this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
9 points (100.0% liked)

TechTakes

1401 readers
207 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

This is not so much about a particular post but rather to document Jakob Nielsen's relentless generative AI boosting.

His weekly updates are so saturated with AI subject matter and every image is AI generated they are unreadable and I can only assume the text is AI generated as well. It really doesn't matter if it isn't, in fact, because he's demonstrating in real-time how damaging the AI aesthetic is to a brand.

He also seems to be mentioning his 40 years of expertise a lot more, which might be a reaction to some negative feedback. I want to dig deeper, but I don't like the feeling that I'll have to read generated stuff carefully.

His latest newsletter triggered this post because he links to a terrible AI generated song he made (with the line "Jakob Nielsen with UX fame, forty-one years, still in the game") and spends most of the newsletter talking about the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYt12jr5yUY

all 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

one of the key goals of AI-generated songs is to populate the long tail of domain-specific content

I'm so glad I have no idea what this means because it's surely stupid and awful.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If I were to guess (shoot me if I’m mansplaining) he’s suggesting we use AI in cultural niches to generate content. i.e. the thing where AI doofuses think it’s cool to automate the fun parts of human experience out of our hands.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (4 children)

You know you’ve done bad when you create the conditions for “got to give him credit for putting the work in” to this guy https://youtu.be/JZYZoQQ6LJQ

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I hate that you linked that and I hate that I clicked on it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But you have to give him credit for putting the work in

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

the comments on that video are exceptionally cringe

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Skip to 1:03 for a second ... this is the super-fast lyric portion of the video. Saying all of those syllables fast causes Mr. street-sounding rap guy to lose his accent code-switch and for that verse he sounds like a generic white guy. Pretty funny actually.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

i'll pass thanks

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

absolutely not

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

inspiration

Tweet: Generative AI gives legitimacy to Razzlekahn's music videos for the work she put into making them

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

He made a mil on pocket change

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Ah, easy mistake to make: it’s a mill on pocket change

Teensy tiny model mill, on a stand of pocket change! Adorbs

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Thanks, hate it. Amazing how much of it is just either 'im rich!' or 'buzzword'.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I like playing with these generative models but they're strictly for making weird pictures and stupid songs. Seeing the usage these very serious people make of it it's like they're looking into Fisher-Price hardware for the office.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

spam, spam, spam

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

He also seems to be mentioning his 40 years of expertise a lot more, which might be a reaction to some negative feedback. I want to dig deeper, but I don’t like the feeling that I’ll have to read generated stuff carefully.

I don’t know anything about this dude beyond what I just read on wikipedia but a guy like this spruiking AI is probably just grasping at straws as he is swept downstream away from relevancy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

he's the "Nielsen" of Nielsen Norman Group where "Norman" is Donald Norman of The Design Of Everyday Things fame.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

i remember when i used to hang on nielsen's every word, like 20 years ago

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

When Nielsen says:

Authorship will be unleashed by eliminating the need to master individual media crafts

If you eliminate the need to master the crafts, it's still authorship, but what's the point of authorship when it's not fit for consumption?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

because it's funny

from https://web.archive.org/web/20240210054003/https://www.uxtigers.com/about/people his cv presented in an image without alt text

credit to Matt May for spotting this one https://mstdn.social/@mattmay/112037962750954987

p.s. read his great response to the last shitty Nielsen newsletter about AI generated accessibility: https://buttondown.email/practicaltips/archive/we-need-to-talk-about-jakob/

screenshot of nielsen list of achievements image from his website profile with red line under item: 2024 - named "titan of human factors" by HFES. Below the browser inpector is visible and the empty alt attribute on the img tag is circled in red

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

@fasterandworse Published a book about hypertext two years before the Web.. but two years after Hypercard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This week AI will make software accessible for everyone because “traditional methods” failed but let’s not spend 5 minutes thinking about why that is.

Accessibility Has Failed: Try Generative UI = Individualized UX  JAKOB NIELSEN 29 FEB 2024   Summary: Traditional methods for accessibility have been tried for 30 years without substantially improving computer usability for disabled users. It’s time for a change, and AI will soon come to the rescue with the ability to generate a different user interface for every user, optimized for that person’s unique needs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Good response https://axbom.com/nielsen-generative-ui-failure/

Still very much in the UXniverse but nice to see pushback