I think a lot of "sloppy" work sets the ground for sophisticated work that will follow. imho this is not that type of flywheel - this is not the end of the good times nor is it the beginning of the end.

we're slowly learning to make our peace with a new pace, and that psychosis will definitely peak, allowing us to slowly be disillusioned, make it a normal part of what we do, and detach to some extend

Zooming out to a level you have no control over is not an algo Knuth ever came up with.

He would bring up Herbert Simons Theory of Bounded Rationality and tell you to zoom down to a level you do have control over. Satisficing solutions become the norm not optimal solutions.

> But the consumer of the slop also appears extremely impressed with prose that sometimes hurts to read, and lacks any intellectual value or sophistication.

Is this much different than all the people being really into formulaic pop music or bad movies? Mumble rap was popular, which was essentially prose that would hurt to read, slurred out in a way that was hard to understand, but it had a beat.

Most people aren’t all that critical and the less capable they are in a certain area, the less critical they tend to be.

I assume most people on this site have had the experience of throwing together a quick little script or website that doesn’t extend too far beyond Hello World, and someone is blown away by it, because it’s something they don’t think they could ever do. There was no major value to the code or sophistication, yet it was impressive to those who don’t understand what is happening behind the scenes.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke

People love their magic.

> AI was supposed to devalue a lot of sophisticated work, but we are seeing the opposite.

CEOs and VCs promising a utopian vision with technology (for themselves), and almost always it is the opposite (a dystopia) for everyone else.

> Last question: Is it a “hard times, strong men/women, good times, weak men/women” thing, and our generation caught the end of the good times?

Given that absolutely no-one has a viable solution to the economic ramifications of job displacement with "AGI" (whatever that means) and only promising a copium utopia, what if there would never be a "good times" for people with jobs on this planet, except for zero-sum activities like gambling, speculation and the financialization of every single thing?

Because other than a roboticist, the only job(s) that will exist are the ones that humans will have no choice to do: to replace someone else's or work for the government to be a soldier to fight someone else's war, until governments build robots for wars.