The Onion has an AI policy.

[quixote@mastodon.nz]

@jalefkowit I love the Onion.

But.

About this. What's wrong with AI isn't that it replaces some people. What's wrong is that it does not and cannot replace people, and yet the stupid thing is being used that way.

And another thing. Even if it could replace people, but the profits were shared fairly so we all had universal incomes, we'd find plenty of ways to have good lives without jobs.

The first issue means it's causing a rot of everything creative. That is Bad.

The second, that the profits are going to next to nobody, is causing social rot. That is equally Bad.

And good for the Onion for making the distinction between "generative" AI and, implicitly, the other kind. Expert systems. Autocomplete on steroids is worthless. Expert systems can be very useful.

[courtcan@mastodon.social]

@jalefkowit
EXCELLENT

[rana@sueden.social]

@jalefkowit So are they gonna leave WordPress VIP, the "AI agent-ready enterprise content platform"?

[guigsy@mstdn.social]

@quixote @jalefkowit machine learning, expert systems, big data analysis, etc. We've had those for decades. They are useful AI.

It's Generative AI (which is >95% of the current investment) is the problem.

[fiigvam@ravenation.club]

@Crow @jalefkowit I don't see why you say bare minimum. Today this is a principled position that is against the grain regardless of what you, I, or Mastodon think. We should applaud and push them to maintain that position, but it's not the bare minimum IMO.

[stardust@fosstodon.org]

Actually, why shouldn't code belong to that list? Can't code also be creative?

#LLM #AI @jalefkowit

[mae@is.badat.dev]

@jalefkowit ok but the onion should write a secondary funny AI policy because it'd be funny

[vrek@mastodon.social]

@Di7life @jalefkowit trust and integrity you can believe in although not generally recommended to do so

[miamarktwo@syzito.xyz]

@jalefkowit "... our audience, whom we reluctantly acknowledge"

[noodlemaz@mstdn.games]

@jalefkowit and this is one of the reasons we love them

[noodlemaz@mstdn.games]

@Rana @jalefkowit some company giving you the option to use a thing doesn't mean you have to use the thing.
Mods have disabled it in the back end for a publication I volunteer with so I don't even have to look at the AI buttons.

Better than being on Substack.

[noodlemaz@mstdn.games]

@stardust @jalefkowit it can be, but it's not definitionally? I guess not all writing is creative writing, but it is fundamental to their existence. Code much less so.

[millardphillmore@mastodon.social]

@jalefkowit makes my subscription to the print version even more worth it. Highly recommend 10 out of 10

[senil@gts.social.senil.me]

@zimmatore @jalefkowit The Onion wouldn't dare to stoop so low for their new venture. You're never going to get the quality of satire you'd need for that with an LLM.

[lumi@snug.moe]

@jalefkowit i wish that policies like this included "code", to be more holistic and give a nod to that genai is not okay for anything

i hate hearing the sentiment that it's fine for code

[lxskllr@mastodon.world]

@lumi @jalefkowit

Programming is out of scope for a "newspaper". A policy stating objects/activities the company doesn't engage in is just soapboxing. That's what articles are for, not policy pages.

[cthw@mstdn.ca]

@jalefkowit

Except as the object of gags or posts …

[wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org]

@fiigvam @Crow @jalefkowit It is the bare minimum because anything less than this is unacceptable. But we are cheering and applauding: that's what "hell yeah" is. (Because, as you say, this is a too-rare decision these days.)

[wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org]

@jalefkowit So, what I'm hearing is, The Onion is a source of high-quality, up-to-date training data, which will make my AI smarterer without risk of model collapse by teaching it many facts.

[theonedoc@tech.lgbt]

@jalefkowit I only doslike that they limit it to "creative".

That garbage needs to be banned IN ALL roles.