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Adaptive PDFs

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Re: Adaptive PDFs

#61

Post by ugoasidjg »

SarthakGaud wrote: post #60
remywang wrote: post #56

You’re not supposed to use the “brainmade” watermark on an AI generated article.

Hi, I wrote it by hand but I had to get my presentation fixed from an LLM cause its not my first language, I will keep this in mind. Thanks

I would love to read the article in your own voice even if the grammar is not perfect, because that makes me feel like I'm communicating with a fellow human being! And if you do want help to improve your writing, consider asking for specific improvements instead of large scale rewrites.

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#62

Post by SarthakGaud »

ugoasidjg wrote: post #61
SarthakGaud wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I wrote it by hand but I had to get my presentation fixed from an LLM cause its not my first language, I will keep this in mind. Thanks

I would love to read the article in your own voice even if the grammar is not perfect, because that makes me feel like I'm communicating with a fellow human being! And if you do want help to improve your writing, consider asking for specific improvements instead of large scale rewrites.

I will keep this in mind for sure, I too hate AI writing style but eventually fall for it.

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#63

Post by dmd »

utopiah wrote: post #45
gnunicorn wrote: post #6

Just because everything is a potential threat vector now: doesn't this also mean you could easily put AI specific malicious instructions into the PDF that the regular human would never notice? Like the "white text between the lines that only appears when copy-pasted"-hack that some professors have been doing in their exercises to their students to include pink elephants in the output and stuff. But worse. Just thinki…

> Just because everything is a potential threat vector now Sweet Summer child... it always was the case. There is no "now" just because there are new tools.

It was always the case that a mean person could throw a rock at you and you'd die. Therefore, nuclear weapons are nothing to be worried about.

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#64

Post by bad_username »

Not the same thing, but I found a way to distribute markdown sources (with images) within the PDF files generated from these sources.

The trick is to generate the PDF normally, then zip this same PDF together with the sources again, with compression level 0, making sure that the PDF is the first file to go in the archive. (Easy to write a script that does this.)

The resulting file, when given the extension PDF, is readable as PDF, and when given the extension ZIP, is extractable as ZIP. So whoever wants the source can rename the file to .zip and extract the source. The instruction to do so can be in the PDF text itself.

Why it works: a) compression level 0 means that the input files are just copied into the stream, so the PDF reader will find the PDF header, decode the rest of the PDF, and ignore the trailing stuff. The trailing stuff contains the markdown sources and the zip directory, making the file a valid archive.

I suspect that tolerances in PDF readers and ZIP decompressors are being slightly abused here, but it works with all PDF readers and ZIP decompressors that I tried so far.

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#65

Post by de6u99er »

bad_username wrote: post #64

Not the same thing, but I found a way to distribute markdown sources (with images) within the PDF files generated from these sources. The trick is to generate the PDF normally, then zip this same PDF together with the sources again, with compression level 0, making sure that the PDF is the first file to go in the archive. (Easy to write a script that does this.) The resulting file, when given the extension PDF, is re…

That's q nice trick. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#66

Post by cjs_ac »

bad_username wrote: post #64

Not the same thing, but I found a way to distribute markdown sources (with images) within the PDF files generated from these sources. The trick is to generate the PDF normally, then zip this same PDF together with the sources again, with compression level 0, making sure that the PDF is the first file to go in the archive. (Easy to write a script that does this.) The resulting file, when given the extension PDF, is re…

Attachments are a feature of PDF; I often attach LaTeX sources to the PDF output.

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#67

Post by dang »

gpvos wrote: post #4

I would suggest changing the title to the actual title of the article: Adaptive PDFs. Assuming the program works, the PDF will not actually look different to me than to anyone else looking at it, so there is nothing that "changes based on who is reading". It is just that text extraction, a wholly different (and much fuzzier) process than viewing the PDF, and something that the same person can do, will now return stru…

Thanks! Changed now. Submitted title was "A PDF that changes based on how its read".

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#68

Post by dang »

SarthakGaud wrote: post #60
remywang wrote: post #56

You’re not supposed to use the “brainmade” watermark on an AI generated article.

Hi, I wrote it by hand but I had to get my presentation fixed from an LLM cause its not my first language, I will keep this in mind. Thanks

It sounds like you got bitten by the dynamic I wrote about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48467726: that is, using an LLM to process text for a limited reason (such as to improve its English) and then finding that the LLM left lots of other fingerprints, causing readers to perceive the entire thing as genai. We're seeing a ton of this right now!

In case it's helpful, here's something I've been saying when replying to emails:

We understand that our non-native English speaking users are in a special position with all of this, and we sympathize - but we don't have an easy way to treat posts differently on that basis. What we're telling such users is to please write in your own voice and don't worry about any mistakes, because those are rapidly becoming signs of authenticity at this point!

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#69

Post by da_chicken »

bad_username wrote: post #64

Not the same thing, but I found a way to distribute markdown sources (with images) within the PDF files generated from these sources. The trick is to generate the PDF normally, then zip this same PDF together with the sources again, with compression level 0, making sure that the PDF is the first file to go in the archive. (Easy to write a script that does this.) The resulting file, when given the extension PDF, is re…

That seems like it would be incredibly fragile. As soon as the receiving party made a change that required re-saving the PDF -- like commenting, highlighting, changing default layouts, saving as a PDF/a, checking PDF/ua, etc. -- it might erase the attached files.

It's also very easy to use pdftk to embed or attach files in a PDF using the methods defined in the PDF standard. No renaming or special knowledge required of the audience.

Re: Adaptive PDFs

#70

Post by cwmoore »

dmd wrote: post #63
utopiah wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because everything is a potential threat vector now Sweet Summer child... it always was the case. There is no "now" just because there are new tools.

It was always the case that a mean person could throw a rock at you and you'd die. Therefore, nuclear weapons are nothing to be worried about.

This is a form of argument known as reductio ad absurdum. I see it more and more frequently now, often in dismissal of a fairly throughtful point of view, usually with a mocking and disdainful tone, and therefore nuclear weapons are nothing to worry about.
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