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Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

mkbaio.substack.com

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Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#21

Post by kelseyfrog »

The author seems unaware or at least uninterested in the fact that writing style can have a dramatic impact on output. It's unclear if they wish to not be emailed "by ChatGPT" or if they wish to not have to sift through unnecessary and flowery pose.

I'll spare you the details, but a follow up "That's great. However, please rewrite it in the style of Ernest Hemingway." delivers concise, yet obviously Hemingway-esque emails. Example here: https://pastebin.com/rrkCMd8c It works much better in a two-step process. If "Write this email in the style of Ernest Hemingway" is affixed to the original prompt, the model will generate prose at length, defeating the purpose of being concise.

"That's great. However, please rewrite it in the concise style of Paul Graham," of course, works even better.

Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#22

Post by neurobashing »

From what I've seen so far, the best writers (and, I suppose, the best _editors_) tend to get the best results from ChatGPT. I have seen some examples of people whose writing I already liked drive it in ways I never imagined; but like the author suggest "normies" tend to get piles of drivel.

Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#23

Post by low_tech_love »

cantSpellSober wrote: post #10

I've gotten several emails from a recruiter that address me as my last name, all lower caps (Hi swanson, this job..."). It was for an AI company of course.

This is just the beginning. Ever since late last year, I estimate that around 25-30% of everyone I ever talked to via some online session where we had to share the screen for something or another, had a ChatGPT tab open. For students this jumps to around 50%.

Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#24

Post by gkoberger »

low_tech_love wrote: post #19
gkoberger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a random seed, but it will always be slightly different. It's similar to "prompting" a human... you'll likely get the same general result if you ask the same person the same question a dozen times, but it will have enough variability that it won't be identical.

It's certainly not in any way whatsoever similar to "prompting" a human. And yes there are definitely random processes involved. For an extremely objective prompt you may get very similar results but for general stuff like "write an e-mail about this or that" it will be significantly different each time.

Sure, but it's not like they're intentionally randomizing it. You can set parameters (like temperature or penalties), but it's not intentionally randomizing things.

Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#25

Post by paulpauper »

"i hope our paths meet again"

It would seem as if gestures of kindness are more likely to be fake compared to meanness, criticism, or other negativity. I think this is why 1-3 star reviews are so useful, same for reviews posted to reddit , because they are more critical.

Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#27

Post by hobo_in_library »

ymck wrote: post #20
malikNF wrote: post #11

> Please if you want to send me a message and feel compelled to use GPT, please just send me whatever you wrote in your prompt instead. I promise I will still read it! Best bit of the article. Question for someone who knows more about this stuff. How likely is it to get the same response to the same prompt with gpt ? Does it have some kind of random seed applied behind the scenes? -edit- Thank you for the responses.…

Honestly, as someone who does this, Bard seems to be much better at writing natural emails. It's just easier to dump some thoughts in to bard and ask it to redraft, then fluff it a little to sound like me.

Bard may have gotten to train on the entire Gmail corpus

Re: Please stop sending me emails written by GPT

#30

Post by elashri »

Maybe this is a personal experience. As a non-native English speaker who works in academia. I learned formal English since I was a child. ChatGPT/bard will produce a much quicker formal professional email than I will do. But if I took my time to check the email, I would produce a similar email, which is actually how I normally write if I'm sending an email to a professor or someone else in the field. AI like bard or ChatGPT will be a huge time saver in such cases. However, living in the US for half a decade changed a lot.
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