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Did a Human or a Computer Write This?

nytimes.com

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Re: Did a Human or a Computer Write This?

#13
This actually gives me a idea for an independent study I need to do to finish my computer science minor. It is basically what the article is about, an algorithm that I could use to write my papers. It could be for major papers or for a cover letter or even a blog post that I have to write for a class.

Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

I have not done any research on the topic of algorithms writing articles other than reading this article and the other article that is on the front page as well.

Re: Did a Human or a Computer Write This?

#16

What does "written by a computer" even mean? I mean, computer-written can be anything from filling in some blanks to rendering a formula by reverse-parsing. And suppose that an apparently fancy formula actually results in blank-filling-in most of the time? Lots of professional writers are described as following a formula. Lots of writers and non-writers construct text using word-processors and even an occasional sear…

It means what it means, the sentences were not composed by a human. I used to work for a financial news website that started to make extensive use of this. Then management started using the phrase "talent cloud" an awful lot. Then my job started to suck, so I left. This is all about labor costs, of course.

That might not be as clear a meaning as you think.

For example, say we used an algorithm to generate 100 sentences from a markov chain generated off a book.

If I show you the top 5 of that 100, is the computer composing the sentences? Or are we just hoping the computer lands on a configuration that we ourselves would write?

It's not exactly "Computers emulating humans" when the result is a Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Re: Did a Human or a Computer Write This?

#17
I missed 3 because I have a low opinion of human punctuation. For sports and business or most things with numbers I assume that it is a computer because that is the kind of data that is reasonably easy to write domain specific sentence construction for. For poetry looking for whether there seems to be underlying meaning or intent that surfaces without excessive mental gymnastics also seems like a reasonable strat.

Re: Did a Human or a Computer Write This?

#18
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's out of 8, so either you missed 3 and got 5/8 or you nailed it and got 7/8 :-) I, for one, was wholly duped by the computers, with a 50% success rate.

I got 6/8, but I had already heard of robots writing box-scores (more than one of the questions). I was duped by the old english poetry, and also the novel which was dictating a human experience. I imagined it too difficult to write that for any current type of writing programs. They need to get this technology into spam bots, pronto! http://xkcd.com/810/

The box scores were really good. They are the two that got me, I guess the word complexity is low -- so templating can be high, but they felt to me very human-ish.
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