"Created by a human" badges - cadence's weblog (personal blog)

It is becoming harder and harder to tell whether information on the internet is created by humans or by computers. As more money and time is funnelled into new generative AI models, their output becomes better at blending in.

Some words I associate with human works are: create, imagine, think, dream, inspire, connect, heart, brain, soul, love.

I believe that computers cannot do or have any of those things. Computers are the opposite of this. Computers cannot be creative because they follow direct instructions. The only way a computer can simulate creativity is through randomness.

There is no reason for AI generated output to be shared with humans online. There's already so much on the internet created by humans — so much that not only would I never be able to see it all, I will never understand just how much there is. All of us use our creativity to make things and share them with others in the hope for human connection.

It's being drowned out by unimaginable quantities of computer-generated, derivative, incestuous, nothingness sludge with no meaning and no reason to exist. It's being drowned out by the ultimate form of content.

It's bad that it's getting harder to tell the difference between what's worthwhile and what's not. It's bad that more of our precious time is being stolen by things that aren't real. Like a paper mâché playground.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to stop AI companies from burying the world in all-consuming intellectual grey goo. Perhaps one could lobby for laws against powerful AI, laws against sharing AI generated content online, or could just go and assassinate Sam Altman and his hype department. I'm not able to do that because any relevant laws or assassination efforts would have to happen in the United States, but apparently when I try to do that it's called "foreign election interference", and I'm only allowed to do that if I'm already in the United States. (Legal disclaimer: This is a joke and I don't actually encourage assassinating people unless you don't like them very much.)

I can't do that, but here's a little thing I can do: I'm releasing little badges that, if you want to, you can slap on your website, blog, photos, sketches, printouts, labels, social media profiles, whatever the heck you want. There is a heart design and a brain design - pick your favourite based on the kind of person you are.

You can use them at no cost. You can edit them to fit your use case. You can even use them commercially. You do not have to credit me (but if you do, you'll allow other people to access these badges as well if they want to).

"Created by a human" badges by Cadence are marked with CC0 1.0

The badges come in full colour and greyscale versions, at 88x31 resolution (1x) and 352x124 resolution (4x), with the heart and brain designs. You can get more resolutions or edit the image by downloading the SVG version.

To download any image just right click or touch and hold it.