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I know you didn't write this

ammil.industries

41–50 of 145 posts

Re: I know you didn't write this

#41
post #9
post #2

> Suspicions aroused, I clicked on the “Document History” button in the top right and saw a clean history of empty document – and then wham – fully-formed plan, as if it had just spilled out of someone’s brain, straight onto the screen, ready to share. This isn't always a great indicator. I can't stand Google Docs as an interface to write with, so use VIM and the copy/paste the completed document into it.

> This isn't always a great indicator. Right. Certainly not dispositive. > use VIM and the copy/paste the completed document into it. But he did mention tables. You'd think if they weren't just ASCII art, there'd be _some_ google docs history about fixing them up.

Fairly certain e.g. copy-pasting from Obsidian will copy over the tables as well.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#42
I will admit to being an LLM workslopper. I don't ever send anything written by an LLM (because anyone who's seen enough LLM writing will recognize it's an LLM) without rewriting it by hand first - with exceptions for parts of READMEs - but for any other task it's pretty much 100% LLM.

I look at the output and ask it to re-re-verify its results, but at the end of the day the LLM is doing the work and I am handing that off to others.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#43
post #20

When it comes to LLMs, the only thing I hate more than the "I don't know, the AI wrote it" people is the "I wrote this" crowd. No you didn't, you asked someone else to write it. If you couldn't claim copyright for it in an IP court, you did not write it. Period.

Has this actually been tried? Plenty of people have released AI generated (in part or nearly whole) media as their own, especially in music and fiction literature.

Personally, I'd love to see most of this stuff disappear from services that advertise it on par with human generated media like spotify and amazon (though I'll also admit to having a soft spot for the soul style AI covers of 50 cent and others).

Re: I know you didn't write this

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another copy/paste reason - I can't count the number of times I've written up something for work on my own google account by mistake, then paste it into a new doc on the work account so I can share it.

You really should use separate browser profiles...

Or separate machines. It's not impossible to maintain sufficient separation in software, but it's a lot easier to skip the whole mess.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#45
post #2

> Suspicions aroused, I clicked on the “Document History” button in the top right and saw a clean history of empty document – and then wham – fully-formed plan, as if it had just spilled out of someone’s brain, straight onto the screen, ready to share. This isn't always a great indicator. I can't stand Google Docs as an interface to write with, so use VIM and the copy/paste the completed document into it.

I don’t need everyone seeing the dirty laundry of my first draft and edits. I too work in a working doc and then when completed I drop it at once into the final google doc.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#46
post #2

> Suspicions aroused, I clicked on the “Document History” button in the top right and saw a clean history of empty document – and then wham – fully-formed plan, as if it had just spilled out of someone’s brain, straight onto the screen, ready to share. This isn't always a great indicator. I can't stand Google Docs as an interface to write with, so use VIM and the copy/paste the completed document into it.

On another similar but different note, I don't think I've ever uploaded any code written by LLMs to GitHub, but I do sometimes upload fully complete projects under my "initial commit". Some people may legitimately just hide the edit history on purpose just because they don't want to "show their work". It's not really a particularly good habit, but I think a lot of us can relate.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#47
I'm sometimes asked to produce meaningless 30-page documents that nobody ever reads. I mean literally nobody, since I can see the history of who has accessed it. Me and a proof-reader, and occasionally someone will open it up to check that it exists. But nobody reads them, let alone reads them closely. Not the distant funder who added it as a line-item requirement to their grant (their job is adding line items to grants, not reading documents), nor the actual people involved in the project, who don't have time to read a meaningless document, and don't need to. It's of use to no one, it's just something that must be done because we live in a stupid world.

I've started having AI write those documents. Each one used to take me a full week to produce, now it's maybe one day, including editing. I don't feel bad about it. I'm ecstatic about it, actually; this shouldn't be part of my job, so reducing its footprint in my life is a blessing. Someday, someone will realize that such documents do not need to exist in the first place, but that's not the world we live in right now, and I can't change it. I'm just glad AI exists for this kind of pointless yeoman's work.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#48
post #12

Why can't the plan be judged on its merits? Rigorous verification of the idea is a good thing that should happen anyways. The main potential problem I see is transmission of privileged information to a third party. I assume they are working at a business to make money, not a school or a writing competition.

The problem comes from the asymmetry between the effort that went into generating and judging. You can have one person spinning out documents that can keep a whole team busy and dragging everyone down. Along the same lines as "A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes."

If the documents they're putting out are bad, then they're doing bad work and that eventually comes with consequences from your coworkers and superiors. If they're doing good work, then great! Who cares if an LLM wrote most of it and they just edit it? That's not super different than the current relationship between senior and line workers.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#49
post #31

Is writing with LLM assistance that different than writing with a typewriter 100+ years ago? Than using a computer and printer 30 years ago? Each can be seen as using a tool to add false legitimacy. But ultimately they are just tools.

Yes, it's different.

All these tools provide leverage to the author, but only one of these tools provides non-deterministic leverage.

Re: I know you didn't write this

#50
post #12

Why can't the plan be judged on its merits? Rigorous verification of the idea is a good thing that should happen anyways. The main potential problem I see is transmission of privileged information to a third party. I assume they are working at a business to make money, not a school or a writing competition.

Because judging something on its merit is intrinsically tied to judging the underlying amount of effort that was put into something.
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