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Words, Words, Words

aeon.co

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Re: Words, Words, Words

#11

Post by furyofantares »

jdw64 wrote: post #3

I agree with the point that the content of the text matters, but most people care more about who wrote it. For example, no matter how much I write on my blog (www.makonea.com), no one reads it. But if the same content is written by someone famous, it gets cited far more often. That's the problem. There are people who want to obtain information from text, and there are people who want "communication." In communication…

Having the LLM rewrite your writing always, in my experience, loses any sense of what the author cared about, everything is given monotone weight instead of somethings more important than others.

But does your writing have to become blunted after a red-team _review_? You're running a technical blog and want to detect technical errors, that's great - a red-team review sounds like something that would tell you the technical errors and you'd fix those up without rewriting your words.

Re: Words, Words, Words

#12

Post by jjulius »

jdw64 wrote: post #3

I agree with the point that the content of the text matters, but most people care more about who wrote it. For example, no matter how much I write on my blog (www.makonea.com), no one reads it. But if the same content is written by someone famous, it gets cited far more often. That's the problem. There are people who want to obtain information from text, and there are people who want "communication." In communication…

>That said, if I don't use AI at all, since I pride myself on running a technical blog, not detecting technical errors would also be a problem. So it's a dilemma.

Is it? To err is human. Embrace the risk of technical errors and what/how we learn from them.

>The issue is that human writing is generally rougher. But if we insist on preserving only human writing, we end up having to define humanity's roughness as mere "barbarism."

Is it truly "barbarism", or is it just... human? What's wrong with writing being a bit "rough around the edges"?

Re: Words, Words, Words

#13

Post by MarkusQ »

> ...tell me what you think about AI, and I’ll tell you who you are. Those worried about [...]

Significant omission: those worried about automating the production of bullshit at industrial scale.

Re: Words, Words, Words

#14

Post by neonstatic »

I found the first paragraph amusing.

  > Since artificial intelligence went mainstream a few years ago, it has done double duty as a political personality test: tell me what you think about AI, and I’ll tell you who you are.
Ok, let's see what has the author noted.

  > Those worried about climate change focus on energy consumption.
Climate change, a left-wing policy issue.

  > Those who denounce late capitalism see it as the ultimate example of corporate monopoly.
"Late capitalism" is a marxist term, so another left-wing point.

  > Those concerned about racism have warned about AI biases.
This is a toss up between left-wing identity politics and American obsession with race.

  > Those studying the effects of colonialism see it as yet another form of exploitation.
Colonialism. Another left-wing talking point.

  > And those tending toward doom have seen ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok as the four riders of the apocalypse.
And we get neuroticism. As the last point. So the "political personality test" can diagnose a person as a left-winger, American, or someone neurotic. Those are my options? :)

Re: Words, Words, Words

#15

Post by zjp »

Derrida was worried that people were merely imitating his style of thinking without the substance, but it's fine for AI to do it to humanity-in-general. OK.

Re: Words, Words, Words

#16

Post by epihelix »

RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Rugnir's points: > "readers feel cheated when they learn that a text was written by AI. But will this attitude persist?" Yes, yes it will. I don't say this as a value judgement, just an inevitability. When people can generate stuff themselves, it becomes less magical. You have to do something they themselves cannot, or would not think to do. Its possible to do surprising and insightful with ai, but you aren't going t…

> I imagine social norms will develop that you chat with these yourself to develop something (including having it fetch human works on the topic for you to read), then write your piece in your own words/say it in your own voice.

This is exactly what the author was arguing for towards the end of the article:

"At the same time, we felt that, if used right, AI could enhance the process of writing and thinking. To this end, we teach students how to create AI agents that act as sparring partners, forcing them to sharpen their thinking by reacting to counter-argument and counter-evidence."

I do this myself, and find it highly useful for my own research.

Re: Words, Words, Words

#17

Post by epihelix »

antiquark wrote: post #8
RugnirViking wrote: post #2

Rugnir's points: > "readers feel cheated when they learn that a text was written by AI. But will this attitude persist?" Yes, yes it will. I don't say this as a value judgement, just an inevitability. When people can generate stuff themselves, it becomes less magical. You have to do something they themselves cannot, or would not think to do. Its possible to do surprising and insightful with ai, but you aren't going t…

> write fanfiction about what it thinks those best minds I asked AI what Einstein would be working on today if he were alive, the result was a predictably rosy scenario of modern physics problems. However the reality was that Einstein (in his later years) became isolated from physics developments.

While I don't think there's much to be gained by asking AI for a verisimilitude of famous dead people, GPT 5.5 in response to that prompt ("What would Einstein be working on today, if he were alive") was more nuanced:

This is an educated guess, because we cannot know how Einstein would have reacted to post-1955 developments: Bell’s theorem, quantum information, the Standard Model, inflation, black hole thermodynamics, dark matter/dark energy, gravitational waves, and modern experimental cosmology. The missing information that would most change my answer is whether “today’s Einstein” would retain his later-life philosophical commitments — realism, locality, geometric unification — or adapt them after seeing modern evidence.

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