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Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

404media.co

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Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#71

Post by AStonesThrow »

exe34 wrote: post #63
AStonesThrow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but for educators, it may be a positive signal for plagiarism, as has always been the case.

So if you punctuate correctly, you get accused of plagiarism, but if you don't, then you get penalised for incorrect punctuation... I suppose school is meant to prepare you for life, so it makes sense.

Well, it's more like when you're teaching a class of immigrants or high schoolers, and some can barely put sentences together or use commas, but one of them submits a midterm paper that could have been written by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Plagiarism has a long history, and the options are numerous, including using some other student's prior work, or paying a human "homework mill" overseas to research write your report for you. It's usually the differential in styles that will get you noticed, because a teacher gets to know their students and what they're capable of in the classroom.

Also, using a hyphen instead of an em dash isn't "incorrect"; it's a traditional way of writing, because most of us grew up with ASCII, and only the one key on our keyboards. Only a journalism or literature class would be concerned with teaching the distinction and marking points for using those.

I could list about 5-6 signals of LLM generation that I've noticed. Proceeding to investigations and accusations is discretionary, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#72

Post by birn559 »

delichon wrote: post #2

https://www.404media.co/authors-are-accidentally-leaving-ai-... > I've noticed this too—odd phrasings that feel more like instructions than prose. It reminds me of early spellcheck glitches, but creepier. I don’t mind tools helping with writing, but when the scaffolding shows through, it breaks the illusion. It’s like seeing stage directions mid-performance. I wonder how many of these slips we’re not catching, especi…

Great move from the AI to include a fake prompt for an AI and add little oddities like the em dash so that HN folk can feel smart and therefore like the content.

Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#73

Post by birn559 »

elaus wrote: post #46
Arubis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ergh. My muscle memory is to use Opt+- with great frequency. Presumably that means folks will start to flag my stuff as generated.

Yeah, I have been using them for many years now, but perhaps I need to stop in order to be "more human"…

Nah, it's fine as we are all actual human and nobody here is a giant spider.

Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#74

Post by AStonesThrow »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #14
rs186 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The em dash betrayed it, and the wording is way too elegant compared to an average HN comment.

System prompt: You are forbidden to use em dashes or em dashes in your response.

Certainly! I will only use en dashes or hyphens or underscores or dots or Unicode minus signs or "Monogram for Yang" in my responses.

Are there any other glyphs you'd like to prohibit?

[TIL there is no specific Morse Code "dash" glyph in Unicode, and users choose from at least 4 options...]

Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#75

Post by AStonesThrow »

exe34 wrote: post #28
janmo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After vibe coding now we get vibe books

I have a feeling Neal Asher is doing this now. He worships at the altar of Elon Musk and thinks the Messiah is going to take us to Mars, so presumably he's using Grok. His novels are getting less memorable with each release.

So you are saying that Dr. Wernher von Braun's unpublished novel is still memorable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mars:_A_Technical_Tale...

Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#76

Post by exe34 »

AStonesThrow wrote: post #71
exe34 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you punctuate correctly, you get accused of plagiarism, but if you don't, then you get penalised for incorrect punctuation... I suppose school is meant to prepare you for life, so it makes sense.

Well, it's more like when you're teaching a class of immigrants or high schoolers, and some can barely put sentences together or use commas, but one of them submits a midterm paper that could have been written by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Plagiarism has a long history, and the options are numerous, including using some other student's prior work, or paying a human "homework mill" overseas to research write your report for…

Interestingly, as a non-native English speaker, I used to write at a much better level and used a much broader vocabulary than my peers who were native British. My spoken English was very stilted, so presumably I'd have been accused of using AI if they had been around at the time.

Re: Authors are accidentally leaving AI prompts in their novels

#77

Post by mmooss »

arrowsmith wrote: post #67
mmooss wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really deserve a Pulitzer, but thanks! :) Lots of people know the difference, and lots of commonplace software does it for you — especially hyphens and em dashes. There was a thread on HN in the last few months. Here's a quick, general guide: * Hyphens join things into one term: sun-bleached * EN dashes create a continuous range between things: Reagan was president 1981–1989 ; Chicago–Boston flight . * EM das…

But realistically, hyphens are used for all three, because that's the only one that can be typed with a single key.

But you can see em dashes everywhere (it's harder to distinguish en dashes). As I said above, plenty of software - very popular software such as Microsoft Word and phone keyboards - inserts em dashes automatically or when you type two hyphens.

Also, throughout history I doubt everyday people thought about using em, en or hyphen. It's a detail known by professionals, like things professional chefs or coders do that amatuers don't.

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