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ai;dr

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Re: ai;dr

#2
I think that this requires some nuance. Was the post generated with a simple short prompt that contributed little? Sure, it's probably slop.

But if the post was generated through a long process of back-and-forth with the model, where significant modifications/additions were made by a human? I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Re: ai;dr

#5
I remember this was back in 2023, when ChatGPT had first launched, and I had a manager whose English was not very good. He started sending emails that felt like they were written by a copywriter. And the messaging was so hard to parse through because there's so much ChatGPT fluff around it. Very quickly we realized that what he was saying was usually in the middle somewhere, but we'd have to read through the intro and the ending of the emails just so that we couldn't miss anything. It felt like wasting 2-3 extra minutes per team member.

Re: ai;dr

#6
I really like Oxide's take on AI for prose: https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576 and how it breaks the "social contract" where usually it takes more effort to write than to read, and so you have a sense that it's worth it to read.

So I get the frustration that "ai;dr" captures. On the other hand, I've also seen human writing incorrectly labeled AI. I wrote (using AI!) https://seeitwritten.com as a bit of an experiment on that front. It basically is a little keylogger that records your composition of the comment, so someone can replay it and see that it was written by a human (or a very sophisticated agent!). I've found it to be a little unsettling, though, having your rewrites and false starts available for all to see, so I'm not sure if I like it.

Re: ai;dr

#7

I think that this requires some nuance. Was the post generated with a simple short prompt that contributed little? Sure, it's probably slop. But if the post was generated through a long process of back-and-forth with the model, where significant modifications/additions were made by a human? I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I don't see what value the LLM would add - writing itself isn't that hard. Thinking is hard, and outsourcing that to an LLM is what people dislike.

Re: ai;dr

#8
post #3

> specially documentation How we can tell that this wasn't written by an LLM.

You can't.

Like always we have to lean on evaluating based on quality. You can produce quality using an LLM, but it's much easier to produce slop, which is why there's so much of it now.

Re: ai;dr

#9

I think that this requires some nuance. Was the post generated with a simple short prompt that contributed little? Sure, it's probably slop. But if the post was generated through a long process of back-and-forth with the model, where significant modifications/additions were made by a human? I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

One problem is that it's exceedingly difficult to tell, as a reader, which scenario you have encountered.

Re: ai;dr

#10
> AI-generated code feels like progress and efficiency, while AI-generated articles and posts feel low-effort

I've noticed that attitude a lot. Everyone thinks their use of AI is perfectly justified while the others are generating slops. In gamedev it's especially prominent - artists think generating code is perfectly ok but get acute stress response when someone suggests generating art assets.

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