{"slug": "are-we-living-in-an-age-of-statistical-mediocrity", "title": "Are we living in an age of statistical mediocrity?", "summary": "A developer argues that the internet is experiencing an age of 'statistical mediocrity,' where LLM-generated content and formulaic online interactions produce shallow, unoriginal experiences. The developer advises detaching from the online world and engaging with pre-LLM books and diverse, intellectually deep people to stay sharp.", "body_md": "Almost every piece of text you can consume online is now having this syntactically-shiny, perfectly-spelled package with a rather shallow and unoriginal semantic core. You probably wanted to read something about a place or a culture you've never encountered, and it reads like something you've read hundreds of times before. You probably watched a YT video about a hobby you practise, and it follows a very formulaic presentation and vocabulary. Averaged conventional experiences and conventional wisdom, regurgitated in a non-offensive, plausible-looking package. Where's the subjective lived human experience, the personal judgement, the slightly odd and difficult sentence structure, the touch of originality?\n\nIt's not only about LLM-generated content. Even interactions with real people online produce a very narrow and predictable set of reactions. The ideas and concepts we operate with are shockingly limited. You probably don't like a product for some valid particular reasons, and you get the prefabricated \"it's not about you, it's what the market dictates\". You probably have a personal issue in a very particular personal situation, but you get prefabricated advice that it's a \"you issue\".\n\nHow can one stay sharp in such an environment? Detach from the online world and read old-fashioned books from the pre-LLM era. Have dinner conversations with honest, morally-integral, intellectually deeper people from diverse backgrounds. Do not trade your inner self for a \"popular profile\" in the property of the techno-feudal landlords.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/are-we-living-in-an-age-of-statistical-mediocrity", "canonical_source": "https://bbuyukliev.blogspot.com/2026/07/are-we-living-in-age-of-statistical.html", "published_at": "2026-07-23 11:28:33+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-23 11:52:27.133059+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "generative-ai", "ai-ethics"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/are-we-living-in-an-age-of-statistical-mediocrity", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/are-we-living-in-an-age-of-statistical-mediocrity.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/are-we-living-in-an-age-of-statistical-mediocrity.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/are-we-living-in-an-age-of-statistical-mediocrity.jsonld"}}