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I do not want AI to "polish" me

thebloggess.com

11–20 of 276 posts

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#11
I've only recently started using AI, and have discovered my use or rejection of it is predicated on my feelings for the task. This argument of "authenticity" really resonates.

I'm a manager, so when I'm sending emails to a customer or talking with one of my reports, I care deeply - so you might get some overwrought florid prose, but it's my overwrought florid prose.

On the other hand, I have to lead a weekly meeting that exists solely to provide evidence for compliance reasons, something out of the CIA's sabotage field manual that David Graeber has probably written about. But is now a thirty second exercise in uploading a transcript to ChatGPT, prompting for three evidentiary bulletpoints, and pasting the output in a wiki no human will ever read.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#13

The irony is that someone would just use an AI to summarize the long winded polished version.

I have noticed many news outlets presenting articles with an "AI summary" on top. Often the article is copied right off of a newswire service, with some elaborations woven in. I have a feeling the thing the LLM is summarising is increasingly something another LLM has previously expanded.

What if we just wrote articles well, such that (a) they were not filled with fluff, and (b) the summary would be to only read the first paragraph of the article?

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#14
post #4

The obsessive need for AI developers to make everything into the most banal, inoffensive version of said thing will probably end up being the biggest roadblock for AI taking over human jobs.

You phrase it well. It's not the AI themselves. You can as easily get an AI to take something fundamentally banal and write it into something exciting, dynamic, exotic, or strange.

If you analyze these systems as a work of art, using the postmodern toolset, the people and systems taking one of the most potent technologies humanity has ever created and using it to craft a banality machine is just... very revealing. Like the great-uncle who can't even finish protesting how non-racist he is without using a racial slur in the process.

"We're innovative! We're hip! We're on the cutting edge! We're setting trends! Now here, let me help you turn your text into the grayest corporate sludge imaginable."

It's art. It's probably not art they intended to make, but it's art.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#15
post #2

You have an individual and unique way of speaking and writing? We're going to have to polish that out with the slop machine, citizen.

I use Grammarly to check for errors I make during writing more serious stuff (English is not my native language), but any suggestion it sends in my way changes the tone of the text so much that it sounds like it's written by a PR agency with a fake, forced attitude; sounding bland and colorless.

So no, thank you. Correct my textbook punctuation mistakes, and leave my wordy and "not positive enough" sentences to me.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#16

There is no way in hell anyone who knows me would get that email and not think I’d been abducted This person cares about not putting up a fake identity. That's pretty cool, but social media has exposed that a large number of people are perfectly fine presenting an illusion. People will have no shame passing off well written things as an output of their talent and hard work. Digital makeup has no bounds.

[flagged]

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#18
post #4

The obsessive need for AI developers to make everything into the most banal, inoffensive version of said thing will probably end up being the biggest roadblock for AI taking over human jobs.

Honestly the only spot-on use case I can think of for an eternally calm, friendly, totally bland and generic customer service AI is for interacting with the Karens of the world and only because it would spare the nerves of human employees and because the logs would no doubt be hilarious to read.

Re: I do not want AI to "polish" me

#19
AI "polishing" tools are essentially a form of anti-compression. Lets take some information represented concisely and needlessly pad it with formalities and waffle so it appears more "professional" (whilst also throwing away useful "metadata" like message tone).

No doubt the recipient will also be using some form of AI summarization that strips away all that added "polish" - making the whole exercise entirely redundant!

It just feels absurd.

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