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Writing with LLM is not a shame

reflexions.florianernotte.be

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Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#131

Post by Mouvelie »

nicbou wrote: post #3

I think it's fair to use AI as an editor, to get feedback about how your ideas are packaged. It's also fair to use it as a clever dictionary, to find the right expressions, or to use correct grammar and spelling. (This post could really use a round of corrections.) But in the end, the message and the reasoning should be yours, and any facts that come from the LLM should be verified. Expecting people to read unverifie…

Using that way already reflects a great understanding of the technology bias, and a confidence in your own skills, that you just ask the feedback and not the output of the machine.

I think you could only develop this point of view because you grew up without it. I fear for the young generation, truly.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#132

Post by nicbou »

Mouvelie wrote: post #131
nicbou wrote: post #3

I think it's fair to use AI as an editor, to get feedback about how your ideas are packaged. It's also fair to use it as a clever dictionary, to find the right expressions, or to use correct grammar and spelling. (This post could really use a round of corrections.) But in the end, the message and the reasoning should be yours, and any facts that come from the LLM should be verified. Expecting people to read unverifie…

Using that way already reflects a great understanding of the technology bias, and a confidence in your own skills, that you just ask the feedback and not the output of the machine. I think you could only develop this point of view because you grew up without it. I fear for the young generation, truly.

I wouldn't say so. I grew up without ABS but I trust it over my slow lizard brain. I just don't like being tricked into listening to a machine talking through a human. It's the same feeling as trusting a brand and learning it's just rebadged crap.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#135

Post by satisfice »

Planktonne wrote: post #130

If you truly felt it wasn't shameful to write with AI, you wouldn't write an article trying to justify it that ignores a bunch of reasons people find it shameful. No one is stopping you using AI, but there's an adolescent tone here of 'and you have to approve of me' that I don't care for. You have the right to act the way you wish; you don't have the right to be praised for it. As it happens, I do think writing with…

You're my new best friend, Peritract.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#136

Post by satisfice »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #62
jillesvangurp wrote: post #35

Of course, there’s no shame in using tools that are available to us. We’re a tool-using species. We’re just a bunch of stupid monkeys without tools. A lot of what we do is about using tools to free up time to do more interesting things than doing things the tools already do better than us. Like it or not, people are using LLMs a lot. The output isn’t universally good. It depends on what you ask for and how you critic…

If the tool does the task for you, then you didnt do the task. I don't keep my food cold, my refrigerator does. I just turned it on. This doesn't matter unless I am for some reason pretending I myself am keeping my food cold somehow, and then that becomes a lie. When a tool blurs the line between who performed the task, and you take full credit despite being assisted, that is deceitful. Spell checking helps us all pr…

I recommend The Shape of Actions, by Harry Collins for a book length, sociologically adept treatment of this idea.

My books were edited by professional editors. These editors did not have and did not need any special expertise in my topic to do so. So there's a fundamental difference between grammar checkers/spell checkers, and a tool like an LLM that works in a way that subtly or overtly modify or contribute to the ideas themselves.

I don't mind that a doctor wears a white, nicely laundered lab coat with a stethoscope so that he looks like a doctor. I mind when some rando impersonates a doctor. This is why I distrust people who write by asking ChatGPT to generate text for them.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#138

Post by peterashford »

"The problem is not the use of AI but the people who think they can, arbitrarily, criticize the work from someone else because he used or not AI in the name of “ethics”. But speaking about ethics for a so young technology is useless, in my humble opinions because today, i guess, we have to build ethics standards in AI and as you can see if you do some research, this field is at the beginning of the exploratory phase."

This is appalling reasoning, IMO.

Imagine: 'Sure, the robot delivery dog ate your cat, but we can't criticise the "ethics" of that action because the field of cat eating robot dogs is so new.'

We don't apply this ad-hoc standard of ethics to any other field. Yes we refine our standards as we go, but we sure as hell have ethics that we apply to tech right from the get-go.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#139

Post by rstuart4133 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #77

AI prose is mediocre right now. Too verbose, indirect constructions, passive, etc. That being said, it's actually a great editor and can pick out all those issues consistently. My workflow right now is to use AI for rough draft and developmental editing stages, then switch AI from changing files to leaving comments on files suggesting I change something. It is slower than letting it line/copyedit itself, but models d…

I've always used AI as an editor, which is to say I give it the my efforts and ask it to highlight mistakes. They invariably find a few. They occasionally miss a few too, so they aren't particularly reliable editors.

They aren't reliable at anything I guess, but for English I have nothing else, and they are better than nothing. I do wish they would use a more effective way of highlighting their suggested changes, such as italics for new text and strikeout for deleted text.

Unless you are paid by the word, I struggling to think of why you would use an AI to create new text. The facts will be wrong, the tone won't be yours. "If I had more time, this would be shorter" is a truism here - AI can spit out an enormous amount of text in a very short time, text could be cut down to a fraction of the size with a bit of effort.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#140

Post by AlexeyBelov »

matt123456789 wrote: post #82

When I put real time and thought into an email—and the response I get back is obviously AI-generated—and it comes with no disclaimer—it infuriates me. Maybe the model happened to spit out exactly what the sender meant—just dressed up and grammatically polished. Doesn’t matter—I’d rather someone talk to me directly than funnel a thought through a word-grinder and hit send. Downvote me—call me anti-progress—I don’t car…

Did you intentionally use that many em-dashes? Or was that a bit?
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