I don’t really like the “Human-made” badging trend

Two years ago, I wrote about one of those “human made” badges used to signal content free of AI. Since then, these badges have spread across corners of the internet hostile to generative AI. In a somewhat viral post from the indie web, Case Duckworth lists a few reasons to reject them. His criticism isn’t aimed at the badges themselves, but at initiatives that centralize this kind of signaling. His view is condensed in this paragraph: However, I think that having a third party verify (or not, apparently) whether you’re using AI in your personal site is endemic of the commodification of everything under late-stage capitalism. If you don’t use AI on your site, just say so. Make a dumb button yourself, or use the one on my site (don’t hotlink it, please!). It doesn’t have to be this big production. Later in the piece, he points out that some of the most popular badges (not by AI and Done by Humans) come from people who, on the side, are cashing in on AI-based companies. It strikes me as…

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