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Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

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Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#131

Post by lich_king »

morgengold wrote: post #86

I wonder how much of it could be prompted away. For example the anthropic Frontend Design skill instructs: "Typography: Choose fonts that are beautiful, unique, and interesting. Avoid generic fonts like Arial and Inter; opt instead for distinctive choices that elevate the frontend's aesthetics; unexpected, characterful font choices. Pair a distinctive display font with a refined body font." Or "NEVER use generic AI-g…

> "NEVER use generic AI-generated aesthetics like overused font families (Inter, Roboto, Arial, system fonts), cliched color schemes (particularly purple gradients on white backgrounds), ...

Now, imagine what happens when this prompt becomes popular?

Keep in mind that LLMs are trying to predict the most likely token. If your prompt prohibits the most likely token, they output the next most likely token. So, attempts to force creativity by prohibiting cliches just create another cliche.

Several days ago, someone researched Moltbook and pointed out how similar all the posts are. Something like 10% of them say "my human", etc.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#132

Post by quikoa »

aabhay wrote: post #67
vessenes wrote: post #49

Meh. Semantic Ablation - but toward a directed goal. If I say "How would Hemingway have said this, provided he had the same mindset he did post-war while writing for Collier's?" Then the model will look for clusters that don't fit what the model consider's to be Hemingway/Colliers/Post-War and suggest in that fashion. "edit this" -> blah "imagine Tom Wolfe took a bunch of cocaine and was getting paid by the word to p…

These kinds of prompts don’t really improve the writing IME. It still gets riddled with the same tropes and phrases, or it veers off into textual vomit.

Even if it would work good luck writing with a new style.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#133

Post by matwood »

dsf2d wrote: post #119
matwood wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're looking for something beyond corporate safespeak AI has been great for removing this stress. "Tell Joe no f'n way" in a professional tone and I can move on with my day.

Yeah but does it make sense to have invested all this money for this? Lol no. Might be great for you as a consumer who is using these products for free. But expand the picture more.

> Yeah but does it make sense to have invested all this money for this?

No, but it's here. Why wouldn't I use it?

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#134

Post by tpoacher »

The part about a change in entropy was interesting.

Is there an easy way to get / compare the entropy of two passages? (e.g. to see if it has indeed dropped after gen ai manipulation).

And could this be used to flag AI-gen text (or at least, boring, soulless sounding text)

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#135

Post by vessenes »

aabhay wrote: post #67
vessenes wrote: post #49

Meh. Semantic Ablation - but toward a directed goal. If I say "How would Hemingway have said this, provided he had the same mindset he did post-war while writing for Collier's?" Then the model will look for clusters that don't fit what the model consider's to be Hemingway/Colliers/Post-War and suggest in that fashion. "edit this" -> blah "imagine Tom Wolfe took a bunch of cocaine and was getting paid by the word to p…

These kinds of prompts don’t really improve the writing IME. It still gets riddled with the same tropes and phrases, or it veers off into textual vomit.

FWIW, I agree. Frontier LLMs are on their way to becoming competent stylists (I ask every major model release to write up a sample essay as Hemingway, and they are improving), but they are often skin-deep.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#136

Post by dvt »

tpoacher wrote: post #134

The part about a change in entropy was interesting. Is there an easy way to get / compare the entropy of two passages? (e.g. to see if it has indeed dropped after gen ai manipulation). And could this be used to flag AI-gen text (or at least, boring, soulless sounding text)

A lot of times, this entropy decay is found in semantic or stylistic space, which would be hard to detect (you couldn't use, e.g., Shannon Entropy). You'd have to ask questions like "is this point uninteresting?" or "is this trope overused?"--bad (human) writers are often guilty of this too, so that's why AI can be hard to detect.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#137

Post by tartoran »

lurquer wrote: post #115
Selkirk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a colleague that recently self-published a book. I can easily tell which parts were LLM driven and which parts represent his own voice. Just like you can tell who's in the next stall in the bathroom at work after hearing just a grunt and a fart. And THAT is a sentence an LLM would not write.

> And THAT is a sentence an LLM would not write. Really? Here's some alternatives. Some are clunky. But, some aren't. …just like you can tell whose pubes those are on the shared bar of soap without launching a formal investigation. …just like you can tell who just wanked in the shared bathroom by the specific guilt radiating off them when they finally emerge. …just like you can tell which of your mates just shitted a…

It's still on you to pick what the LLMs regurgitate. If you don't have a style or taste you will simply make choices that would give you away. And if you already have your own taste and style LLMs don't have much to offer in this regard.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#138

Post by emp17344 »

vpribish wrote: post #122
stephc_int13 wrote: post #11

The "AI voice" is everywhere now. I see it on recent blog posts, on news articles, obituaries, YT channels. Sometimes mixed with voice impersonation of famous physicists like Feynman or Susskind. I find it genuinely soul-crushing and even depressing, but I may be over sensitive to it as most readers don't seem to notice.

same. it is showing how many people are not trying to participate - just appear to. I want to read from and write for my peers, but it seems we are just awash with fakers

The internet is a post-truth space now that you can spin up a million different agents to push whatever narrative you choose.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#139

Post by andrewflnr »

Retric wrote: post #89
svara wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that mostly depends on how good a writer you are. A lot of people aren't, and the AI legitimately writes better. As in, the prose is easier to understand, free of obvious errors or ambiguities. But then, the writing is also never great. I've tried a couple of times to get it to write in the style of a famous author, sometimes pasting in some example text to model the output on, but it never sounds right.

I find most people can write way better than AI, they simply don’t put in the effort. Which is the real issue, we’re flooding channels not designed for such low effort submissions. AI slop is just SPAM in a different context.

You may be in a bubble of smart, educated people. Either way, one of the key ways to "put in the effort" is practice. People who haven't practiced often don't write well even if they're trying hard in the moment. Not even in terms of beautiful writing, just pure comprehensibility.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#140

Post by 0x7cfe »

pimlottc wrote: post #61
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #42

I personally think “generative AI” is a misnomer. More I understand the mathematics behind machine learning more I am convinced that it should not be used to generate text, images or anything that is meant for people to consume, even if it is the most blandest of email. Sometimes you might get lucky, but most of the time you only get what the most boring person in the most boring cocktail party would say if forced to…

Regurgitative AI

Degenerative AI
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