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We're losing our voice to LLMs

tonyalicea.dev

381–390 of 425 posts

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#381
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share! Computational literature is my main area of research, and constraints are very much in the center of it... I believe that there are effectively two kinds of constraints: in the language of stories themselves, as thing-in-itself, as well as those imposed by the author. In a way, authorship is incredibly repressive: authors impose strict limits on the characters, what they get to do, etc. This is a form o…

Just so I understand who I am talking with here, when you say authorship is a form of slavery, is that because you believe the characters in a written story have a consciousness/sentience/experience just like animals do, or are you just using the word 'slavery' to mean that in traditional literature the characters are static? One of the strengths of traditional literature is that staticness, however, because the best…

The latter, and as I said in prior writing—it's not that I don't believe in constraints, I simply don't believe that this "staticness" is a feature of contrivance—rather, I would say it's a side-effect having to do with limitations of the medium.

> Kruggsmash is able to make them compelling because he is a great author

This is how all good plays come to be, from great authors. The question is whether AI could be "great," is that which I'm ill-equipped to address in any shape or form, but given some priors I would say it's more likely than not. However, I'm mostly interested in enabling the human authors themselves. For example, if you're familiar with interactive fiction, you know there's a complexity explosion going around branching. The first approximation of comp-lit is to assist with that complexity by allowing the author to de-couple story constraints from text itself. This requires a form of metatext, or hypertext, if you were to venture into Alternate reality games.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#382
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also ironic is how the post about having a unique voice is written in one-sentence-paragraph LinkedIn clickbait style.

You're absolutely right! Tell me more about how ironic is how the post about having a unique voice is written in one-sentence-paragraph LinkedIn clickbait style.

You're absolutely right that I'm absolutely right! So how may I serve you today?

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Content recycling has become so cheap, effort-wise, it’s killed the business. Thank god.

Yes. That particular content-farm business model (rewrite 10 articles -> add SEO slop -> profit) is effectively dead now that the marginal cost is zero. I’m not mourning it.

That particular content-farm never interacted with me.

Tangentially, we've reached to the point that we can't trust google/internet anymore.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#385
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right! Tell me more about how ironic is how the post about having a unique voice is written in one-sentence-paragraph LinkedIn clickbait style.

You're absolutely right that I'm absolutely right! So how may I serve you today?

[deleted]

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#386
post #60

I call it the enshittification fix-point. Not only are we losing our voice, we'll soon enough start thinking and talking like LLMs. After a generation of kids grows up reading and talking to LLMs, that will be only way they'll know how to communicate. You'll talk to a person and you couldn't tell the difference between them and LLMs, not because LLMs became amazing, but because our writing and thinking style become m…

That's a great point — not only would I never do that but no one else should either.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't disagree, but LLMs happened to help with standardizing some interesting concepts that were previously more spread out as concepts ( drift, scaffolding, and so on ). What do you mean? The concepts of "drift" and "scaffolding" were uncommon before LLMs? Not trying to challenge you. Honestly trying to understand what you mean. I don't think I have heard this ever before. I'd expect concepts like "drift" and "s…

Apologies, upon re-reading it does seem I did not phrase those as clearly as I originally intended. You are right in the sense that the concepts existed beforehand and the words were there to capture it. What did not exist, however, was a sudden resurgence of those words due to them appearing in llms more often than note. This is what I mean by a level of language penetration ( people using words and concepts, becaus…

Yes. Appreciate the reply.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* it writes in an imitation of your voice.

Why does this even matter? If it can say something more eloquently, in less stilted way something what I wanted to say, adding some interesting nuance on the way, while still sounding close to me - why not? I meanwhile, can learn one-two rhetorical tricks from LLMs reading the result.

A analogy: For the same reason why natural wood is more beautiful than plastic. Natural wood gets its beauty from little faults and irregularities. The process of growing a tree takes a long time and thereby is more valuable. A plastic facsimile can be made to look similar and be cheaper to produce, but it lacks the unique grain and quality of the wood.

It’s not just the end product that matters. The process and intent behind its genesis matters too.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It basically boils down to "I want the external validation of being seen as a good writer, without any of the internal growth and struggle needed to get there."

> "struggle needed to get there." "Struggle" argument is from gatekeepers and for masochists. Thank you very much.

Life is pain! Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. —The Dread Pirate Roberts

Everyone who’s produced something good, beautiful, or valuable has had to struggle. That’s just the way work works.

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