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I won't read LLM authored fiction

mccormick.cx

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Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#41

Post by darkwater »

dgellow wrote: post #16
sdoering wrote: post #10

That is a perfectly valid opinion and POV to have. While I don't share it personally, I can totally understand why one has it. That does not change, that I personally actually do not care the slightest about the question of who or what wrote a novel. But that is just me, having studied literatur and fallen into a school of literary studies that held Roland Barthes' claim of the death of the author [1] in high regard.…

> What does the author wanted to tell us with this story." Because -> The author never wrote that down. And deriving their intentions from a fictional text felt just like making shit up It’s an exercise in engaging intellectually with the work. It’s not about knowing for a fact what the author wanted to communicate. Art is about engaging with human emotions and thoughts, not about deriving specific facts.

True, but that does not mean that the average teacher won't grade you badly if your interpretation is completely opposed to their and what was discussed during lessons.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#42

Post by amarant »

Definitely agree with LLM texts being boring and lacking personality. Which for technical text is fine, but devastating for fiction. I wonder if you could coax it into writing less average formulations with some clever prompting?

I don't oppose LLM fiction on principle, and I don't think McCormick does either, but it's just too damn boring to be worthwhile, and I think McCormick hits the nail on the head as to why. This seems like it'll be the last frontier for LLMs, good fiction requires a departure from LLM nature, and that'll inherently be difficult to solve.

I do wonder if you could do something like style transfer on texts? I'm not a very good author either, but occasionally I'll get an idea for a story and wish I had the skill to write it in a way that'd be worth reading, but my poor prose tends to get in the way. Would be cool if I could feed it my poorly written attempts and say basically "this story but in the style of [insert great author]" the way you can snap a photo and get it in the style of a Van Gogh painting.

If nothing else I think I'd enjoy a Tolkien sci fi story, or a Asimov high fantasy.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#43

Post by Devasta »

lijok wrote: post #18

This is approaching “I don’t want a synthetic diamond, I want the real thing” levels of lunacy There will come a time, very soon, where you wont be able to tell the difference, and what then?

> There will come a time, very soon, where you wont be able to tell the difference, and what then?

We'll stop buying new books, sticking to things written before 2022.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#44

Post by hansmayer »

jalev wrote: post #22
aleda145 wrote: post #13

I concur with the author. Personally I think I just won't read fiction produced after 2023. There's so much good literature already produced, why bother with the new stuff? I feel very sorry to any budding new authors. Maybe we are entering a literary dark age?

I'm interested in why you feel like this. Do you take this action because you can't trust traditional channels (blogs, established tradpub authors, Goodreads et al) to self-curate LLM writing out of the pool of available literature you would normally be aware of?

[dead]

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#45

Post by Gander5739 »

j4yav wrote: post #31
Maxion wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised if you've listened to AI generated music or read AI generated text without identifying it. Same as with VFX in shows and movies, the good stuff people don't identify as VFX, but the shitty stuff stands out. It's going to be the same with LLM generated content.

It should be easy then to link to some AI generated music that is actually good?

I would be impressed if you could link to some human generated music that everyone will agree is good.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#46

Post by imathew »

sdoering wrote: post #10

That is a perfectly valid opinion and POV to have. While I don't share it personally, I can totally understand why one has it. That does not change, that I personally actually do not care the slightest about the question of who or what wrote a novel. But that is just me, having studied literatur and fallen into a school of literary studies that held Roland Barthes' claim of the death of the author [1] in high regard.…

There are lots of fun ways to experience literature or any art, and you can do multiple! I love reading a book and just considering it from the text alone, and then also considering it from in the context it was written. And then considering my own biases and how they might be similar or different to the author and how that might affect my interpretation.

I could probably enjoy certain LLM-generated art, but in far fewer ways.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#47

Post by raincole »

tempfile wrote: post #34
aleda145 wrote: post #13

I concur with the author. Personally I think I just won't read fiction produced after 2023. There's so much good literature already produced, why bother with the new stuff? I feel very sorry to any budding new authors. Maybe we are entering a literary dark age?

Why can't you just find authors you like and respect, that you trust not to write slop? Why go all cabin-in-the-woods about it?

Because there are also thousands (millions?) of such non-slop-books published before 2023?

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#48

Post by ethagnawl »

imathew wrote: post #29

I won't (if I know) either, but for me it's because a very big part of reading fiction or enjoying any art is that you have a relationship of a kind with its creator. When a passage surprises me or a song lifts me or a painting inspires me it's partly because I'm amazed that someone was able to do that, and that they were able to reach me like that. Everyone borrows or steals from prior art but I'm still amazed by th…

> I'm amazed that someone was able to do that

This is a bit "woo" but I've always thought of this experience/phenomenon as souls touching across time and space. LLMs either don't have souls or they've stolen them but, either way, that experience (if still possible with slop) would be tainted and perverted.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#49

Post by cung »

INTPenis wrote: post #4

Afaik I have yet to encounter LLM fiction, but I have seen plenty of AI generated music and it truly disgusts me. Each to their own but to me a large part of music was always the life experience of the person making it. I'm listening to their life, their love, their pain in music form. Without an interesting human behind it, art loses all magic to me. That's why it's beyond annoying that my own brother absolutely lov…

I have been listening to a whole lot of AI music and it is often better than human generated. I foresee an immense unavoidable shift in the music industry due to this. It is already impossible to distinguish what is AI and and what is human generated music.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#50

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

aleda145 wrote: post #13

I concur with the author. Personally I think I just won't read fiction produced after 2023. There's so much good literature already produced, why bother with the new stuff? I feel very sorry to any budding new authors. Maybe we are entering a literary dark age?

To be fair, reading new fiction is… Well, it is not a waste of time, but you really need a good recommendation from another reader you trust to find the gems in the manure pile. I don’t know how much of ”booktok” and whatnot is just cynical marketing and how much of all this ”romantacy” or whatever is generated by LLM’s, but it might as well be. And same goes to literature awards, oh boy are some of those award-winning books trash.

But the thing is, bad art dissappears. People simply forget, because bad art just is not interesting. Maybe it has a nostalgia comeback or two, but eventually it just dies away with the people who made it, who sold it and who read/experienced it. The great art stays, because it is found again and again by yet another generation. I heard kids have somehow found Count of Monte Cristo again. They are still making movies of Homeros’ texts. Joyce never went out of fashion, neither did Shakespeare, Rabelais, Cervantes nor Proust.

So only thing you need to do is wait, really. Meanwhile there is more classic’s around no-one reads in a lifetime.

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