I wrote about AI, got a lot of traffic, and now feel weird about it.
In a previous post, I wrote about how AI slop ruined a budding friendship. Yeah, I understand it's a bit clickbaity, but it wasn't misleading. To summarize, a new friend didn't appreciate my feedback on his AI-generated video projects. It was just another anecdote that fit the general theme of my blog (of which there isn't one). I like to write about the things I can't stop thinking of in an attempt to free me from them.
This is another such post. That post received so many more likes/upvotes than anything else I had previously written, like 30 times more. I kind of thought that would be the case. If you look through the trending section on this platform, the highest-ranking posts are often those denouncing AI. My post fit the bill and gained traction. But that wasn't what I was going for. Like most people here, I am put off by AI slop. My story was one where my opinion and someone else's differed. But I'm also not staunchly anti-AI. I do use Claude to script things I wouldn't otherwise be able to (without a lot of research, which I'm not interested in committing to right now). Whatever. I don't think everyone needs to justify their feelings on AI; you can determine your own boundaries and live your digital life appropriately.
I wondered if any of the new eyes on my blog would stick around for future posts. They didn't. Of course, I didn't expect most to come back, but I kind of thought I would gain a little more traction. But why do I even care? Well, I am human, and I like feedback...Okay, praise. I like praise. When my posts only had a few upvotes, that would, in some way, please me. Getting well over one hundred threw me for a bit of a loop. I hate that getting one or two likes feels like a disappointment. I kind of wish the total wasn't visible. That liked posts just bubbled to the top without a numeric value attached.
And now I'm a bit gun-shy about writing about AI again. That's not a feeling I want for this blog, so I'm hoping that writing about it now will help me work through it.