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I've seen the benefit of AI for completing sentences, or lines of code, and I can imagine the benefit to creative writing where things do not have to be factual

I've seen the benefit of AI for completing sentences, or lines of code, and I can imagine the benefit to creative writing where things do not have to be factually correct, however writing in Notion is typically writing about something in the real world. The problem with AI text generation is that it does not have that real world context. A great example is the first example on this page: writing a blog post announcing Notion's AI generation. The AI text generator does not know the feature set, and therefore either the content is going to lack any detail about the product, or it's going to have incorrect detail, in both cases providing no value. What are use-cases for this that people will actually benefit from? Creative writing - sure. Brainstorming? Maybe for very vague and basic topics that don't need any business context. But more than that?

ianbutler 4y ago
I'll use github copilot as an example, it pulls context from your surrounding code files and code in the same file. Something like that gives it the context your thinking of and a similar technique may be able to solve that problem here.
- danpalmer 4y ago
  I think there's a big difference between matching up variable names and the context of what you're working on in a file, and saying "brainstorm 5 marketing strategies for me" like in the examples here. With code, most of the context Copilot needs to do a good job is a) written down and b) parseable in very well defined formats. With business contexts most of the context won't be written down, or won't be in a structure that is useful, or won't be parseable. Let's take the example of the marketing brainstorming. Let's say you're a super organised small business and you write down a report on every marketing experiment you try, and influencer marketing didn't work for the product, so you write a report on why TikTok creators are not a good direction for marketing. To know not to suggest influencer marketing, Notion needs to: have all your documents, know that document is relevant, have the "idea" (let's brush past the fact this was essentially written on someone else's brainstorming list and learnt from), know that the idea is related to that other document(s), know that the conclusion was negative sentiment in the way that matters, and then know that because it's doing brainstorming, lists of ideas should probably be filtered by things that haven't worked in the past. Maybe it's not the worst thing if it generates "influencer marketing", but if you ask it for 5 and it always gives you the 5 you've done before, then you start having to engineer your way around its stupidity – give me 10 ideas, or give me 5 ideas that don't include xyz. Is it providing value over, say, googling "small business marketing ideas" and reading an article full of ads titled "Ten things that will transform your small business marketing". That's low value content, but it seems most likely to me that this will produce largely similar results.
  - ianbutler 4y ago
    First off sorry totally missed you had replied and you took time to write a thoughtful response. I think your skepticism is completely warranted, but it sounds like a space where it’s worth a shot. If I’m wrong no biggy this is low risk, but if I’m not that’s a lot of upside. I’ve seen copilot do some truly novel code synthesis, more than just matching up names. I’ve also seen GPT 3 generate compelling marketing copy and many other things so I’m admittedly biased in favor of potential solutions like this.
fideloper 4y ago
It seems to me that the main benefit is the ability to give a prompt, and be given a starting point. An h1 (or h2 I suppose) on the site is "Let Notion AI handle the first draft." That makes sense! That's a lot easier than starting with a blank page.
Karunamon 4y ago
I could see a use for having the AI describe the generalities (some of which could be provided in the prompt) and then have a human go in and fill in specifics or correct inaccuracies. Either way it amounts to a laborsaving tool, it's much easier to read than it is to write.
- falcor84 4y ago
  Yeah, agreed, I would say it's much easier to "rewrite" than to write. Even if the AI is writing nonsense, you still benefit by virtue of Cunningham's Law.
- danpalmer 4y ago
  > it's much easier to read than it is to write I see your point, although I'm not certain I agree. It's very easy to read what we hope to see, especially when we know the topic, rather than what the text actually says. This is why proof reading is so hard for the author to do. Copilot has a similar issue, pushing more effort from code-authoring to code-review, which I'd suggest humans are probably worse at.
krzrak 4y ago
> What are use-cases for this that people will actually benefit from? Creative writing - sure. Brainstorming? Maybe for very vague and basic topics that don't need any business context. But more than that? Looking at my Linkedin feed: lots of lazy people excited about possibility of "creating content" like "100 blog posts on a given topic in a minute". So, in short: seo spam. Lots of seo spam.
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serjester 4y ago
Look into Jasper, the company was founded 18 months ago and just raised a 125M series A. The more impressive bit is they have 80k paying customers (their cheapest plan is $30 a month). Who uses it? Mostly content marketers. GPT-3 is actually quite handy when writing because you can give it a rough outline of something and it can do a pretty good job making it sound good. As for the lack of context, there's no fundamental reason you can't give these tools information to work off. In fact most of them ask you to. I'm quite bullish on AI assisted writing - it feels like the internet in 94. For now no one understands it, but the fundamental value add is enormous.

ianbutler 4y ago

I'll use github copilot as an example, it pulls context from your surrounding code files and code in the same file. Something like that gives it the context your thinking of and a similar technique may be able to solve that problem here.

danpalmer 4y ago
I think there's a big difference between matching up variable names and the context of what you're working on in a file, and saying "brainstorm 5 marketing strategies for me" like in the examples here. With code, most of the context Copilot needs to do a good job is a) written down and b) parseable in very well defined formats. With business contexts most of the context won't be written down, or won't be in a structure that is useful, or won't be parseable. Let's take the example of the marketing brainstorming. Let's say you're a super organised small business and you write down a report on every marketing experiment you try, and influencer marketing didn't work for the product, so you write a report on why TikTok creators are not a good direction for marketing. To know not to suggest influencer marketing, Notion needs to: have all your documents, know that document is relevant, have the "idea" (let's brush past the fact this was essentially written on someone else's brainstorming list and learnt from), know that the idea is related to that other document(s), know that the conclusion was negative sentiment in the way that matters, and then know that because it's doing brainstorming, lists of ideas should probably be filtered by things that haven't worked in the past. Maybe it's not the worst thing if it generates "influencer marketing", but if you ask it for 5 and it always gives you the 5 you've done before, then you start having to engineer your way around its stupidity – give me 10 ideas, or give me 5 ideas that don't include xyz. Is it providing value over, say, googling "small business marketing ideas" and reading an article full of ads titled "Ten things that will transform your small business marketing". That's low value content, but it seems most likely to me that this will produce largely similar results.
- ianbutler 4y ago
  First off sorry totally missed you had replied and you took time to write a thoughtful response. I think your skepticism is completely warranted, but it sounds like a space where it’s worth a shot. If I’m wrong no biggy this is low risk, but if I’m not that’s a lot of upside. I’ve seen copilot do some truly novel code synthesis, more than just matching up names. I’ve also seen GPT 3 generate compelling marketing copy and many other things so I’m admittedly biased in favor of potential solutions like this.

fideloper 4y ago

It seems to me that the main benefit is the ability to give a prompt, and be given a starting point. An h1 (or h2 I suppose) on the site is "Let Notion AI handle the first draft." That makes sense! That's a lot easier than starting with a blank page.

Karunamon 4y ago

I could see a use for having the AI describe the generalities (some of which could be provided in the prompt) and then have a human go in and fill in specifics or correct inaccuracies. Either way it amounts to a laborsaving tool, it's much easier to read than it is to write.

falcor84 4y ago
Yeah, agreed, I would say it's much easier to "rewrite" than to write. Even if the AI is writing nonsense, you still benefit by virtue of Cunningham's Law.
danpalmer 4y ago
> it's much easier to read than it is to write I see your point, although I'm not certain I agree. It's very easy to read what we hope to see, especially when we know the topic, rather than what the text actually says. This is why proof reading is so hard for the author to do. Copilot has a similar issue, pushing more effort from code-authoring to code-review, which I'd suggest humans are probably worse at.

krzrak 4y ago

> What are use-cases for this that people will actually benefit from? Creative writing - sure. Brainstorming? Maybe for very vague and basic topics that don't need any business context. But more than that? Looking at my Linkedin feed: lots of lazy people excited about possibility of "creating content" like "100 blog posts on a given topic in a minute". So, in short: seo spam. Lots of seo spam.

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serjester 4y ago

Look into Jasper, the company was founded 18 months ago and just raised a 125M series A. The more impressive bit is they have 80k paying customers (their cheapest plan is $30 a month). Who uses it? Mostly content marketers. GPT-3 is actually quite handy when writing because you can give it a rough outline of something and it can do a pretty good job making it sound good. As for the lack of context, there's no fundamental reason you can't give these tools information to work off. In fact most of them ask you to. I'm quite bullish on AI assisted writing - it feels like the internet in 94. For now no one understands it, but the fundamental value add is enormous.