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Warranty Void If Regenerated

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Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#341

Post by chii »

intended wrote: post #340
ijk wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, the story can be read as gesturing in that direction, as it's ostensibly about giving a new title to a particular job. In general, though, I think part of the mistake people keep making is that they try to imitate what would be value to engage with if a human wrote it, in an attempt to claim the role of an author of a book or whatever. There's likely artforms that are unique to what an LLM can facilitate,…

Yes. In the end what mattered truly was the expression. However - since we are humans - we also care about the artist. Creating something without the effort previous works involved, can and do affect the context and understanding of it. Hah - just thought of one good example: how would people feel about talking to only fans creators, if they didn’t know it was AI.

> Creating something without the effort previous works involved, can and do affect the context and understanding of it

not really. Unless you place value on _effort_, rather than be objectively outcome based. Someone digging a hole with a spoon doesn't make it a better hole than a jackhammer.

I maintain that the work itself - that is, the contents of what is being expressed - is the sole judgement of how good the works is. Not the authorship, LLM-usage or otherwise.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#342

Post by intended »

chii wrote: post #341
intended wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. In the end what mattered truly was the expression. However - since we are humans - we also care about the artist. Creating something without the effort previous works involved, can and do affect the context and understanding of it. Hah - just thought of one good example: how would people feel about talking to only fans creators, if they didn’t know it was AI.

> Creating something without the effort previous works involved, can and do affect the context and understanding of it not really. Unless you place value on _effort_, rather than be objectively outcome based. Someone digging a hole with a spoon doesn't make it a better hole than a jackhammer. I maintain that the work itself - that is, the contents of what is being expressed - is the sole judgement of how good the wor…

Eh, by that same argument, how would LLMs fair when the content of the work itself is about “Something made by a human”.

A core fact about information, is that signal only exists in the right context.

As an illustrative example: A string of static or gibberish numbers converts to signal when we have the right tools to interpret it.

You could see a bunch of rocks arranged on a beach, while someone who understands the local language may see an SOS.

Culture itself keeps evolving, and teenagers reuse language to create jargon that makes sense to them, but is opaque to others.

I am arguing that your point is true, but its phrasing focuses on the Platonic ideal, and avoiding the messy practical context of communication.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#343

Post by chii »

intended wrote: post #342
chii wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Creating something without the effort previous works involved, can and do affect the context and understanding of it not really. Unless you place value on _effort_, rather than be objectively outcome based. Someone digging a hole with a spoon doesn't make it a better hole than a jackhammer. I maintain that the work itself - that is, the contents of what is being expressed - is the sole judgement of how good the wor…

Eh, by that same argument, how would LLMs fair when the content of the work itself is about “Something made by a human”. A core fact about information, is that signal only exists in the right context. As an illustrative example: A string of static or gibberish numbers converts to signal when we have the right tools to interpret it. You could see a bunch of rocks arranged on a beach, while someone who understands the…

The context exists whether it's LLM generated or not, because the context sits broadly in society, culture, and manifests in the mind of the reader.

> how would LLMs fair when the content of the work itself is about “Something made by a human”.

it would fair just as well as if the same words had been written by a human, provided the contents are sound and has good meaning - conversely, slop is slop, regardless if it was written by an LLM or human.

My point at the grandparent post is that there's a lot of blind discrimination on the origin of a works - if it was written by or with the help of LLM, then it automatically deserves less attention, and/or its content's worth diminished. All without actually discussing the content.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#344

Post by saint-evan »

wedg_ wrote: post #222
saint-evan wrote: post #204

I really REALLY enjoyed this article and the direction it took me in. I went in with zero preconceptions, just read it straight through, and only after opening the comments did I realize it was largely AI-assisted. Even then, I was very pleasantly surprised. The piece takes you by the hand and leads you through a very deliberate and directed journey. Sure, there are moments where things wobbled a bit like some explan…

I had the exact same experience. It's probably the first time I've read something that (besides the images, which I think are pretty obvious) I didn't think was AI. And while I did feel a little tricked learning it was AI, ultimately it was actually just quite good? I understand why people feel like they need more transparency around these things. Reading for me is intentional, and I feel cheated when I put in the ef…

I think I come at this from a very different angle. I grew up around books, so I default pretty hard to being reader-first. I don’t really factor in the author’s effort when I decide if something was worth reading. It’s almost entirely about whether the work holds my attention and/or gives me something.

So the idea of feeling tricked based on how much effort went into it feels foreign to me. If I got something out of it, that's enough. Even if it took the author and a model no time at all.

The ‘feeling tricked’ part, to me, suggests a kind of adversarial framing with AI outputs that I think is curious. I’m just engaging with the text in front of me, whether it’s a story, a README, or a wall of technical writing. If it communicates clearly and has substance, I don’t think much about where it came from. I think much of this just comes down to what people think they’re engaging with when they read, the work itself or the mind behind it.

And tbh, filtering what’s worth the attention has always been on the reader. There’s plenty of human written slop too. I tend to judge everything the same way on my way to deciding whether to keep reading or drop it.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#345

Post by nikkwong »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #225
nikkwong wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but in the present case we have exactly what you're describing—a story, almost fully written by AI but with some human cherry-picking in the mix. And readers are finding it a phenomenal story and then wanting to vomit retrospectively in learning about the authorship. It just seems patently obvious to me that this is not where the sentiment is going to stay—it will hit the margin, like the people who decide to…

Are you an AI? This looks like it was at least ran through an LLM judging by the heaps of em dashes.

Nope — you can browse my HN comment history and I've been using em dashes far before LLMs were a thing

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#346

Post by BoorishBears »

Stwerner wrote: post #102
BoorishBears wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect (but don't know) that this had to be edited somewhat heavily or generated in isolated chunks: I've generated a lot of fiction with Claude and it has a chronic issue of overusing any literary device one might associate with good writing once it appears in the context window I think if you left it to its own devices, some of the narrative exposition stuff that humanized it would go off the rails

Yeah, there's a lot more work and personal touch that went into this (and the previous piece) than just "write prompt -> copy/paste into substack". It's really interesting to hear about others that have been exploring generating fiction with Claude. I clearly need some more work based on some of the comments, but it has been really interesting discovering and coming up with different techniques both LLM-assisted and…

I run a product that generates interactive fiction (for search engine reasons I don't mention it in my comments, but there's a link to an April Fool's landing page in my post history where you can try it)

Because it's productized I need to "one-shot" the output, so I focus a lot on post-training models these days, but I've also used tricks like running wordfreq to find recently overused words and feed the list back to the model as words that cannot be used in the next generation.

Models couldn't always follow instructions like that (pink elephant problem), but recently they're getting better at it.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#347

Post by ByThyGrace »

jjmarr wrote: post #330
ByThyGrace wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The prose is like every other work of science fiction I've read. Well, then, you gotta move on to reading better science fiction. Because this is pretty damn bland. I gave up after 2 minutes because of it. Kinda feel vindicated after coming to the comments. I can see it working for casual readers, which is why it's already an editorial problem. Imagine having to sift through a growing number of faux writers sending…

Hard science fiction isn't known for the quality of its prose. I'm reading something like Starship Troopers or The Martian because I believe the technology and culture depicted in the setting is interesting.

Of course! You don't expect them all to live up to Gibson. Doesn't mean you can't look out for authors pushing themselves. Andy Weir's prose may be formulaic but effectively so. Having figured out the thriller side of it is enough of a leap. Like Stross did. More recently qntm has been dropping gems, relevant to our time. Someone like John Ringo managed to write enjoyably written hard scifi (Live Free or Die) that holds up to this day.

But this submission? It feels like the writer is trying to enter a spiral which turns out a circle. Ridden with exposition and matter of facts. The dialogue is barren, soulless. I tried to pick it up again, but the more I read the more I want to get out. Its topic being brand new doesn't justify all of the monotony. I'm sorry to the author (orchestrator?); I'm just being earnest.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#350

Post by _carbyau_ »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #105
_carbyau_ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans build friendships and relationships on shared experiences. There is an element of relationship-through-experiencing-a-thing. Whether it's going for a walk together or the classic first date template of dinner and a movie. The shared experience is the thing. With stories that shared experience is between author and reader. Book clubs etc will try to extend that "shared experience" but primarily it is author rea…

...and what meaning does it have? It means, "Wow. Cool. I'm a member of a species that taught rocks to think. Holy fuck. That's pretty insanely fucking awesome. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Fuck." That's about all it means. Nothing was removed from your life, but something optional was added.

Ok, you read one AI story and get that feeling. And yes, is it pretty cool as a concept.

But after how many AI stories does that novelty wear off?

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