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The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

mohammedshehu.com

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Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#31

Post by AnimalMuppet »

arjie wrote: post #4

I once had a scriptures class where I had to hit word count on an essay and replaced every instance of “Jesus” with “Jesus the only begotten Son of God who died on the cross so that we may be saved from our sins”. So, yes, humans can also expand text in a mechanical way. I just don’t want to read expanded text. So really the question is “is this text expanded?”. Pre-LLM very little was. Post-LLM much is and has certa…

Hmm. Expanded text. You have just explained why I hate the writing style of the New Yorker.

And when you put it that way, it makes me think of steganography. That's a form of "expanding" the text, and it seems like it might be a useful way to think about the problem. Somewhere hidden in that wall of text is an actual message... but I don't want to have to go find it.

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#32

Post by captainbland »

> A person can type 3,000 words by hand and have no thought pass through their head beyond the need to finish before lunch.

I get this is tongue in cheek, but it's so wrong that it needs pointing out. Even if that is a thought in their head, they clearly have to have others in order to produce the text.

But in general, checking that a human wrote it is economic as much as anything else: attention is currency limited by time and energy, AI effort is abundant and therefore low value, human effort is less abundant and therefore more valued. Pyrite can look pretty but it's not what people want.

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#33

Post by forgetfreeman »

Low grade engagement bait that reads like a mediocre attempt at whitewashing slop. If the author's premise holds then we're saying that there's no daylight between the works of an individual who has taken a literal lifetime to hone a skillset and any random dilletante armed with the appropriate AI tools.

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#34

Post by hodgesrm »

paulpauper wrote: post #2

Nah, AI writing is bad because it breaks the implicit trust between the reader and the author. It's implicitly assumed when you read something that a person write it. It's not merely a tool. the writing is worse, and people feel like they are being ripped off when they see it and it's undisclosed.

How would you feel about an article if you knew the author circulated it to respected friends for review? That's another way to use LLMs. I do it all the time. LLMs are great sounding boards.

Similarly how would you feel about writing that the author passed over to an editor?

p.s., I'm just echoing the arguments of the orginal article's author, who has a talent for reductio ad absurdum.

edit: added p.s.

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#36

Post by auggierose »

andy99 wrote: post #15

Just send me the prompt if you’re going to write with AI. No point in trying to convince me it’s great, the marginal cost for me to re-run the prompt is zero, just send the prompt - it’s like unzipping a file before you send it to me, it doesn’t help, it just decreases information density.

[flagged]

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#37

Post by nvme0n1p1 »

tikhonj wrote: post #26
nvme0n1p1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is a person and they get to decide what they want out of life. Even if you disagree. If you get to decide how they live their life, can I decide how you live yours? Why wouldn't you want spraypainted messages which bring real value to your house?

I mean, if you wrote an article like "the whole premise of disallowing people to spray-paint your house is daft"... The real point isn't that they're "obligated" to allow AI-generated comments, but that they're being something of a hypocrite.

They aren't contradictary. A better analogy would be if they wrote an article like "the whole premise of banning spraypaint is daft", they still wouldn't want random strangers spraypainting their bedroom.

"Dogs should be legal to have as pets" yet "I don't own a dog"

"Banning sushi is daft" yet "I don't want sushi smeared on my house"

"Checking for human writing is daft" yet "I don' want strangers to be able to SSH to my webserver and edit the HTML files with their comments"

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#38

Post by twoodfin »

orbital-decay wrote: post #20

>I don’t care whether you wrote every word with your bare hands. I care whether the thought is yours, whether you exercised judgment, whether the result deserves my attention and whether you’ll stand behind it once it leaves your screen. Alright, compare the following degrees of autonomy: - I wrote it, made sure everything's correct, let the LLM proofread it/translate it to English, and checked it afterwards - I had…

The difference between the first and the rest is usually blindingly obvious: LLMs are really terrible at crafting their own coherent narrative.

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#39

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

balls187 wrote: post #9

I think we're just in an transition point. When I get materials that are clearly AI generated, I look at them as if there was less effort put into it. But that is irrational. If it was verified for accuracy, and edited for conciseness, and addresses the task at hand, does it matter?

Most of the time I find myself reading long-form text, it's not the case that there's exactly one task at hand. I'm trying to weigh different options to solve a problem, or explore future directions in a more general sense, or even just expand my intellectual horizons with interesting ideas I hadn't previously thought through. So accurate, concise text can still point me in the wrong direction and thus be entirely useless to me if the ideas contained within it aren't the product of meaningful effort.

Re: The whole premise of checking for human writing is daft

#40

Post by [deleted] »

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #5

Why are comments turned off on the blog posts itself? I was planning to make 200 thoughtful comments with the cheapest AI I could find to prove a point, but the lack of an option to comment shows you already know the point: something has to gate participation in the conversation. Human authorship is a fantastic gate, which keeps me from pulling my stunt here, where that gate is firmly in place. You could achieve almo…

[deleted]
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