Content Ski Patrol: GearJunkie

[@Sokolva]

Nice job catching this slimy and obvious use of AI generated writing and art. I'm a writer and amateur artist teaching english at University, and in my opinion this is absolutely AI generated writing. It is so obvious to see, and has to be edited and changed a lot to hide AI's off-putting and strange yet also trite way of writing. If this does well, I'd love to see this become a regular segment of your reviews and critique; calling out bad AI reviews! I have a feeling we will be seeing a ton of those popping up this year. Not only AI written reviews flooding websites, forums, and KZbin, but also top ten skiing lists compiled completely by AI. People will either plug in their own sponsored products and have AI compile a list and traits each ski taken from the company's websites and marketing and edited vaguely before being slapped up online and passed of as review journalism or opinions of actual people. These reviews are already incredibly lazy, and AI allows them to even get rid of the writers and dispense with the people claiming to test skis and writing down these lists. Now, it can be compiled and the market can be flooded with it by any magazine, amateur, or company who wishes to do so. We will need honest reviewers who show themselves testing skis or who write about them extensively in detail more than ever. And showing us those fakes so that people can come to recognize their evolving tactics to see like real reviews and journalism, and so that we can all laugh at their efforts together, sounds like a great time.

[@jasonracey9600]

I have BOA on my new boots but only because there was no buckle option. I've gotten used to it. Works well, maybe even better than buckles. I think BOA tightness can be fine-tuned a bit more than buckles can. But I wouldn't upgrade specifically for BOA, or spend extra money on it if optional.

[@koolboihd8420]

The ski channel idubbbz reference is crazy

[@BlueSkiWave]

Love the McCall hat! What's your favorite runs at Brundage? I'm going to check out Brundage in a few weeks.

[@urbanrunoff]

about AI; while visiting my parents in europe i went to a skishop asking if i could stick my feet in a couple boots, been a Rossi guy for decades but want to try something new. and the fitter informed me that they don't do that anymore. he pointed towards a machine saying we do a 45 minute footscan and start from there. Big brother is in change guys :) ;) . all i wanted to do is get a feel.

[@Nwrig004]

I had three BOA boots last season two different flex K2 Mindbenders and a Salomon S Pro. I like them all but I couldn’t get the lower foot to tighten enough so I returned all three pairs and bought Salomon S Pro Alpha 130 traditional 4 buckle and had my ski shop work their magic with the molding etc. and they are great. I wanted one of the BOA options to work and I’m sure they will refine them for low volume feet soon. If I find a BOA boot that fits my foot, I’m buying it 😊

[@RicketySkiReviews]

Please do not bother or harass GearJunkie in anyway. This is just meant to be a critique.

[@TheHughyg]

Have you tried a boa boot out of interest?

[@muchmuchmore]

I don't find the potential use of an AI generated image to be objectionable. It certainly could have been refined to be better. I believe AI images will become the standard going forward whether we like it or not. The written content potentially being written in part by AI is much more of an issue. Is the sponsor aware of this? Is the content any good regardless of how it was put together? If content creators are just going to outsource their jobs to AI, why does the sponsor even need them going forward? It's a slippery slope.

[@exothermal.sprocket]

You believe something, and follow that belief about whether someone likes it or not. Is this a problem? In how many aspects of life should a similar principle apply? Let's make an example to demonstrate: War is coming, whether we like it or not. Millions are going to die, whether we like it or not. After all, one only has to look back in time and see that this was a fact at some point. Shucks, I don't like war and death, I don't like those things. But I guess I should hold not hold a preference or deference toward it. I should be neutral. A sentient being with zero emotion because I have zero basis to desire and prefer. The people who put AI computer engines together, they didn't desire or prefer. It just happened. I shouldn't desire or prefer either.

[@Sokolva]

Most people seem to have your attitude, though not those who work in creative fields. This is in part because AI generated art programs (though not actually artificial intelligence) were trained on vast databases of stolen work quietly, and were released to be used and make money for their companies without paying back anything or getting permission from the artists work that was taken. There are many artists whose work is so present in the database that their signatures will randomly show up in AI generated works because the machine recreates them wholesale even when asked to generate something completely different. Similarly, many who enjoy AI generated art will prompt the machine to recreate certain artist's signature styles and are able to do so using their names because the Algorithm was trained on so many of their work pieces. This is literally plagiarism, as it can learn from and reproduce and copy work without crediting the artist, and is used to profit large companies and lazy review companies like this who don't want to pay for stock images, use free clip-art, or pay an artist to illustrate their articles. Art is still to this day consistently being stolen to train AI; Instagram recently was paid to allow its entire artist database to be used for training. It did so quietly without alerting artists, and only after their work had been used to train the algorithm and it had released its own AI software, did it allow artists to opt out (a very difficult process which doesn't remove the works used for training, only supposedly future ones, and which requires approval from Instagram to pass through. I still haven't gotten Instagram to respond to me). Similarly, all writers with their books on databases such as amazon found their books had been fed quietly, without alerting them, into word training algorithms such as ChatGPT and many others. They were able to ask questions to the algorithm and the writing AI software would spit out entire uncited paragraphs of their work as though it had written a new story, almost unchanged except for a few words here and there. Several large writers including George R. R. Martin are joining in a legal battle with these companies over the large scale theft of their work to train these machines without telling them, paying them, asking for permission, etc. Publishers have had to close down submissions because of the immense deluge of badly written AI generated work being sent to them, some generated in the hundreds or thousands of stories only by a single or a few users, which doesn't allow them to read through this pile with their employees to find the real work amongst the fakes. And the fake work is poor quality, but it is greatly disrupting the markets through its saturation, especially as some AI users are creating multiple AI generated novels a day with AI art titles, posting them online for sale, and making money just through volume. Colleges have had to move towards doing most of their writing assignments hand written or in class under scrutiny because most high school students have learned only how to prompt AI essays and do their homework with these algorithms.