ai slop
I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
361–370 of 533 posts
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Armies of idiots hunt down em dashes because they're too stupid to understand the proper use of them.
They are probably like me: if punctuation isn't on my keyboard, I don't use it.
[AltGr][Shift][-]
Without shift it's an en dash (–), with shift an em dash (—). Default X11 mapping for a German keyboard layout, zero config of mine.
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Just spell it out literally. Spelling it out literally is precisely what the GP is doing in each of the example sentences — literally saying what the subject is doing, and with the precision of choosing a single word better to convey not only the mere fact of bipedal locomotion, but also the WAY the person walked, with what pace, attitude, and feeling. This carries MORE information about in the exact same amount o…
Those examples were simple, so it’s less of an issue, but if the words you use are so crazy that the reader has to read slower or has to stop to think about what you mean…then you aren’t making things more concise even if you are using less words.
For sure! Every author should know their audience and write for that audience.
An author's word choices can certainly fail to convey intended meaning, or convey it too slowly because they are too obscure or are a mismatch for the the intended audience — that is just falling off the other side of the good writing tightrope.
At technical paper is an example where the audience expects to see proper technical names and terms of art. Those terms will slow down a general reader who will be annoyed by the "jargon" but it would annoy every academic or professional if the "jargon" were edited out for less precise and more everyday words. And vice versa for the same topic published in a general interest magazine.
So, an important question is whether you are part of the intended audience.
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are probably like me: if punctuation isn't on my keyboard, I don't use it.
Yeah, this is what I don't understand, surely people aren't "using" em dashes deliberately. I assumed MS word was just inserting them automatically when the user used a minus symbol between two words. Kind of like angled quotes.
> surely people aren't "using" em dashes deliberately
I am, it's on the default German X11 keyboard layout. Same for · × ÷ …
And that's without going to the trusty compose key (Caps Lock for me)… wonders like ½ and H₂O await!
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#365> There were unspoken rules, commandments passed down from teacher to student, year after year. The first commandment? Thou shalt begin with a proverb or a powerful opening statement. “Haste makes waste,” we would write, before launching into a tale about rushing to the market and forgetting the money. The second? Thou shalt demonstrate a wide vocabulary. You didn’t just ‘walk’; you ‘strode purposefully’, ‘trudged we…
> [...] I'm a native English speaker that studied writing in university [...] As a native English speaker who studied writing at university, do you think "who" should be used with people while "that" should only be used with things or the other way round. Or should I just not care? Edit: missing things
I think you might intend to compare 'that' and 'which'? Common advice is to use 'that' with people and 'which' with objects, though that isn't necessarily followed and omits many nuances.
Use 'who' with people especially, often with other living beings ('my dog, who runs away daily, always is home for dinner') or groups of them ('the NY Yankees, who won the championship that year, were my favorite'), but never with objects unless pretending they live ('my stuffed bear, who sleeps in my bed, wakes me every morning').
If you care about these things, the Chicago Manual of Style is a large, technical, highly respected guide aimed at publishing. Fowler's Modern English Usage is more focused on usage. A short and beloved guide is The Elements of Style by Strunk & White. You can find all on the Internet Archive, I'm almost certain.
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
"He walked up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He strode up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He sidled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He tromped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" Each of those sentences conveys as slightly different action. You can almost imagine the person's face has a different expression in each version. Yes, I hate it when amateurs just search/rep…
I know you know everything I'm about to write, but I read a lot of dubious quality fiction. It needs to be made clear that if the butler "strides" up to Helen, then I, the reader, am expecting him to eject her from the party, tell her that her car is on fire, or something equally dramatic. The writer can subvert this expectation, but must at least acknowledge that it exists. The butler can stride up to Helen with a s…
Yes, that's a great way of explaining it, and I 100% agree.
People shouldn't use "strides" just because "walked" is boring. They should use "strides" when it's meaningful in the context of the story.
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#367This author writes in ESL better than 99% of the people I've worked with in an English-native country, including myself. It's fascinating to read just how much more emphasis good-quality written English seems to have in Kenya than it does here in Australia (at least in the public education system where I have experience). I suppose that it's understandable, given that it gates access to higher-level education opportunities.
I don't really understand the aversion some people have to the use of LLMs to generate or refine written communication. It seems trigger the "that's cheating!" outrage impulse.
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#368If you think about societies still in English colonial hangover and ChatGPT you might find that they have similar reasons to speak the way they speak.
Both aim at using an English that is safe, controlled and policed for fear of negative evaluation.
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
"He walked up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He strode up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He sidled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He tromped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" Each of those sentences conveys as slightly different action. You can almost imagine the person's face has a different expression in each version. Yes, I hate it when amateurs just search/rep…
The Hawaiian language has a concept called Kaona, which is essentially embedding deeper meanings in contextual word choices. It can go way beyond the literal meaning of the words, and tie into bigger concepts of culture, lineage, and places. It's super cool hearing about it from native speakers. We don't really do it intentionally in English, at least to the same degree. But there's still a lot of information coded i…
In English the word is “connotation.”
Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me
#370A lot of training data was curated in Kenya[0]. I would imagine if LLM data was curated in Japan our LLMs would sound a lot like the authors of their most popular English text books. Maybe other common Japanese idioms would leak in to the training data, like "ね" or "でしょう", ChatGPT would say "Don't you agree?" at the end of every message. [0] https://www.theverge.com/features/23764584/ai-artificial-int...
I guess it can't be helped.
It's not because I like you or anything.