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The computers are getting better at writing

newyorker.com

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Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#21

Post by Teever »

lbacaj wrote: post #3

I have been doing a lot of writing lately, short and longer essays. I have also written on-and-off for the last ten years. Writing well is not easy. I used to think I wrote well until I started reading better writers. The whole idea that we will just slap together a bunch of text using some “AI” and it will resonate with people is crazy to me. As an engineer whose dabbled with some AI and ML, and has even seen what G…

This comment is correct.

The most interesting question that it raises is whether the comment was written by GPT-3. How would we ever know for certain?

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#22

Post by xkeysc0re »

vumgl wrote: post #5

Computer-played chess or go games are already more interesting than the human-played ones. If you get computer-written novels indistinguishable from the best human-written novels, or even better, would you read them? There will be 1 million of them generated every day, all better than Harry Potter, or by taste, War and Peace.

Chess and go are both constrained games with no hidden information. Literature is anything but.

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#23

Post by cageface »

throwawaygh wrote: post #13
causality0 wrote: post #4

GPT-3-generated writing is a combination of comically absurd and incredibly deep. The weak infants of the woman next door who had to be picked up with the tongs and thrown into the dustbin is quite silly but then there's He wanted to crawl away from it, but there was no place to go. which is a surprisingly deep statement about the revulsion he feels towards himself. That a computer can generate that says very uncomfo…

> which is a surprisingly deep statement People used to say the same thing about Markov chains, and then the hype died down it took 20 years for another hypetrain to pull into the station. The same will happen with GPT-n. > says very uncomfortable things about the skill of humans in recognizing genuine creative significance. Indeed. People see pictures in clouds and omnipotent beings in the stars. Humans are uncomfor…

What applications are Markov chains used in now?

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#24

Post by nautilus12 »

spoonjim wrote: post #10
lbacaj wrote: post #3

I have been doing a lot of writing lately, short and longer essays. I have also written on-and-off for the last ten years. Writing well is not easy. I used to think I wrote well until I started reading better writers. The whole idea that we will just slap together a bunch of text using some “AI” and it will resonate with people is crazy to me. As an engineer whose dabbled with some AI and ML, and has even seen what G…

Computer generated text have tens of millions of people they can put out of a job, manipulate into emotions, phish for scams, etc. without needing to produce text like James Joyce.

I almost feel like the obscure to most effects of joyce may be easier for gpt3 to generate than other things an only joycian scholars of which there are few would be able to tell

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#25

Post by coffeefirst »

lbacaj wrote: post #3

I have been doing a lot of writing lately, short and longer essays. I have also written on-and-off for the last ten years. Writing well is not easy. I used to think I wrote well until I started reading better writers. The whole idea that we will just slap together a bunch of text using some “AI” and it will resonate with people is crazy to me. As an engineer whose dabbled with some AI and ML, and has even seen what G…

Very true.

GPT-3 (and everything like it) is the perfect tool for SEO spam and filling out college papers with blather if you're confident no person is actually reading it.

It's impressive. No, really, it's an incredible simulacrum. But it's also just a slightly more practical version of the infinite monkeys with typewriters thought experiment.

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#26

Post by wsh »

I had to rewrite a letter for someone the other day and used Google Docs for the first time in a while. I was struck by how often it made autocomplete suggestions and how good they were: not just stock phrases (“Thank you in advance for your prompt attention...”) but substantive text, too.

This kind of help with the mechanics of composition and usage, however, is a far cry from the critical thinking needed to be an effective advocate, expositor, or entertainer. There’s more to being a writer than making plausible sentences and paragraphs.

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#27

Post by kumarvvr »

throwawaygh wrote: post #13
causality0 wrote: post #4

GPT-3-generated writing is a combination of comically absurd and incredibly deep. The weak infants of the woman next door who had to be picked up with the tongs and thrown into the dustbin is quite silly but then there's He wanted to crawl away from it, but there was no place to go. which is a surprisingly deep statement about the revulsion he feels towards himself. That a computer can generate that says very uncomfo…

> which is a surprisingly deep statement People used to say the same thing about Markov chains, and then the hype died down it took 20 years for another hypetrain to pull into the station. The same will happen with GPT-n. > says very uncomfortable things about the skill of humans in recognizing genuine creative significance. Indeed. People see pictures in clouds and omnipotent beings in the stars. Humans are uncomfor…

And other people reward those findings with money. Good writing is hard. Writing that evokes emotions in others is even harder.

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#28

Post by nl »

throwawaygh wrote: post #13
causality0 wrote: post #4

GPT-3-generated writing is a combination of comically absurd and incredibly deep. The weak infants of the woman next door who had to be picked up with the tongs and thrown into the dustbin is quite silly but then there's He wanted to crawl away from it, but there was no place to go. which is a surprisingly deep statement about the revulsion he feels towards himself. That a computer can generate that says very uncomfo…

> which is a surprisingly deep statement People used to say the same thing about Markov chains, and then the hype died down it took 20 years for another hypetrain to pull into the station. The same will happen with GPT-n. > says very uncomfortable things about the skill of humans in recognizing genuine creative significance. Indeed. People see pictures in clouds and omnipotent beings in the stars. Humans are uncomfor…

The limitations of Markov chains are obvious within hours of starting to use them. GPT-3, less-so.

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#29

Post by ryandrake »

Swizec wrote: post #11
lbacaj wrote: post #3

I have been doing a lot of writing lately, short and longer essays. I have also written on-and-off for the last ten years. Writing well is not easy. I used to think I wrote well until I started reading better writers. The whole idea that we will just slap together a bunch of text using some “AI” and it will resonate with people is crazy to me. As an engineer whose dabbled with some AI and ML, and has even seen what G…

You are right. AI will not replace good writing. AI will replace typical writing – seo spam, news reports, ads, coding tutorials, etc Good writing has insight. AI can’t do that yet. Most writing is filler lettuce. AI is great.

Most news articles don’t seem to be even proofread anymore! At least AI spells perfectly. It will at least likely soon replace the uncreative who/what/where/when news writing.

Re: The computers are getting better at writing

#30

Post by amilios »

It's clear that the system occasionally struggles in making coherent sentences that communicate actual meaning -- others have pointed this out well enough. I think what's occasionally lost in these types of criticisms of these systems is the point the article is making about the transformation of the role of the writer from a producer to a curator. Already this transformation has occured in other fields; the job of a professional translator (for text) at this point is mostly starting with a machine translation and slightly tweaking it in order to produce something more natural. I can easily see this happening with GPT-N: the writer inputs some ideas, and filters what's produced and/or tweaks it to make the final product. It doesn't matter if X% of what it produces is trash: if there is usable content, the role of the writer has been changed. If the machine produces something like the article's examples on the first go, and all the "writer" needs to do is tweak it a bit to modify the bit about throwing babies in the trash, then it is still groundbreaking.
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