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I won't read LLM authored fiction

mccormick.cx

71–80 of 118 posts

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#71
I feel like LLMs could produce some pretty cool fiction - like cranking up the temperature setting like you can with many models to produce nonsensical garbage that isn't even real sentences during a planning stage to end up with some ideas that human writers wouldn't commonly come up with, and then letting a model that is less lobotomized do the actual writing.

The problem is that regardless of all of that RLHF and positivity bias and slop has essentially ruined any and all LLM writing for the foreseeable future: https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/ai-slop-is-a-self-inflicted-tra...

In short, the writing could be good if it wasn't fucking bullshit.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#72
post #3

I think people read novels because they want to connect with the author on some level. LLM generated text is actually more logically airtight than human writing. For non fiction, I think the information dense LLM style is often better. But human writing leaves space for the reader to breathe. There are gaps scattered throughout. In that sense, I sometimes feel like logical flaws might actually be a signal of humanity

While I also don't like the idea of LLM-generated novels, if you browse the shelves of an airport bookstore you'll see a load of facile by-the-numbers pap novels that could just as well have been AI generated. I suspect readers keen for the latest installment of "Clive Cussler's MacGuffin Files" or [Cover picture of nerdy, barely legal girl gazing adoringly at buff, smug, confident dude] will happily welcome their LL…

That's true, but even so, there were people who loved the story itself regardless of the grammar. I was actually shocked when I read the original English version of the Twilight series..

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#74
post #7
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 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.

No, music and literature are not like VFX, unless I'm truly blind to the magic of After Effects.

A good novel can have you laughing out loud or crying to yourself, they can introduce new ideas that can totally change your outlook on the world. I've read books I've continued to think about for months after I've finished them.

Great music, whether classical or contemporary, particularly when experienced live, can be transcendental.

Both can be wonderful ways of connecting with humanity. To read The Leopard is to inhabit the soul of a minor Sicilian noble, putting on Ride the Lightning is a viceral experience, like hitting a line of speed.

Cinema can evoke these intense experiences, but VFX is but a minor component, and much of the best uses no CGI.

Regardless, as a man who dabbles in AI in his own creative practice, I remain utterly unconvinced that AI is capable of eliciting the response we get from great music or literature. It may produce some filler around the edges, but that great line, the chorus that drives the heart to the sky with a fist raised in the air like an antenna to heaven, this will always be human.

This is for the simple reason that art is fundamentally about human connection and empathy, the transmission of emotion and energy from one sentient being to another.

No LLM could ever write Hallelujah, because no LLM has witnessed heartbreak, contemplated the divine, or practiced bondage.

No diffusion model could paint Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, which incidentally took over a decade, as no machine has ever laughed in contempt of its enemy.

Sure, we can say that there's a human behind each machine, but AI places a wall between the creator and their work. The momentum, inspiration, creative blocks and breakthroughs in the shower, these form the basis of great art.

Re-reading the parent, I've digressed, and perhaps somewhat misinterpreted. I guess I just wanted to write what I've written. Very human.

Yeah, "good" AI blends into the background? No, good art is never in the background. It grabs us, pours into us, and leaves us changed.

God, spent too long on this and need to get some shit done. I'll go put on Ride the Lightning.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#75

I can't tell if I'm getting old, or if this is a reaction purely to people making blog-posts saying they don't like AI, but, I am filled with "who cares?". Unambiguously the point of view is valid. I don't share it, but whatever. But why are you writing this, and why is it getting upvoted? We're several years in. Is there new ground being covered here? Is there something special or unique to this take that we haven't…

There's a continual push from AI enthusiasts to have their work considered equal (or superior) to human output. While that continues, you'll get response articles.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#76
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?

People have been saying this for a while, and--particularly with long-form fiction--we're not getting any closer.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#77
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…

Thing is, I started appreciating this way of looking at art only after reading anti-LLM arguments, and I am a bit angry at myself for not feeling it during the pre-LLM decades of my life, which would have been much enriched.

There is this other way of looking at art (which probably dominated my worldview) where you don't care much about where it comes from. An extreme example is reading Harry Potter fanfiction, which in some way feels like reading math proofs, namely you continuously wonder what else can be done in a largely fixed setting.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#78

I would like to read "actual" LLM fiction in the same sense I would like to read fiction from a lion. I wonder if that kind of alien writing is even possible with this kind of technology. The RL process would have to be quite different at least and even then it is still using human content as the base. Anyone seen any good or even decent or OK fiction of this type?

I would have loved that too but that is quite impossible in this paradigm.

Probably the way people in the 20th century envisioned AGI rising out of GOFAI (also quite impossible in its own way) would have produced an "alien" entity with the properties you desire

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#79

I can't tell if I'm getting old, or if this is a reaction purely to people making blog-posts saying they don't like AI, but, I am filled with "who cares?". Unambiguously the point of view is valid. I don't share it, but whatever. But why are you writing this, and why is it getting upvoted? We're several years in. Is there new ground being covered here? Is there something special or unique to this take that we haven't…

Well can you give me back the few seconds I spent reading your post that was to me pretty much worthless? Alas, while I reckon you wasted precious bits on my bandwidth, some other poor soul might find your sentiment agreeable and insightful.

Why do people write personal blogs? Why do some people read them? Why some people discuss those personal writings on- or even offline? Why do we write? Why do we do anything at all? Why do monkeys hang on trees and go yak tak?

Maybe AI boosting is just a collective Death Wish where we hope for some lobotomised barely existing humanity, where machines in loving grace write poetry of deers strolling past peacefully, and do everything else we humans used to.

Re: I won't read LLM authored fiction

#80
I think many people forget that the vast majority of books aren't high art.

Your mind goes to Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, N.K. Jemsin, or Pratchett.

My mind goes to Ice Planet Barbarians[0] or Crimson Worlds[1] (both written by actual humans, but I think they are good representations of their genres)

There are so many books in the romantasy genre specifically that could be just mad libs templates for AI Generated books.

The people who read them don't care about the plot, they want specific kinds of tropes in the book. They look for enemies-to-lovers, 7 foot tall men, tiny women and other very focused traits (ages, races, LQBTQIA+) in the books. They are consumable fun, not something anyone expects to be stored in the Library of Congress for future generations because they were so earth-shatteringly insightful.

Yes, AI authored (or assisted) books won't bring us the next Culture books by Iain M. Banks, but the next generic romantasy or self-published military scifi books could very well be. And nobody will notice - or care. It's 200-300 pages of entertainment that hits just the specific itch you had.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/series/151379-ice-planet-barbarian...

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/series/97149-crimson-worlds

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