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Why get better when you can just bullshit?
This gave me a chuckle...
In 2019, a group of researchers used AI to generate random, bullshit titles for a series of paintings and, you guessed it, people found the artwork with B.S. titles more profound than those with mundane, human-written titles or no titles at all.
Classic.
The researchers extrapolated this finding to point to a broader truth:
In any instance where humans are making decisions about the quality of output of others there is room for subjective impressions to influence outcomes...
Maximizing one’s skills and competence in a domain is typically a long and arduous process. However, being able to produce satisfying bullshit...may allow an individual to obtain success in a way that requires much less time and effort.
This all reminded me of a hangover powder my friends swear by that has "cellular hydration technology" featured on the label. Huh?
While all of this is moderately depressing, of course, I found this to be a refreshing reminder to question if craft is the only thing that matters in a career. Sometimes, a healthy combination of craft and bullshitting might pull us further along in this irrational, inefficient world we find ourselves in.
Anyways, you can read the full, hilariously-titled paper here.