AI Output Quality Is Getting Called Out Everywhere

Three separate threads today all circle the same problem from different angles. The AI-generated posters thread argues that the real issue isn't AI tools themselves but that low-effort users flood every medium with the same default ChatGPT aesthetic, making everything look identical. The 'How to Write with an LLM' thread gets pushback for using AI-favored phrases like 'load-bearing' while advising against AI reliance. And the thread on asking authors about their own papers finds that only one in ten could answer basic questions, with LLM ghostwriting clearly suspected.

The through-line: AI is producing a volume problem that looks like a quality problem. When everyone uses the same tools with the same defaults, you get sameness at scale. Commenters in the posters thread noted that the badness comes specifically from people who don't want to put in effort, meaning AI amplifies low-effort output more than it amplifies high-effort output.

The 'AI and the Destruction of the Creative Commons' thread adds a structural dimension: 35 years of open sharing on the internet created nearly everything we benefit from online, and that commons is now being consumed faster than it is replenished. One commenter called it 'a digital dark age.'