends, then you shouldn't use AI. If your goal is to finish the t-shirts so that you can move on to the next topic in organizing a very complex event like a marathon, then perhaps you should use tools. Using AI tools isn't a problem. It's lack of care and thoughtlessness. That is the problem. That's always been the problem. AI didn't create it, nor is it making it worse.

In general, AI is as impactful as any technology can be. However, for those of us who like to enjoy the process (the act of gathering the info, structuring them and editing them), whether it be writing code, or writing in general, there's a joy in the act of building - straight up finished pieces of work handed over to you, robs you of this space to think and formulate your own views.

I do agree on the "existential crisis" part of it. At work, every time I see someone sign-off of something AI generated without much edits, I feel this fear that we're on to slippery slope where there's no turning back.

The only reason to put a funny slogan on a shirt is as a reminder of an in joke or the shared process of coming up with the slogan.

It's like we no longer understand the purpose of language itself: to get thoughts out of our head and share them with other people.

We need to invent new reasons to be together.

I love people, I love spending time with them. Even though I am married, a parent, and living near to several relatives I still get lonely because of a lack of some forms of interaction.

At the same time, the form of interaction I'm missing is not "debating which font to use on a t shirt." I'm glad a robot can do that for me.

We need some genuine human creativity (or hell, use an AI if it gives you a good answer) for ways to get people to interact in joyful ways rather than over shared drudgery.

Let's go running together and let the computer make a t shirt to commemorate it.

Endless hours of putting soul into your shirt? I mean, good for you, but it sounds like your team wasn’t so stoked about that as you are. So I’m not sure you can blame AI for that one.

Give it time. This is a skill (and tooling) issue.

AI enables so goddamn much creativity. You literally don’t know what to do with it, but once society adapts and we all calm TF down we are free to create in whatever capacity we like.

Your shirt? Go to town! Draw something yourself and let AI patch up some rough edges. Do some style transfer. Or don’t use it. That’s still an option. As you said it is hard to create with AI without losing your soul but that’s not inherent to the tech. It’s a massive skill and tooling issue.

Instead of choosing between “do it fully myself” and “let someone else do it” you get a slider now. You get to pick! How awesome is that?

I salute your introspection. In my mind, it is better than the alternative cope.

My wife has an ongoing frustration with a colleague who has adopted the mindset, "I reviewed it, so I wrote it". I guess he must sleep well at night, and probably votes in the "AI gives me superpowers bloc", but it is pretty apparent he doesn't really review it much either, because it is full of flaws and absurdity.

> so I had some kind of existential crisis

realization was that you had been generating slop all this while before ai and somehow convinced yourself that it was original and human ?