The Dignity of Information

There has always been a voice of rejection against AI-generated content within tech communities.

"The text used to have an innate proof-of-thought, a basic token of humanity." In his blog post^[1], Alex points out that it is impolite to present AI-generated content to others without personal filtering and reflection. AI content forwarded without thought is like a "virus" or "slop", which he believes wastes the recipient's time and energy. Therefore, he advocates for a new "AI etiquette": AI-generated content should only be shared if the sharer has adopted it, is willing to take responsibility for its output, or if the recipient has explicitly consented.

The "Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services", effective September 1, 2025, issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China^[2], is, in a sense, at the center of this topic's vortex.

A century ago, the scarcity and closure of information were the primary obstacles to cognition. But today, it is information overload.

I do not intend to deliberately deepen this issue, but it is indeed a philosophical speculation on the nature of information, creative ethics, and human dignity.

There is Nothing in the Human Mind That AI Cannot Replicate

"There is nothing in the human mind that AI cannot replicate, and AI already possesses subjective experience." — 2024 AI for Good, Geoffrey Hinton^[3]

I agree with this viewpoint. (See When Boundaries Disappear)

Of course, this is not a view one needs to take a side on right now, much like believing in aliens, it is purely based on personal intuition^[4]. This serves as the backdrop for discussing AI Generated vs. Human Made, shifting our focus and discussion to "What kind of information is valuable?" rather than whether it's generated by AI or made by humans, regardless of the level of AI that generated it. In this sense, there is no difference between content generated by AI and by another person.

Let's first talk about "value", which you can also roughly understand as "meaning."

What is So-Called "Value"

Three Perspectives on Value

• Objectivist Perspective: Value as a Property

  Plato believed in the "Good" existing in the world of Forms; value is an inherent property of things. The beauty of a flower, the justice of an act, the truth of an argument—their value exists independently of the observer. So, if an unread article still has value, where does its value reside?

• Subjectivist Perspective: Value as a Projection

  Nietzsche declared, "There are no facts, only interpretations." Value is not discovered but created. It is humans who project meaning onto an originally neutral world. If value is purely subjective, does "universal value" still have meaning?

• Relational Perspective: Value as an Emergence

  I believe more people, like myself, tend to think that value is neither entirely objective nor purely subjective, but emerges in relationships. It exists in the encounter between a subject and an object; the value of my article is realized the moment a reader reads it. It exists in the relationship between demand and supply; my article is more valuable to an AI practitioner than to someone uninterested in the topic. It also exists in the intersection of time and space; this same article has different values at different moments.

I wonder if you've sensed that, regardless of the perspective, "purpose" looms as a standard for judging value, be it a subjective personal need or an objective destination for humanity.

The Nihilistic Trap of Value

Kant argued that only "persons" have intrinsic value (dignity), while everything else merely has a price. Buddhism, on the other hand, posits that even the "self" is an illusion, so how can we speak of intrinsic value? This is the definitional nihilism of value. If we continue to ask: where does the value of the standard for judging value itself come from? This infinite recursion is the boundary nihilism of value (it may well be the boundary of human reason). I don't want to fall into this deconstructionist trap of "why of why of why..." but rather to stop at a certain "why." This is part of what I mean by the "experiencer."

Wittgenstein said, "My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it." The recursive nature of value is like this ladder—its meaning lies not in endlessly questioning, but in making us realize that:

At some point, we must stop asking "why" and start acknowledging "it just is."

To start acknowledging "it just is" is the formation of the "self". Like axioms in mathematics that require no further proof, it means your value system has foundational beliefs—biological, social, individual, and even transcendent.

The Three Elements of Value

Returning to the question, "What kind of information is valuable?" I believe that information worth our reading should possess at least one or more of the following characteristics:

• Intellectual Increment: Does it offer a unique perspective, profound insight, or high-quality integration? The value of information lies in reducing uncertainty. If AI-generated content is merely a repetition, patchwork, and paraphrase of existing knowledge, it is "information entropy" garbage. Truly valuable content is when humans use AI as a lever for their thinking to pry open new frontiers of knowledge. The core of this lies in the intellectual height of the questioner, not the generative capability of the AI.

• Utility Condensation: Does it save me a significant amount of time and energy? For example, a high-quality research report assisted by AI, which distills hundreds of financial reports and news articles into a few pages of conclusions and charts. Here, the AI is not the original creator of the content but an extension of the human expert's will, a powerful "information compressor." What we consume is not the AI's words, but the time, experience, and judgment of the expert behind them.

• Contract of Accountability: Is the publisher of the content willing to back it with their own reputation? Regardless of how the content is generated, once published, the publisher establishes an implicit contract with the consumer. The publisher promises that they have completed the work of filtering, verifying, and refining for us, and that this content is worth our time. This act of collateralizing personal or institutional credibility is key to distinguishing a "creator" from a "slacker."

Value Reconstruction in the AI Era

The Imbalance of Labor and Value

Traditional creation follows an implicit social contract: the creator invests time and effort (referring only to thoughtful investment), and the reader repays with attention and recognition. This equivalence of time constitutes the basic dignity of information exchange. A meticulously written novel, a well-thought-out code pull request, a rigorous academic paper—their value is partly derived from the "time cost" invested by the creator.

AI shatters this balance. When the cost of labor approaches zero, we naturally feel the sense of rejection mentioned at the beginning, while subjectively ignoring whether it has value. When AI can generate content infinitely, it is in effect making finite human attention consume infinite machine output. This leads to efficiency and ethical questions: Do we have the right to use low-cost generation to consume the high-cost lives of others? This may eventually evolve into a debate on how silicon-based and carbon-based life can coexist. Furthermore, besides the result, human creation has another crucial dimension—the meaning of the process itself. The evolution of thought during creation, the projection of genuine emotions, and the resonance with the reader. Perhaps this is the key.

# The "value" of AI
def ai_value(input):
    return optimize(objective_function(input))

# The "value" of humans
def human_value(experience):
    return meaning(
        context=life_history,
        emotion=feeling,
        relation=others,
        time=mortality
    )

The Humanistic Return of Technology

Therefore, creators using AI tools bear a new ethical responsibility. Regardless of the tool used, their workflow must include: asking profound questions (Idea & Prompting), generating initial material (Generation), filtering and verifying (Filtering & Verification), integrating and refining (Integration & Refinement), and injecting personal insight (Injecting Insight).

Traditional Creation: Thought → Creation → Publication
AI-Assisted Creation: Thought → Generation → Filtering → Verification → Optimization → Publication

The key lies in the three intermediate steps—filtering, verification, and optimization. These steps cannot be omitted; they are a fundamental respect for the reader.

Just as your reading at this moment—its value lies not in obtaining a standard answer, but in the thinking it stimulates, the awareness this thinking brings, and the change this awareness facilitates.

Value is the connection created between you and me, right here, right now, because of this question.

What is the Ultimate Order

In our current stage, humans control AI generation. We face not only technical problems but also value choices. Every time we click the "generate" button, we need to ask ourselves: are we creating value or manufacturing noise? Has it been vetted by human wisdom, does it respect the reader's time, does it serve a real need, and will it promote human progress?

Yes, will it promote human progress? This is an inviolable biological choice for a collective species, whether in a micro or macro sense. It doesn't matter if it comes from carbon-based life or silicon-based intelligence.

Unless, this order is to be determined by non-humans.

[1] https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/

[2] https://www.cac.gov.cn/2025-03/14/c_1743654684782215.htm

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNjClDI6zT4

[4] "Intuition" borrows Naval Ravikant's interpretation: Intuition is not metaphysics, but the "Taste" that settles in one's mind from experience, thought, and accumulation.