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AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

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Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#11

Post by renewiltord »

This is just like the way some people decided that "Blue Check" should be an insult on Twitter. Occasionally people still say it but almost everyone ignores it. Fads like this are common on the Internet. It's just like any other clique of people: a few people accidentally taste-make as a bunch of replicators simply repeat mindless things over and over again "slop" "mask-off moment" "enshittification" "ghoulish". Just words that people repeat because other people say them and get likes/upvotes/retweets or whatever.

The "Blue Check" insult regime didn't get anywhere and I doubt any anti-LLM/anti-diffusion-model stuff will last. "Stop trying to make fetch happen". The tools are just too useful.

People on the Internet are just weird. Some time in the early 2010s the big deal was "fedoras". Oh you're weird if you have a fedora. Man, losers keep thinking fedoras are cool. I recall hanging out with a bunch of friends once and we walked by a hat shop and the girls were all like "Man, you guys should all wear these hats". The girls didn't have a clue: these were fedoras. Didn't they know that it would mark us out as weird losers? They didn't, and it turned out it doesn't. In real life.

It only does on the Internet. Because the Internet is a collection of subcultures with some unique cultural overtones.

Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#12

Post by yhoiseth »

Sarkar argues that “AI shaming arises from a class anxiety induced in middle class knowledge workers, and is a form of boundary work to maintain class solidarity and limit mobility into knowledge work.”

I think there is at least some truth to this.

Another possible cause of AI shaming is that reading AI writing feels like a waste of time. If the author didn’t bother to write it, why should I bother to read it and provide feedback?

Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#13

Post by satisfice »

This paper presents an elaborate straw-man argument. It does not faithfully represent the legitimate concerns of reasonable people about the persistent and irresponsible application of AI in knowledge work.

Generative AI produces work that is voluminous and difficult to check. It presents such challenges to people who apply it that they, in practice, do not adequately validate the output.

The users of this technology then present the work as if it were their own, which misrepresents their skills and judgement, making it more difficult for other people to evaluate the risk and benefits of working with them.

It is not the mere otherness of AI that results in anger about it being foisted upon us, but the unavoidable disruption to our systems of accountability and ability to assess risk.

Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#17

Post by kristjank »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #14
kazinator wrote: post #9

[flagged]

Your argument would've been much better without injecting ca. 2025 US culture war jargon into it.

The prudence of discussing everything in a cultural vacuum comes with the implication of irrelevance to the cultural climate, which could hardly be further from the truth in this case.

Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#18

Post by vanschelven »

This reads like yet another attempt to pathologize perfectly reasonable criticism as some form of oppression. Calling “AI could have written this” a classist slur is a stretch so extreme it borders on parody. People say that when writing lacks originality or depth — not to reinforce some imagined academic caste system. The idea that pointing out bland prose is equivalent to sumptuary laws or racial gatekeeping is intellectual overreach at its finest. Ironically, this entire paper feels like something an AI could have written: full of jargon, light on substance. And no, there’s no original research, just theory stacked on theory.

Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#19

Post by andrelaszlo »

mgraczyk wrote: post #15

I'd like to brag that I got in trouble for saying this to somebody in 2021, before ChatGPT

I put a chapter of a paper I wrote in 2016 into GPTZero and got the probability breakdown 90% AI, 10% human. I am 100% human, and I wrote it myself, so I guess I'm lucky that I didn't hand it in this year, or I could have gotten accused of cheating?

Re: AI could have written this: Birth of a classist slur in knowledge work [pdf]

#20

Post by tough »

andrelaszlo wrote: post #19
mgraczyk wrote: post #15

I'd like to brag that I got in trouble for saying this to somebody in 2021, before ChatGPT

I put a chapter of a paper I wrote in 2016 into GPTZero and got the probability breakdown 90% AI, 10% human. I am 100% human, and I wrote it myself, so I guess I'm lucky that I didn't hand it in this year, or I could have gotten accused of cheating?

maybe gptzero had your paper on its training data (it being from 2016)?
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