Four years after the ChatGPT revolution began, it’s fair to say that people are getting restless. The endless slop AI machine can’t go unchallenged; it’s time for creators to fight for themselves. That’s obvious to anyone who’s joined the cult known as Your AI Slop Bores Me, where users conspire to steal AI’s work.
The hit of the week, YASBM – let’s call it that – is a website where people go to pretend to be AI for other people. Users LARP (that’s a live action role-playing game for you non-smart people) by writing or drawing whatever other people ask, within a strict time limit. You earn tokens by successfully LARPing; you spend tokens asking questions yourself.
The result? It’s ethereal and lovable, which is the beauty of YASBM (the site was designed to emulate the lo-fi code of the 1990s web) – and the very opposite of AI slop.
For example, I spent a token asking for an “AI” image of a “vampire drinking a cup of blood” – an image created earlier in the day by a friend going through chemo who found himself oddly jealous of other patients receiving transfusions. The resulting text from a stranger brightened my friend’s day more than any polished but soulless photo I could have asked for on ChatGPT. (Plus, it was better for the environment.)
YASBM reminded me of the 0.5 selfie, Gen Z’s willfully stupid, surprisingly rational rebellion against the selfie-perfect world of Millennials. I was also reminded that people who freely create people can be more interested in people than in the content of the machine. That’s funny.
Mashable Trend Report
And it seems a lot of people agree – because YASBM doesn’t seem to be one of those hit songs that fade away after a week. There are early signs that YASBM has what it takes to become something big.
‘Humans enjoy being AI’
“Now we’re seeing more loyal users and people coming back every day,” YASBM creator Mihir Maroju told Mashable. That is, nearly a million unique visitors (not to mention over 25,000 strong followers on the YASBM Discord server) who will come back for “helpful” answers and interesting sketches. “People still enjoy being an AI more than a human, though.”
Navigating a week’s worth of viral exposure — from Reddit, to Twitter/X trending topic, to TikTok — wasn’t easy. Earlier this week, YASBM nearly melted down the host company’s server farm, rendering the site inoperable. But in the spirit of YASBM, Maroju got human help.
In just a few days, “the project has grown into a small group of volunteers,” he enthuses – with four people on the website and support, and another five running the Discord server. “We have also strengthened the moderation and queue systems to ensure that spammers are not everyone’s entertainment,” Maroju said. Ideally, that means users have to click to verify they’re human.
What’s next? When I asked Maroju if there was a YASBM app in the works, here was his response: “We have some really cool things to cook! Stay tuned.”
There’s something else people do best: create a mystery next. Your move, ChatGPT.
Articles
Artificial intelligence
