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ai;dr

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Re: ai;dr

#301

Post by etler »

If someone uses AI to help them write, and they reviewed it, and it's high quality writing, I don't care how much they wrote by hand. But, if I can tell it was written by AI that's just a proxy for telling that the author did not put time and care into what they were writing.

AI bloats text and every other task it does into convoluted redundant cliches. This is true for text and code. Whether it was written by an AI or not, it's not worth my time. If you wrote it 100% by hand and it still sounds like AI, it's still bad writing and still not worth my time.

Re: ai;dr

#302

Post by etler »

losvedir wrote: post #6

I really like Oxide's take on AI for prose: https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576 and how it breaks the "social contract" where usually it takes more effort to write than to read, and so you have a sense that it's worth it to read. So I get the frustration that "ai;dr" captures. On the other hand, I've also seen human writing incorrectly labeled AI. I wrote (using AI!) https://seeitwritten.com as a bit of an exp…

I don't like AI writing because it's bad writing. It's convoluted and inefficient and doesn't get to the point. If someone writes something that feels like AI, it doesn't matter if it was or not because it's still bad writing. I'm not talking about having a cliche here and there, but rather when the text is just incredibly inefficient.

Re: ai;dr

#303

Post by FrankRay78 »

zahlman wrote: post #223
FrankRay78 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m seriously not astroturfing, point is serious. Most people here would not be able to tell the difference between good human and good AI generated writing anymore in a blind test, especially a blend of both. So if the reader often can’t tell, why is the source of a well written, interesting piece of writing more important, than the effect of the content itself? I don’t feel the OP made a good argument imho.

> Most people here would not be able to tell the difference between good human and good AI generated writing anymore in a blind test, especially a blend of both. So if the reader often can’t tell You say that, but I think it's really, really obvious in this case. If you disagree, you should show us both versions.

I would be happy to, but let me think about writing it up properly and posting it as a more serious piece for consideration.

Re: ai;dr

#304

Post by andrewaylett »

netsharc wrote: post #71
dontwannahearit wrote: post #25

It's pretty much over for the human-internet. Search was gamed, its usefulness has plummeted, so humans will increasingly ask their LLM of choice and that LLM will have been trained on the content of the internet. So when someone wants to know something about the topic that my website is focused on, chances are it will not be the material from the website they see directly, but a summary of what the LLM learned from…

Tragedy of the attention-economy. Ad networks gives you money if you placed their ads on your site, so people got machines to generate fluff to earn some money. Now all search result is just bullshit pages to capture your attention until the banner ad.. A simple query like "Ford Focus wheel nut torque" gives pages with blah blah like: > Overview Of Lug Nut Torque For Ford Focus > The Ford Focus uses specific lug nut…

Bad example. I tried that search with Kagi and the first result was the answer, while the second was a discussion site which also gave me useful information: https://kagi.com/search?q=Ford+Focus+wheel+nut+torque&r=gb&s...

Then I tried it again with Google and DDG and all three gave me the exact same page as their top result: https://www.puretyre.co.uk/tyre-information/tyre-pressures/f...

Re: ai;dr

#305

Post by Kerrick »

account42 wrote: post #278
Kerrick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laugh every time somebody thinks every problem must have a root cause that pollutes every non-problem it touches. It's a problem to use a blender to polish your jewelry. However, it's perfectly alright to use a blender to make a smoothie. It's not cognitive dissonance to write a blog post imploring people to stop polishing jewelry using a blender while also making a daily smoothie using the same tool.

This is basically the "I'm not evil, it's just a normal job" excuse. Like with any moral issues there will be disagreement where to draw the line but yes if you do something that ends up supporting $bad_thing, then there is an ethical consideration you need to make. And if your answer is always that it's OK for the things you want to do then you are probably not being very honest with yourself.

Your response assumes the tool is a $bad_thing rather than one specific use of it. In my analogy, that would be saying that "there is an ethical consideration you need to make" before using (or buying) a blender.

Re: ai;dr

#306

Post by machielrey »

Why should we dislike an AI-assisted post if it is genuinely though-provoking or entertaining?

I am the first person to respect craft in many domains, and will continue to do so.

I respect it when an actor does their own stunts or when directors choose not to use CGI.

But I will still watch the Matrix and think "holy shit that was cool".

It's all about the quality of the output.

Re: ai;dr

#307

Post by jfengel »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #96
steveBK123 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Ai writing is that its a waste of everyones time. It’s literal content expansion, the opposite of gzip’ing a file. It’s like a kid who has a 500 word essay due tomorrow who needs to pad their actual message up to spec.

Well, LLMs can be either side of that. They can also be used to turn something verbose into a series of bullet points. I agree that reading an LLM-produced essay is a waste of time and (human) attention. But in the case of overly-verbose human writing, it's the human that's wasting my time[1], and the LLM is gzip'ing the spew. [1] Looking at you, New Yorker magazine.

We can run each LLM-produced essay through an LLM to reduce it to bullet points.

We can then run it through another LLM to reduce it to a single bullet point.

Then we can run it through a final filter, which reduces it to "ai;dr".

Re: ai;dr

#308

Post by michaelcampbell »

losvedir wrote: post #6

I really like Oxide's take on AI for prose: https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576 and how it breaks the "social contract" where usually it takes more effort to write than to read, and so you have a sense that it's worth it to read. So I get the frustration that "ai;dr" captures. On the other hand, I've also seen human writing incorrectly labeled AI. I wrote (using AI!) https://seeitwritten.com as a bit of an exp…

ai;dr is the new "looks shopped, I can tell by the pixels".

Re: ai;dr

#309

Post by 4b11b4 »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #285
account42 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather read "fuck" than "f-word". The latter is like eating dumplings for lent because surely $deity won't see the meat in there.

Cultured people have no need for such words in public discourse so I'd rather not see either of them or the need. People are judged by the words they use.

Cultured people? I'd certainly argue that words which people feel are "uncultured" strictly DO have a use case.

It's as if you're saying "smart people only color inside the lines." Take a step back.

Re: ai;dr

#310

Post by so-cal-schemer »

bananaflag wrote: post #224
ginsider_oaks wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. from the preface of SICP.

Well SICP was already considered here to be obsolete with the rise of the library-abstraction culture.

Is this sarcasm?

SICP is fundamentally about abstraction..

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