Legibility of Effort (eieio.games)

In a reflective blog post, a creative technologist discusses the growing challenge of demonstrating "legibility of effort" in the age of advanced large language models (LLMs). With LLMs making it easier to generate content and projects, traditional heuristics — such as assuming a piece of writing has value because someone invested time into it — are increasingly unreliable. The author notes that this trend leads to frustration when trying to gauge the quality and thoughtfulness of online work, exemplified by the open-source tool tldraw having to close pull requests due to an influx of low-effort AI-generated contributions. This shift is significant for the AI/ML community as it raises concerns about the erosion of meaningful engagement and standards in both software development and creative projects. The author illustrates a broader search for authenticity amid a landscape cluttered with AI outputs, suggesting that recreating friction — such as embracing imperfections in projects — may help restore the appreciation of human effort. As the landscape becomes flooded with content that lacks personal investment, the challenge now lies in finding ways to signal genuine creativity and effort in a rapidly changing technological environment.