6 ms·

Bottom of the heap? Ai essays suck. They’re painful to read for the most part. The only reason they look good is because the average person has undeveloped writ

Bottom of the heap? Ai essays suck. They’re painful to read for the most part. The only reason they look good is because the average person has undeveloped writing and critical thinking skills, so that comparatively they sometimes look okay. Refusing to learn to write is the opposite of the right approach here

ben_w 4y ago
When I started secondary school in the UK, the home economics teacher (i.e. cooking and sewing) in the first lesson had a rant about how she absolutely did not want to see anyone write up their cooking with the phrase "I think it tasted quite nice" because it was a generic and content-free cliché. That's the standard ChatGPT has to beat to make you look good at school. Likewise, the average comments section is all you have to beat to seem erudite as an adult.
- noobermin 4y ago
  >Likewise, the average comments section is all you have to beat to seem erudite as an adult. I hope you do not seriously think "comment sections" is how you measure adult scale intelligence. I admit many people are not as intelligent as they should be but that is in fact a source of many of life's ills, and if you care about your life and your society you should want better than "beating the standard."
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I don't think that intelligence itself is likely to change depending on the level to which one's essay writing skills happen to be trained. This is one reason why I wrote "erudite" instead of "intelligent".
    - noobermin 4y ago
      The power of writing is that it is the way we formulate thoughts, opinions, and arguments. Language is the key way people frame their thoughts, and writing is one significant way to develop one's language skills. Writing is more than syntax, grammar, spelling and word choice--that's why you're not considered "unintelligent" for using a thesaurus or spell-check. Anyhow, my entire point is "beating the comment section" isn't valuable as a threshold because as you hint at, it isn't really a place to find intelligent discussion.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        None of those things were part of what they taught me at the mandatory school lessons, only at the entirely optional after-school "convincing communication" 45 minute session they had one time. Actual school was basically "prove you actually read this Shakespeare play we assigned to you by mentioning some of these standard points". As for comments sections… that they're low quality is the reason I chose them as an example, beating them necessarily improves the quality of global discourse - the people writing them don't recognise their poor quality. https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
redox99 4y ago
ChatGPT is way above your average high school level.
- barbariangrunge 4y ago
  So students should… not try to learn how to organize their thoughts?
  - redox99 4y ago
    > Bottom of the heap? Ai essays suck. They’re painful to read for the most part. I'm just responding to that part
stuckinhell 4y ago
I don't think this is accurate at all. Our sales team is using ChatGPT and others to rewrite sales copy to make it more interesting and increase engagement. Initial results are WILDLY successful.
- dwringer 4y ago
  If the user is a capable writer who can organize their thoughts and recognize the difference between good and bad copy, they're going to get much more coherent results from tools like ChatGPT. I'd contend that an average primary/secondary-schooler is basically expected to develop those exact skills, without which their AI generated essays will have a multitude of problems just like human-composed ones do.

ben_w 4y ago

When I started secondary school in the UK, the home economics teacher (i.e. cooking and sewing) in the first lesson had a rant about how she absolutely did not want to see anyone write up their cooking with the phrase "I think it tasted quite nice" because it was a generic and content-free cliché. That's the standard ChatGPT has to beat to make you look good at school. Likewise, the average comments section is all you have to beat to seem erudite as an adult.

noobermin 4y ago
>Likewise, the average comments section is all you have to beat to seem erudite as an adult. I hope you do not seriously think "comment sections" is how you measure adult scale intelligence. I admit many people are not as intelligent as they should be but that is in fact a source of many of life's ills, and if you care about your life and your society you should want better than "beating the standard."
- ben_w 4y ago
  I don't think that intelligence itself is likely to change depending on the level to which one's essay writing skills happen to be trained. This is one reason why I wrote "erudite" instead of "intelligent".
  - noobermin 4y ago
    The power of writing is that it is the way we formulate thoughts, opinions, and arguments. Language is the key way people frame their thoughts, and writing is one significant way to develop one's language skills. Writing is more than syntax, grammar, spelling and word choice--that's why you're not considered "unintelligent" for using a thesaurus or spell-check. Anyhow, my entire point is "beating the comment section" isn't valuable as a threshold because as you hint at, it isn't really a place to find intelligent discussion.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      None of those things were part of what they taught me at the mandatory school lessons, only at the entirely optional after-school "convincing communication" 45 minute session they had one time. Actual school was basically "prove you actually read this Shakespeare play we assigned to you by mentioning some of these standard points". As for comments sections… that they're low quality is the reason I chose them as an example, beating them necessarily improves the quality of global discourse - the people writing them don't recognise their poor quality. https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/

redox99 4y ago

ChatGPT is way above your average high school level.

barbariangrunge 4y ago
So students should… not try to learn how to organize their thoughts?
- redox99 4y ago
  > Bottom of the heap? Ai essays suck. They’re painful to read for the most part. I'm just responding to that part

stuckinhell 4y ago

I don't think this is accurate at all. Our sales team is using ChatGPT and others to rewrite sales copy to make it more interesting and increase engagement. Initial results are WILDLY successful.

dwringer 4y ago
If the user is a capable writer who can organize their thoughts and recognize the difference between good and bad copy, they're going to get much more coherent results from tools like ChatGPT. I'd contend that an average primary/secondary-schooler is basically expected to develop those exact skills, without which their AI generated essays will have a multitude of problems just like human-composed ones do.