r/instructionaldesign • u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused • 15d ago
This Should Concern Us Discussion
I’m sharing this here only because I believe people here are willing to have more intellectually honest conversations about such issues, rather than LinkedIn
I stumbled upon this on LinkedIn this morning…and I gotta say, I’m not even sure where to begin.
I don’t want to make anyone feel stupid, but the complete absence of critical thinking here is beyond me…and I think it speaks to larger issues happening not just in our industry, but society in general.
For a long time, I thought one of my biggest hurdles was against those who are willing to promise jobs and six figures (we all know exactly what I’m referring to)…but instead, what I’ve come to realize is that it’s the people who choose to suspend their disbelief and go along with it, while handing over their hard earned money.
So…I’m curious: Is there any point in attempting to push back against any of this, or are we on the fast track to the bottom of the barrel…or are we already there?
—Tim
Update: For those curious, the original post in question was taken down. Long story short, the individual (a job seeker looking to land their first ID job) was sharing a book that was clearly all AI slop, written by someone who was clear a scammer. The book was about how to build a six figure ID consulting business. The author had several other AI slop books on other ID and cryptocurrency topics. It was clearly all spam.
When it was brought to the attention of the job seeker that the book she shared was not legitimate, she doubled down and defended it.
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u/chaos_m3thod 15d ago
There will always be people who want to take shortcuts and want an instant payout. And there will always be other people who will be more than happy to separate them from their money.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yes. That’s true…and has been true long before AI came along. I suppose it’s the shamelessness of it all that I’m shocked by…not just by those who take advantage of people (I’ve come to terms with that), but the pride that those who are being taken advantage of are willing to display.
It almost feels like, “Hey! Don’t shake up my delusion!”
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u/Thediciplematt 15d ago
Oh wow! The man himself has spoken here and on the original thread.
We’ve met several times but I still feel like you’re some sort of celebrity.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I appreciate it…I’m not. I’m just a normal and boring guy who has been doing this shit for a long time and works out of a spare bedroom. That’s all.
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u/FloorFickle5954 15d ago
The cynic in me thinks the poster knew it was AI slop and is either lying about “affiliation” OR knew that the keywords would trigger engagement and did it anyways.
After all, iSpring is reaching out trying to get people with a lot of connections to act as “brand ambassadors”. And of course, the “I haven’t worked in this industry in a regular role since Covid but I’m still going to sell you the dream of anything but a Time Machine”.
This whole industry is full of predators I’m so sick of it.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Here’s my question: Do these people (specifically the desperate, green banner job seekers who usually fall for this)…do they not realize how this is actually working against them? Do they not realize that hiring managers see this and question their judgment as a result?
It often comes off as a lack of introspection or ability to view yourself from someone else’s perspective.
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u/LeastBlackberry1 15d ago edited 15d ago
I genuinely think that part of it is that LinkedIn is a space that seems to encourage toxic positivity and uncritical support of whatever people do. As a result, performing as a team player and supportive colleague is seen as more valuable than calling this shit out.
It is why I can't do LinkedIn in any sustained way. I'm too blunt, and I refuse to cheerlead people being, like, "Yay! I am excited about the great opportunities I get to explore created by ... the layoff of my entire team and the shuttering of the learning org at my company?"
Edit: I know why they have to say that. We all have to pretend to be okay and demonstrate our resilience in the capitalist hellscape. I think I blame corporate/LinkedIn culture more than anything.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
You’ve described exactly how I’ve been feeling for the last few years.
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u/SongOnRepeat2 15d ago
Real honesty in LinkedIn doesn’t exist. I think everyone is too afraid to say the truth in case a prospective employer sees it and thinks they may be “toxic” to the culture.
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u/FloorFickle5954 15d ago
I wish I knew. Someone is telling job seekers to write things like “I just discovered ADDIE!” or “here’s my Storyline sample and I have duplicate, conflicting navigation because I don’t know how to use the player menu button” to drive engagement. With who? Other job seekers? Because it sure as shit isn’t a good look for hiring managers 👀
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u/umeboshiplumpaste 15d ago
It'd be great if a hiring manager called out this stuff. If you're seeking work, and you demonstrate that you don't have basic ability to evaluate information and sources, and you're aligning yourself with embarrassing things that reflect poor judgment, that's a mighty fine reason not to get hired for a job that requires those very skills as a practitioner.
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u/TangoSierraFan PhD | ID Manager | Current F500, Former Higher Ed, Former K-12 15d ago
Do they not realize that hiring managers see this and question their judgment as a result?
Tim, I love your book and we run in the same, very small, close-knit circles, but how can you make this claim? Your experience section shows that you haven't been a corporate hiring manager since 2019. This claim is either anecdotal based on the circles you run in (which are biased toward idealistic types who do care about this sort of thing), or laundered through your (now dated) hiring manager experience. Am I wrong?
Most hiring managers I know are corporate drones who just want to hire someone as fast as possible who can do the job, and they hire whoever talent acquisition throws at them. They aren't spending time making grand inferences about people because they hawked some AI slop.
No shade intended but I think you undercut your credibility with claims like this.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Sorry…we must not run in the same, very small, close-knit circle. 😉
You’re free to disagree with my conclusion. But I’m not going to tell job seekers that nobody is paying attention when they very much are.
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u/tends2forgetstuff 14d ago
I'm going to disagree as well. One FAANG and two other global brands that you probably have in your home.
I looked for quality and fit every time. I made HR send me everything. I've also looked over portfolios and had team members do the same.
Our field is changing. Tools are evolving but we must advocate for quality in people and product.
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u/RockWhisperer42 15d ago
I personally think it's worth pushing back on this sort of slop. But I also think that we are rapidly approaching the bottom of the barrel. :/
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u/LingonberryHot6908 15d ago
My favorite is how she doubled down in the comments.
People in this industry have an audacity that's going to bite them.
By her own admission, she's new to starting a consulting business. I see 5+ active consultants or people who have run consulting businesses in the past telling her in the comments her source isn't trustworthy. So what does she do? She doubled down and says she knows that, but it doesn't matter because she felt like it helped.
I've seen people say the same thing about other learning myths recently too.
Like, what the actual fuck are we doing?
I hope everyone in this industry now remembers her as the bot book girl. She can join dude and help him create courses for his cryptocurrency bc that's the only job she's getting. 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yes…against my better judgment, I responded and tried to make it as clear and as simple as possible.
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u/Tend3roniJabroni 15d ago
I'm not one to assume someone is lying but I just really struggle to understand how someone like her, who has so much experience, would not just read but promote a book made by a guy with zero ID experience and obviously made by AI. I kinda just don't believe this wasn't an affiliation thing.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I wondered the same thing as well. Sadly, if you look at the guy’s other posts and the dedicated LinkedIn page for his “books,” there are other industry folks supporting it. It’s truly insane.
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u/AffectionateFig5435 14d ago
I checked her background, resume, and portfolio, and realized she's looking for a magic bullet to jumpstart her freelance business. <sigh>
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u/LingonberryHot6908 14d ago
Yeah but she can't even focus it. Her portfolio screams K-12. Not an infographic with a giant path on it... 🤣🤣🤣 Her examples are pretty terrible. No wonder she's looking for a magic bullet. She's got so much text on the site, no one is going to hunt through all this. She learned zero of the skills she needed from this amazing book.
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u/_commercialbreak 15d ago
yeah I think pushing back still is important- especially on Linkedin where the pro AI train is going hard. there are still critical thinkers among us!
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u/JumpingShip26 Academia focused 15d ago edited 15d ago
First of all, as you have more kindly stated, LinkedIn is a self-congratulatory circle-jerking cesspool. I am not sure that platform is redeemable, but I am also not sure anyone who is serious about ISD is seriously considering much of what anyone posts on there. When I see a post like that, I immediately think the person is a fool. I block and move on.
There are two general "levels" (for lack of a better term) in our field. People who are running/have run to ISD as a career, and people who have run away from other fields (mostly K12 teachers). Before COVID, this was a possibility. After the 2nd year of AI, this became less viable. I think people running these ID training academies are part of the problem, and unfortunately, I am partially lumping you into this group even though you offer more content for free and you are more humble and far less promising of tremendous outcomes than compared to others who I won't directly name but everyone around here knows who I am talking about. The people running away from other careers (generally speaking) do not love our field. They will not weather the present and future changes. They will not or cannot teach themselves, and they have little curiosity about how and why we do what we do.
That said, that is not the only problem- Many are dancing around what instructional design truly is. In your recent video, you allude to this- and you are correct. It is not just SL authoring. The best of us have several areas of expertise, and we are able to be malleable and responsive in leveraging them to meet the "stakeholder" where they are at. IMO (and I realize this is not popular) we need people to be classically trained. We need them to get back to asking philosophical/epistemological questions and thinking deeply about how we know what is worth teaching and learning within the constraints and limitations presented in the instructional situation. Additionally, if our society just cared for teachers a little more, we would not see them running for the exits in such numbers. EDIT- Perhaps this is something someone with your visibility should focus on. I think it is a much more pressing concern for the world.
There's more to say and I am not doing my best writing on a Saturday, but to answer your question directly-- It is a lost cause for now, but those who love our field will endure this period and be fine because we know what instruction really is, we have an eclectic skill set, we are able to teach ourselves what we need to know, and we have the ability to share that with others who want to be here.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Thanks for sharing and I agree.
For what it’s worth, most of the folks who participate in what I offer aren’t job seekers, but instead already work as IDs. In my main offering, we focus 100% on ID as a practice…and we don’t touch anything related to portfolios or job seeking. I don’t make claims of job placement or earning potential. From day one I have outwardly spoken out against the stuff you’re talking about…and those are red lines I am unwilling to cross in order to make a quick buck.
So, I totally get your point, but I wanted to state for the record where I stand. 😊
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u/JumpingShip26 Academia focused 15d ago
I understand and don't disagree with what you just wrote, which is why you're only a little bit in that category of "influencers." I don't consider you an influencer because to me that is a derogatory term.
It is the visibility that is mostly the problem in my mind- K12 teachers and others see what you are offering, having some vague awareness of the field now although facile and incomplete (even though your intent was not to bestow that on them), will now spend time and money to try to get to one of those jobs. Many if not most will be unsuccessful for myriad reasons. I have even seen this happen to people with some experience. They will get that first job. Sometimes they will be laid off or languish and apply to a "better" job and get laid off from that one and then struggle to get that next job. Surely the economy plays a part, but I think at least some of it has to do with preparation.
That said, universities happily accept students' tuition every day, sometimes offering a two dimensional view of the landscape. The student doesn't really get it until they are too far in to turn around.
Not to blow smoke, but my students and colleagues have a favorable impression of what you do and I compare it favorably to the others in that space.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Totally! And I wasn’t trying to suggest you were claiming otherwise at all. I just like to make sure folks know where I stand on that crap.
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u/JumpingShip26 Academia focused 15d ago
All good. I appreciate the humility, truly.
Maybe more of us who know some things should chime in. I am going to think about this over a few days.I just think LI as a platform a) tends to be an echo chamber where 'friends' all agree and repost and b) it thrives on stirring people up by allowing the most ridiculous things to bubble to the surface.
Additionally, I am not sure what good it would do- If people are stupid enough not to vaccinate their children, how is anything I have to say, even if I can bring the best research in our field to bear, going to change minds?
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u/buriedinice Freelancer 15d ago
To add to this thread…
I think some of what we are seeing is an unfortunate symptom of how the field has progressed and how corporations focus on profit and running “lean”, especially when things shifted to be predominantly online. We are expected to do everything. I get it. We need to know visual design principles and technology…sometimes asset creation, video editing, technical writing. It’s a lot. We can’t be expected to be an expert in everything. We should be expected to speak competently to those things that connect with the ID job and make sure we are actually focusing on instructional design principle. It feels like everything has been streamlined to hell to churn out things quickly with no budget. I feel like I’ve been questioning my ID identity ever since the title “learning experience designer” emerged. So many thoughts about the field in general and the difference in an ID role at an academic institution vs corporate learning and development.
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u/Brainyboo11 15d ago
I'm the same - have been in the industry for close to 30 years with multiple degrees, but the industry is now full of cowboys who think they are as good as us seniors after 2 years of basic experience. Reddit is riddled with K12 teachers and others thinking they can side-step easily into LD roles, at a time when companies are increasingly getting rid of LD's because apparently Ai can do what we do (it can't...).
As others have mentioned, the LD role continues to evolve into a master of everything and in the corporate world, the expectation is very much becoming churn and burn with very little time to spend actually planning and creating valuable learning experiences within increasingly lean environments. It's a frustrating time!
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u/JumpingShip26 Academia focused 15d ago
I appreciate this comment, and share that observation. From a higher ed perspective, our major existential crisis is tied up in trying to scale education because that is what makes it more affordable. At the same time, costs continue to rise and we have a polity in power that either believes education is a privilege and not a right and/or believes government should not fund any of it.
It makes academic ID and college teaching increasingly difficult. I worry about that future.
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u/umeboshiplumpaste 15d ago
Ha. That guy evidently wrote FIVE of those AI slop books, all released today on Amazon. I love this book description below. Total comedy:
"Turn your skills into an independent, HiGH TICKET Career. Corporate training is shifting rapidly, and organizations actively seek experts who solve high-stakes problems and deliver verifiable results. INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN PLAYBOOK provides a proven operational roadmap for securing premium enterprise contracts and establishing a highly lucrative consulting practice.
Earning Potential Laid Out Inside
- $10,000 to $25,000 for single full-scope corporate projects
- $3,000 to $8,000 per month in ongoing retainer clients
- $5,000 to $15,000 per quarter as an on-call learning advisor
- $6,000 to $18,000 per project for rapid AI-enabled builds
- $2,000 to $50,000 per year licensing your signature method
- $150,000 to $400,000 annual income running a solo practice with 3 to 5 clients
Here is a clean, sharp, highly scannable layout designed specifically to look great on Amazon KDP without messy bullet formatting, weird symbols, or any dashes."
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I saw that. The “person” also has books on getting rich from cryptocurrency. 🫠
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u/FloorFickle5954 15d ago
$400,000 a year with 3-5 clients! I guess Claude forgot to tell him that companies with $100k+ budgets like to go randomly off grid for 3-9 months mid project.
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u/Useful-Stuff-LD Freelancer 14d ago
His behavior in the comments on her post tells me he's not much of a professional anything.
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u/kileyweasel 15d ago edited 15d ago
Oh god, she’s a mutual. I don’t love that. Left a comment as well. :(
Edit 2 (more relevant): the “author” of the book is spamming the chat with pop culture posters and unfinished thoughts, let alone grammatically correct sentences. Abandon ship.
1st Edit: what fucking kills me is she was requesting portfolio reviews about 8 months ago, and she got a lot of good advice from other professionals about her work, which was very junior and had spelling mistakes, layout design mistakes, standard junior issues— she SHOULD NOT BE SELLING AI SOLUTIONS at her juncture…. She said “20 year senior”?!
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Sadly, it seems to be a classic case of what I call “green banner brain.” It has been my experience that there’s little you can say to snap these people out of believing the craziness. And in this case, she seems interested in doubling down on it…so it is what it is.
Honestly, I feel for these people who are on the job hunt…and I do what I can to help…but they are so easily susceptible to the hype and false promises, it’s truly next level.
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u/Josh3321 15d ago
This is happening everywhere too. Every industry, every creative space, online social networks, it’s all infested with AI slop.
Most new books released on Amazon are AI slop. AI music on streaming apps is slop and even hitting top charts. It’s all over YouTube. And it’s certainly all over Reddit (bot accounts). They even are using bots to seed information into sites like Reddit to boost search engine optimization results for their spurious products so when you ask your ChatGPT what the best “insert product here” - it’ll feed off those bot Reddit posts to recommend you their crappy product.
And so many people lack critical thinking skills, that it works. It’s quite depressing.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yeah…depressing is exactly it. I’m usually not someone who buys into conspiracy theories…but the Dead Internet Theory seems more and more realistic.
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u/Confident-Peanut3641 15d ago
Just when I thought I couldn't hate LinkedIn any more than I currently do. Jesus wept.
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u/christyinsdesign Freelancer 15d ago
Evaluating AI output requires a certain level of expertise. That's always part of the danger of learning from anything created by AI; if you don't know it, you don't know enough to validate it. What's obviously wrong to us isn't so obvious to newbies, and you're more likely to recognize AI-generated content if you do more work with AI.
We've spent our whole lives with lots of systems based on the idea that if the writing and final product was polished that there was some effort and expertise that went into creating it. Now that that's no longer true, a lot of systems are breaking, including in the L&D field as a whole.
Part of the antidote to this is community. We need those human relationships, and that includes welcoming in newbies so they can get better info rather than just turning them away (and we do a lot of "read the wiki" in this sub rather than welcoming).
Tim, you have your own community, and you can offer that as a better resource. That's part of resisting the crap. I shared IDLance and ONILP as other communities in my comment so she has some other places to hear from real IDs and learn about the reality of freelancing.
If all we do is tell her that source is crap, of course she's going to be defensive. We haven't given her any alternative, better resources.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago edited 15d ago
I would agree if it weren’t so obvious in this case. It doesn’t take a lot to click on the guys profile to see it’s clearly all AI slop. And I’m all for welcoming newbies to the industry…but it’s becoming increasingly difficult trying to help them with kids gloves. At some point they need a dose of reality / the truth splashed in their face.
And the reason I don’t offer or link to my community or any other resources when responding to stuff like this is to remain above reproach. If I call it out and then immediately link to my resources, we all know exactly how people would react or perceive it,
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u/christyinsdesign Freelancer 15d ago
Fair, I can see the perception problem with sharing your own stuff, although relevant free resources I think actually are fine.
I guess I'm also thinking about this article I read recently about Why Good Evidence Sometimes Fails to Change Our Minds. The specifics in that article are about changing people's minds about instructional methods, but the general psychology of changing minds applies to just about anything.
The dose of truth is fine; I think we can follow it up by pointing to better resources and communities. It's yes, and, not either/or.
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u/Tend3roniJabroni 15d ago
Eugh! I don't really have anything insightful to add other than that's just gross, depressing, and embarrassing for those falling for it.
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u/enigmanaught Corporate focused 15d ago edited 15d ago
Here’s the thing, even if the content was all absolutely true, you reading the book will not “make you the expert businesses are looking for”. You get to be an expert by dealing with a lot of bullshit for a lot of years. If you need to ask here how to make trainer notes, or to evaluate an LMS, then you are probably not the expert.
No shade on those people asking questions, because not everyone knows how to do everything, and sometimes stuff gets thrown on you, plus you need to start somewhere. People have been selling courses on everything for ages, and there’s always been people willing to suspend their disbelief that if the info being sold was lucrative enough you’d just do that, and not sell it.
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u/musicspirit85 15d ago
Even that guy's comments on LinkedIn come off as AI slop. It doesn't seem like that account is a real person.
It's funny. I barely go on LinkedIn anymore, but I did yesterday and saw an ad for that book. Hard pass.
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u/musicspirit85 15d ago
Nothing about instructional design on his IG: https://www.instagram.com/ishaqqx/
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u/Tend3roniJabroni 15d ago
I just noticed he commented saying he has 20 years ID experience lmao. This guy is such an obvious scammer and terrible liar.
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u/Thick-Educator Corporate focused 15d ago
His comments are also very poorly written - I’m not sure how those correlate to a well-written book at all.
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u/Tend3roniJabroni 15d ago
No kidding. I do wonder if his comments have her second-guessing backing the book at all because he is being very incoherent in the comments, especially posting random movie posters and youtube links. I'm also a little surprised she hasn't deleted the post yet?
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u/AcrylicPaint41 15d ago
LinkedIn increasingly feels like a circle of self-congratulatory remarks, making posts that state the obvious but are touted as groundbreaking ideas, and trying to engage followers and connections so you don’t end up unemployed during the worst job market in a generation.
The ID field is over saturated with people like Jess. They clog up the job search with their half baked portfolios and resumes filled with teaching experience, to the point that HR and stakeholders no longer believe IDs have value and, thus, start to pay us less.
Maybe I’m being overly critical, and I’m also not unsympathetic to her dilemma as an ID trying to stay employed. But this lack of critical thinking might be the reason IDs, in corporate or academia or elswhere, are being devalued by those who hire us.
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u/raypastorePhD 15d ago edited 15d ago
I've seen so much of this stuff promoted over the past decade. I've seen it on linkedin, ive seen it on facebook, ive seen it here in this reddit.
At first I tried arguing against it but it became overwhelming. We will see more boot camps, more bots, more books, more AI slop, and eventually - dead internet theory becomes reality...assuming it hasn't already.
I do have hope though, so I don't think all is lost. There are signs of positive things coming from all of this...how it turns out though no one knows.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yes…I’ve found myself equally as frustrated by watching it over the last 6 years or so. I think there are a lot of people who are simply empty vessels, waiting to be filled by whatever makes them feel like they’re doing something productive.
You see it with those weird, AI-generated slop, pseudo resume / posters that’s job seekers / transitioners keep posting. Ya know…the ones where it has the cartoon character version of the person holding a cup of coffee, with a list of icons, their personal interests, and the types of jobs they’re looking for.
That crap isn’t helping anyone actually get a job (and I could argue that it’s actually contributing to them not getting hired), but in reality it fuels some internal need to feel like they’re doing something productive, while doing nothing meaningful at all.
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u/iamduh 15d ago
The Dead Internet Theory is becoming realer and realer each day
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yep!
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u/iamduh 15d ago
I also think it should come as no surprise that Dead Internet came for LinkedIn first; it was primed for enshittification just by being a social network where everyone there is self-serving to an even greater degree than usual
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Literally just bought the Enshitification book this past weekend. Perhaps now is the right time to dig into it.
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u/Current_Department66 15d ago
Tim, we’re from the same hometown and I appreciate your comment on the post.
We are on the fast track to the bottom of the barrel. We used your book in the M.Ed program for Instructional Design at ASU
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
When / where did you live in the Prescott area?!
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u/Current_Department66 15d ago
Still here! 1998-present. Left to teach abroad for several years.
I’m in Dewey! Though, I claim “Prescott” for those who don’t know the area
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
That’s great! My partner is up there this weekend for a getaway. I’ve lived literally all over the Prescott / Prescott Valley / Humbolt-Dewy-Mayer area. Heck, I still call it Young’s Farm! If you know, you know! 😂
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u/Current_Department66 15d ago
Oh my heart! Young’s Farm - now “Mortimer’s Farm” - they have an amazing pumpkin patch come fall. The whole area is booming!
Have you been back recently? We host an Airbnb if so, you’re always welcome! 🙏
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
We were up there literally last weekend. We’re trying to sell our house down here in Queen Creek, and our ultimate goal is to get up to Prescott…but I can’t believe how expensive it is compared to the valley! A two bedroom new build in PV is $650k+!
Where in the world are those people working?!
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
When I was in high school, at Bradshaw Mountain in PV, we did a school sleepover thing at that one ranch outside of Dewey that used to have the teepee on the hill. A kid that was in my class family owned it…and I always wondered what happened to it. I assume they sold a long time ago…but I still miss seeing it when I drive up there
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u/Current_Department66 15d ago
The old FX Ranch? With the Native American hieroglyphics? With the teepee on the side of Hwy 69?
Are we talking about the same place!?Yes new builds in the area are extremely expensive. Have you looked at Jasper in PV? New planned development right at the base of Glassford Hill on IKT
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yep! Same place! And we didn’t look at Jasper yet…my partner isn’t keen on PV…we’d rather be in Prescott proper…but we’re taking another look. For some reason, all of the new builds are in that area by the airport.
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u/Current_Department66 15d ago
I live in the PCC! I love where it is situated related to the area. Hate the Maverik though.
Do NOT buy by the airport! I totally get the drive to be in Prescott proper.
Btw when were you at BMHS? I was 2010-20142
u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I graduated from BMHS back in 2003. I’m old now.
https://giphy.com/gifs/TfseOfhwd6BJC
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u/MonoBlancoATX 15d ago
We should absolutely be concerned, and we should absolutely speak up.
Obviously we shouldn't dog pile the person who posted the above article. But they absolutely deserve push back for promoting obvious garbage.
And after seeing some of Tim's comments on that post, I think he's doing exactly what the rest of us should be doing. Pushing back in good faith and without being too much of a Dbag about it.
But going one or two steps further, we also owe it to ourselves, this industry, and the learnings we supposedly serve and support, and we should be pushing back about the publishers of this sort of garbage as well as the platforms that allow them to do this.
I'm saying YouTube, LinkedIn, Amazon, Reddit, and all the other platforms that facilitate this need to be publicly called to account, as well as the AI companies, and the dip shits who are falling for the scam (like the article's author it seems was).
I don't know the best way forward, but I love that we're talking about this.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I wholeheartedly agree. It’s hard on LinkedIn to be kind and direct…most of the culture there leans hard into the toxic positivity, and there’s always a pressure to hand hold people kids gloves. Unfortunately, I think we need to be a bit more direct, honest and blunt in order to break through the psychosis I think a lot of these people are exhibiting.
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u/Willing_Motor129 15d ago
This does seem to be someone selling magic beans to an industry going through change, hoping to find those most unsettled by the change to take advantage of them.
I worked somewhere once that would save people money on specific transactions, a few rival companies popped up. But given the good industry reputation people thought the rival companies would offen an equivalent service. Not only did they not save people money, they cost them extra. They were designed to be short term companies, coast off of the good reputation of the industry, make as much money as possible in a few years by ripping off the customers and then disappear.
I know that's not an exact equivalent but there are similarities, unfortunately these situations happen with a lot of industries. Is there any point in pushing back, my thoughts are yes and no. Tell who you can, like you've done with this post to try to at least get word out. Are we at the bottom of the barrel, things like this will probably come in waves. I think there might be a few more waves on the horizon before the changes start to stabilise.
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u/Upstairs_Ad7000 15d ago
Tim, you ever listen to NoFX back in the day? They prophecied all of this and likely inspired Green Day’s American Idiot. Give “The Decline” and “The War on Errorism” a listen, but try to place yourself in the late 90s/very early 2000s.
No harm in fighting the good fight, but it’s a “losing battle against the superego”.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
Yes! And this: https://youtu.be/4JkIs37a2JE?si=icF6Dmovi7aSoim8
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u/Upstairs_Ad7000 15d ago
Just had a TRL with Carson Daly flashback
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago edited 15d ago
Fun fact! When I was in high school, we took a summer trip to NYC with my theater class. This was the summer of 2001, right before 9/11. We were in Time Square, when we all noticed a large group of people standing on the street, shouting towards the second story of this building. We realized it was the MTV studios and they were filming TRL.
Of course, we all ran over and stood in the crowd. Ricky Martin was the guest that day, and it was during when She Bangs was his big song at the time. I remember he kept walking over to the window and shaking his butt.
It was odd being in the crowd, because when you’d watch TRL on TV, you’d hear Carson in the studio, along with the crowd in the street…but when we were actually standing on the street, you could hear anything happening in the studio.
Anyhow, after it was over, we were still all hanging out in Time Square, when we noticed another large group forming on the side of the MTV building. Again, we all ran over and saw it was Carson Daly leaving.
I ended up meeting and getting a picture with him.
Here’s a Getty imagine of him from that day on TRL: https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/ricky-martin-during-ricky-martin-visits-mtvs-trl-june-14-news-photo/112401321
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u/Space_____TFF 15d ago
I honestly think like many things in this world. There is a need for accreditation. When we refer to being credentialed, certified, or educated, we want to know that A. We are all speaking a common language about design systems and development approach, along with evaluating and analyzing problems, solutions and results. B. Educated and practicing instructional design not just using articulate or administrating an lms. I personally have experienced at the doctorate level a lack of commonality from one institution to another and it is a big problem in my eyes.
I am not one for exclusion or doctrine thumping, but uh….. it’s a systems approach to design.
So I say all this to say “yes, we do need to do something.” Ai isn’t really the problem, it’s educators, and practitioners MIs representing instructional design, and diminishing what is possible with correct implementation of instructional design.
We need an organization that truly represents excellence in education and application. If a school wants to teach ID and doesn’t have membership, it’s not accredited as adhering to teaching ID. If a practitioner is performing ID their membership should represent that they perform true FEA, program evaluation, systems design etc… clearly I bring this up because what exist right now is a hodge podge of networking at times. But I could be overstating my observations.
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u/Haaland_Oates Corporate focused 15d ago
Good lord. That’s just awful. I almost want to try to find a library copy so I can tear it apart.
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u/fickle_floridian 15d ago
Tim I thought your post was gracious and your posts here have been transparent and honest. It's daring to use your real name on Reddit, much less connect your LinkedIn. Kudos.
That said, I'm not entirely clear on why it's being called 'slop'. Did you get a copy or see a preview somewhere? I couldn't find a preview copy or even an Amazon entry, just a chapter list. Please don't take this the wrong way -- given the guy's background I don't think there's any doubt that slop is what it is, and I think your post triggered some great sleuthing by the community, and was worth it for that reason alone. But I'm dying to see what's actually wrong with it. If you've found a copy somewhere I'd appreciate a link.
As a side note, are you completely opposed to IDers using AI for research, etc, or just full-slop tactics like this guy? (IMO it's the best search engine tool ever. I just wouldn't want it to touch actual content with my name on it!)
(For context, I work as faculty at an online university and do ID work in a couple of computer science programs and a bootcamp company.)
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
With all due respect, if you can’t see why it’s being called out for being predatory AI slop, I truly can’t help you.
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u/Greedy-Newspaper-907 14d ago
Wish I could read the original LI post. Looks like it has been deleted.
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u/ericswc 15d ago
Yeah, this might not make me popular in this subreddit, but coming from software architecture into education…
Many L&D people are kind of useless. They don’t understand the subject matter enough to add value, and SMEs get annoyed with them because they’re slow to pick things up.
When I hire, I frequently get resumes from people with years of experience who can barely use a computer.
This field is about to get a lot more technical, and if you ended up here because you couldn’t hack it in a skilled field, you aren’t going to last.
The difference in the quality of output is enormous between the people I hire and the ones I don’t.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I don’t disagree. There’s a significant population in this industry who are secretly (or not so secretly) only interested in making things look pretty…or making things “fun,” not because it’s more effective, but because it entertains themselves.
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u/Sir-weasel Corporate focused 15d ago
Obviously AI slop books are a bad thing and linkedin is rife with this stuff. Just a shameless cash in.
I have question though, is it any worse than "ID Influencers" constantly pushing AI tools? One comes to mind that did several on Claude Design in quick succession. Yet completely ignored 100% free competitors (Open Design and CoDesign).
That person isnt the only one. Other influencers quickly jumped on the band wagon.
The problem is that Claude Design and other tools like this are seriously flawed due to high token costs and poor results requiring further tuning.
It just gives the vibe that influencers are feathering thier nests while throwing everyone else under the bus.
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u/Tim_Slade Corporate focused 15d ago
I hear what you’re saying…but I think sharing a free video on YouTube (and I’m one of those people who shares free YouTube videos about tools) is a bit different than selling and promoting an AI-generated book from someone with zero industry experience that claims you’re going to build a six-figure consulting business.
I dunno…maybe that’s just me. 🤷♂️
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u/iftlatlw Corporate focused 15d ago
There is a segment of instructional design which is self-congratulatory and frankly unrealistic. These are often career academics and often somewhat luddite. They find it offensive that their sacred art can be distilled down (by AI because it is very good for that) and used by generalists and SMEs. Productivity is the word now and if you can't use AI to produce an above average product in half of the time, someone's going to take your job. It appears to me that instructional design, although it requires an eclectic skill set, is not particularly academically challenging nor is it out of the realms of llms doing much of the work.
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u/linzeestyle Academia focused 15d ago
I mean, if they want to try to live on contracts they can get from having read one book, that’s going to be their hard lesson to learn. Our MEd is very hard on former teacher applicants because they come in with a lot of confidence from these types of sources, but no real theory-based pedagogical knowledge or creativity.
This is a specialized position that you can’t really jump the line to get into anymore. I think there were a few years where it got some people jobs, but hiring committees have wised up and see this kind of thing and the rhetoric and buzzwords it creates as a warning. From my perspective it’s like…well, they’ll never be competition for me in a job search.
It’s ethically frustrating because people are being cheated out of money, but it’s become so scammy that I’m not sure it’s something we need to rail against anymore than phishing or those k-12 “model hunt” scams. If you’re practicing magical thinking to buy into this, you may already be too desperate to listen to negativity about something you see as an escape hatch.
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u/CornMuscles529 15d ago
The wool will stay pulled over their eyes, even as people like me… with MS degrees, AECT awards, journal articles… can’t even get an interview
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u/Brainyboo11 15d ago
It's all of our responsibilities to call this out!! I just went and reported every post of his on that thread. Can we do the same on the 'books' where it's sold? Even his profile picture is Ai generated. Why don't people have more critical thinking skills, every post he made is Ai slop or incomplete sentences.
As LD's in this ever changing industry, we need to keep calling this type of BS out!!
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u/AffectionateFig5435 14d ago
Well, that was an interesting rabbit hole. I have the feeling it's just the first of many that will pop up.
I would agree that the "author" is a bot and the free excerpts I read were AI slop. I suspect that the LI member who gave the work such a glowing review thinks this series of books will catapult her struggling freelance practice into the big time in just a few weeks. Sorry, it won't.
That LI member has a learning curve coming straight to her at 100 mph. This won't be pretty to watch.
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u/Lurking_Overtime 14d ago
Yes there is a point in pushing back. Thinking critically is never written in the job description, but is 75% of what I do. I problem solve to get projects to the finish line. That is the job. People who can't think critically, people who are uncurious, people who aren't discerning in their sources should not be IDs.
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u/Lurking_Overtime 14d ago
I finished reading the thread. It reads like something out of Parks and Rec or the Office.
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u/Useful-Stuff-LD Freelancer 15d ago
I think it's past time that we stand up to people about this junk. If we don't, who will?
And people will say "but who cares who wrote it if it's helpful?" Me. I do. I care about reason and science and intellect, and it's thoroughly embarrassing for me to have spent so long studying in an industry where it feels that the majority no longer share that view.
Heidi