tl:dr: My website is banned on http://lobste.rs as “startup slop”, because I use agents to help me write parts of my blog posts.
Backstory
About a month ago I learned that some moderator banned my whole domain because I use agents to help me write some of my blog posts. I make no secret out of that and my repo is open source, you can see exactly how I work and how much effort is in each post, down to every git commit.
I won’t point to people or social networks, it’s easy enough to find if you really care.
Funny enough, the trigger was the most popular and influential post on my website: Claude Code is my Computer. The article where the whole point was to expand people’s mind in what’s all possible with modern agents - and that it far extends the typical use cases I’ve seen so far.
What’s Slop?
As a society, it’s time to have a discussion about AI tho. This isn’t just about you or Lobsters - it’s about how we’re going to navigate a world where the tools of creation are rapidly changing.
A part of me sympathizes - I hate reading AI slop, and if I find someone using AI automation to send me Twitter replies or DMs, I block them immediately. If communication is directly sent to me, is automated and is not marked as being automated and instead a human avatar is used, it’s an insult of my time. My Twitter takes are 100% handcrafted, artisan typed words. I don’t even use WisprFlow there so you get the rawest, most organic experience.
There’s a difference tho between automated replies and using agents to assist writing. At what point does it matter if I spend 4 hours prompting an agent to craft my thoughts into a post vs writing it manually? What defines slop?
There’s another argument to make. My day, just like yours, only has 24 hours. And I do need a few of them to sleep because organic machines are fragile. Some posts I care a lot for and write every word myself.
Others are things I learn, but given the 1000 things I do, I would likely not have cared enough to take my notes and put them online, and they have a dual goal of being documentation for humans and really also a guide for agents (like the one to fix
Would it be a better outcome to stop sharing these things and only allow the posts that each take me half a day to write on, so some people are not hurt in their feelings?
The Bigger Picture
I say feelings, because I tried to discuss with one of their moderators and was met with so much insult and deprecation of my work, a spiteful mood from a person that don’t even knows me, for something that I put up for free online. Logically that makes no sense. It’s almost as if there’s sth bigger they hate when it comes to AI and I’m just the face they can project that to in that very moment.
Honestly, with such a reaction I’m not mad that they block me and my work. That’s not a community I wanna be a part of.
But I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to judge the value of writing on its own merits.
I mean dang, these days I write more words manually for blog posts than I do for code. Do these folks also get offended when I use agents to generate code? documentation?
You can create slop with or without agents, as you can create great work with or without. Agents are just another tool.
claude: commit, push and merge PR.
Yes, I asked ChatGPT to make the header graphic extra AI-y, just because.