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I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

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Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#251

Post by Mentlo »

shafyy wrote: post #247
scorpionfeet wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain the reference? It whooshed me.

Haha, no reference. I just made something up and tried to be funny.

I tried figuring out the reference with Gemini, and it said this:

The immediate reply to that comment is: "On the internet, no one knows you're an editor." This is a direct play on the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." By setting the anecdote in 1987 (a few years before the World Wide Web was publicly available), the commenter is implying that back in the analog days, if a dog wanted to be a writer or an editor, they couldn't hide behind a screen—they had to sit in a smoky London pub and do business face-to-face.

Which makes a lot of sense actually. I would imagine that's what the replier to you thought you meant.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#252

Post by 0_gravitas »

foxglacier wrote: post #230
cortesoft wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who kind of views using a thesaurus as “cheating” I don't think cheating is the right word here (ironically), which I think you are kind of acknowledging by putting it in quotes. Based on your footnote, it sounds like you are more concerned that using a thesaurus is more likely to end with a worse result, since you are likely to use the incorrect word, or to use the word incorrectly. This sounds more lik…

If you make it worse, it's cheating and getting caught. Sometimes you might luck into a correct usage of a word, but like using a LLM, the nuance of that word choice is not part of your thinking, so it's a loss of information that you did to try to appear to be a better writer.

Does learning/using new words make you a worse writer?

The handful of times I've used a thesaurus is usually 'for aesthetics', in that the word/phrase I have in mind clashes with the flow of the text. I know what I want to say, and I know how I can say it, but I _also_ know that I can jostle the wording around so that the rhythm doesn't deteriorate.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#253

Post by wsve »

ghywertelling wrote: post #144
Amekedl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

depending how hard the "the brain is a muscle" saying applies, there is no way using LLMs/chatbot systems/AI is not going to deteriorate your brain immensely.

In I,Robot, Will Smith prefers to drive himself because he doesn't trust AI. But we are moving towards self driving as it would be more safer. Would you trust a calculation more if it was done by hand using log tables? Having vehicles allowed us to create sports like dirt bike riding or monster truck racing. Yes something is lost but something is also gained. We move up the layer of abstraction.

That is not the same situation. Writing is a thing we do to communicate with other people, and to engage our own thinking. It's creative, it's exploratory, and it's a human-to-human practice. It is a top-level abstraction. The only higher you could possibly go is beaming your thoughts directly into someone else's brain.

Also it irks me to compare writing to a calculator's log function or a self-driving car. There are absolute correct/perfect outcomes in those situations (the log function produces the correct number, the car drives you to your destination without injury or unnecessary danger). That is not the same for most things AI is attempting to be used for.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#254

Post by shafyy »

Mentlo wrote: post #251
shafyy wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, no reference. I just made something up and tried to be funny.

I tried figuring out the reference with Gemini, and it said this: The immediate reply to that comment is: "On the internet, no one knows you're an editor." This is a direct play on the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." By setting the anecdote in 1987 (a few years before the World Wide Web was publicly available), the commenter is implying that back in the analog days, if a…

Hahaha great story. But that's not what I had I thought about at all.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#255

Post by ghywertelling »

wsve wrote: post #253
ghywertelling wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In I,Robot, Will Smith prefers to drive himself because he doesn't trust AI. But we are moving towards self driving as it would be more safer. Would you trust a calculation more if it was done by hand using log tables? Having vehicles allowed us to create sports like dirt bike riding or monster truck racing. Yes something is lost but something is also gained. We move up the layer of abstraction.

That is not the same situation. Writing is a thing we do to communicate with other people, and to engage our own thinking. It's creative, it's exploratory, and it's a human-to-human practice. It is a top-level abstraction. The only higher you could possibly go is beaming your thoughts directly into someone else's brain. Also it irks me to compare writing to a calculator's log function or a self-driving car. There are…

Creating graphic arts is also a form of communication. But Procreate makes it easier, even for novice to create amazing art. Consider an aircraft, the pilot is given just few knobs to fly the plane but it still takes you from one location to another. The aircraft is indeed very complex than the knobs given but we can hide most of that complexity underneath the knobs assuming happy path flights most of the time. The higher abstraction I am talking about is the future jargons themselves. AI will allow us to create far more complex stories. Imagine one complex jargon represented by a mandelbrot fractal (to paint a picture of the complexity involved), another represented by burning ship fractal. What kind of operations can I do with these two complex ideas. Can I explore a complex conceptual space with it? We would just say to the AI, subtract one fractal from another and it would handle the details (the definitons, references, related ideas in a free form manner). This is exploration itself. Procreate gives you brushes. AI gives you something similar in conceptual space.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#256

Post by bigmadshoe »

john_strinlai wrote: post #246
sumeno wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my brain has not deteriorated now that i have offloaded that to my phone. Is there empirical evidence that you haven't? You wouldn't necessarily be the best judge

do you want a reference from a published journal or something? links to my last mri? how do you want me to answer this? bring some empirical evidence that using ai rots the brain, and in the meantime, i will think about whether or not its worth trying to answer your request in earnest.

There is no way for you to know that you aren't slightly less sharp having offloaded the memorization of those phone numbers. Who is the judge? It's a nonsensical question from a scientific perspective because it's impossible to prove either way.

We could speculate that simple acts like memorizing phone numbers probably do make the average person slightly sharper, in a similar way to trivial brain games helping to stave off alzheimer's.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#257

Post by dhosek »

0_gravitas wrote: post #252
foxglacier wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make it worse, it's cheating and getting caught. Sometimes you might luck into a correct usage of a word, but like using a LLM, the nuance of that word choice is not part of your thinking, so it's a loss of information that you did to try to appear to be a better writer.

Does learning/using new words make you a worse writer? The handful of times I've used a thesaurus is usually 'for aesthetics', in that the word/phrase I have in mind clashes with the flow of the text. I know what I want to say, and I know how I can say it, but I _also_ know that I can jostle the wording around so that the rhythm doesn't deteriorate.

The question is how you acquire the new words. If you learn words from reading, you’ll have a better sense of their nuance than if you learn them from a thesaurus. Thesaurus writing is often easily identifiable thanks to the writer not catching the full meaning of the word. Some authors are better than others for challenging one’s vocabulary, notably Anthony Burgess and Cormac McCarthy. While I enjoy David Foster Wallace, I feel like he had a tendency to abuse medical terminology in an attempt to challenge the reader with unfamiliar vocabulary.

If I were to contemplate using a word I found in a thesaurus in my writing (and it was something that I didn’t already know), I would make sure to (a) read the definition in a dictionary and probably do a search on Google books to see the word in action.

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#258

Post by vonunov »

saltcured wrote: post #196
ianseyer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think that is the beauty of writing, the raw , unedited emotions of the person behind every words either for entertainment or educational purposes, is what makes it special" - the article, clearly expressing the intent of its own mistakes and contextualizing them in the era of LLM-borne "perfect" text

Here's a possibly fun topic to navel gaze on... Compare thoughts on this notion of AI and authenticity in writing to the way things like auto-tuners and sequencers have been perceived in the music world. Like there are some esoteric corners of the Jazz space where musicians seem to try to emulate a sequencing machine and play perfect notes, will there be writers trying to emulate the clean AI performance? :-/

Well, I mean, kind of https://i.vgy.me/UtZJt0.png

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#259

Post by nusl »

heavyset_go wrote: post #54
nusl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slop decade will be a slop "rest of humanity." There's no going back from this.

I think some spaces will try to retain their value by actively combating LLMs, in the same way they combat hackers and trolls, and if they don't, they'll naturally die. Several subreddits became AI slop submission repositories and their human engagement dwindled. Some subreddits that were inundated with AI slop implemented policies that ban it, and it seems to work well. Strict no slop policies work, and surprisingly…

Perhaps. What happens when we reach the point where slop is indistinguishable from typical human language?

Re: I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era

#260

Post by asdff »

raincole wrote: post #42
asdff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to sound like an llm? Don't read llm content. Remove yourself from places where you might be liable to read it.

If you strictly read printed books only and am never exposed to online content, you'd think em-dash is a signal for human writing.

No, you'd begin recognizing authors voices. Hemingway reads different than Hesse for example. You'd expect to have distinct authoring styles as you've read thus far.

You'd come across slop after llm slop all writing in the same voice eventually you are going to say WTF is going on, is everyone using the same style guidelines? Not far off from what is actually happening.

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