3 ms·

> This post, is written without any tools assistance I just wrote what my brain is instructing to type (might not reread it before posting). How is the author

by andai 7mo ago

> This post, is written without any tools assistance I just wrote what my brain is instructing to type (might not reread it before posting). How is the author complaining about the quality of their own writing while admitting to not even bothering reading what they wrote, let alone editing it? (Also, why would using a LLM based grammar checker trigger an AI writing detector? Did it end up rewriting substantial parts of the original submission?)

whilenot-dev 7mo ago
What makes you think that? I presume that's just the authors (sarcastic) way to say "beware: may contain typos and grammatical errors".
- Freak_NL 7mo ago
  There are a bunch of typos in there which jar a bit ('deterioted'), but I guess that makes sense for this specific article. Personally, I would recommend them to simple use any old editor with spellchecking enabled. That suffices for most writing where you just want to keep your own voice. To me, the red crinkly line just means that I should edit that word myself. In the rare case where I'm stumped on the spelling I'll look at the suggested edit of course, but never as a matter of course.
  - roysting 7mo ago
    The problem here, the overarching issue is that the subject complaint about AI slop is actually a bigger issue that has been plaguing America in particular for many years now, and of which the AI slop era is only a current top. The qualities of American writing have clearly been on a precipitous decline for a very long time now, predating AI slop and even spell checkers and computers. Computers, digital text, and digital information distribution/transportation have made writing and thoughts cheap. Arguably due to what we are surely all aware of, humans rarely value that which is cheap, whether monetarily or in effort and consequential qualities. What people seem reluctant or maybe unable to acknowledge is that predating the current AI Slop, was what could be called Human Slop, low quality, low effort, careless output that was cheap; regardless of whether AI slop now outperforms. It is why you are justified in pointing out that even in the post complaining about AI Slop, the human has apparently abandoned what would have been common practice in just the recent past, using basic spellcheckers or simply reviewing what was written and also practicing with deliberation; the art and skill of writing, grammar, and sentence structure. No one is perfect and that is also what makes anything human, somewhat inexplicable and random variation. However, it takes a certain refinement before unique human character becomes a positive quality and is not just humans being sloppy ... human slop.
    - shagie 7mo ago
      > The qualities of American writing have clearly been on a precipitous decline for a very long time now, predating AI slop and even spell checkers and computers. https://www.literaturelust.com/post/what-writers-need-to-know-about-readability https://www.literaturelust.com/post/what-writers-need-to-kno... > Every NYT bestseller from 1960 to 2014 falls in the seventh-grade level spread, from 4th to 11th. > ... > Since 2000, only 2 bestsellers have scored higher than 9th-grade readability. > ... ... > The bestselling authors of our time are writing at the 4th-grade level. > > “8 books tie for the lowest score,” a 4.4, just above 4th-grade level. Prolific, well-known authors with huge sales: James Patterson, Janet Evonvich, and Nora Roberts.” > These three authors have written a combined total of 419 books.
      - andai 7mo ago
        Whenever I read something from roughly the first half of the 20th century (I'm not sure where the cutoff point is, it seems to the 1960s), I'm struck by the quality of the writing. I'm not sure what happened, but it's pretty clear that at some point we stopped taking ourselves seriously. We see the same thing in how people dress. People used to write "respectably", and they used to dress the same, and in TV interviews they spoke with great care and deliberation. Then we threw all of it down the toilet.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
emptyfile 7mo ago
[dead]
Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
Because they're self-aware perfectionists and are actively working to stop it, because they reach for all kinds of tools like grammar checkers and AI, but they're aware that using those will make the post lose "their" voice, or the human element of the post. And that's, I think, a valid choice; you can choose to use all the tools and make something gramatically and stylistically as close to perfect, but who would want to read something as dry? That's for formal writing, and blog posts are not formal.
- watwut 7mo ago
  If you use grammar checker as a grammar checker, it wont make you loose your voice. It will make you use correct grammar. > you can choose to use all the tools and make something gramatically and stylistically as close to perfect, but who would want to read something as dry If it is dry, then it is not stylistically perfect. Per definition, dry writing is just an imperfect writing. Stylistically perfect writing does not have to be dry and usually is not dry. What happens here is that people use "stylistically perfect" when they mean "followed a bad stylistic advice".
  - jerukmangga 7mo ago
    I see both sides here. Wanting to preserve your natural voice is valid, but editing and using tools don't necessarily take that away. In fact, they can help make your intended message clearer. It probably comes down to how much control you keep over the final result rather than wheater you use tools at all.
    - watwut 7mo ago
      What annoys me here is that people say "I use AI as style checker to make my writing better" or claim that good writing is unfairly judged as being by AI ... and then proceed to describe inferior writing results they achieved with AI. None of what author wrote there signals that the way he uses AI made his writing better. His use of AI made his output inferior. And not just in a the "loosing own voice" way worst, but literally in the "the final text is less effective writing". I do not mean this comment to be kick against AI. It is very good for some stuff, it is less good for other stuff. What annoys me is someone calling output superior while actually complaining about it being inferior. Hey, maybe that llm needs to be used differently to achieve actually good writing results.
eloisant 7mo ago
There is no reliable way to detect AI writing. It probably trains on texts known to be AI, on texts known to be written by humans, then classify the text according to this training. The problem is that it has a pretty high false positive rate. Maybe it thinks it's AI because there are absolutely no spelling mistakes. Or maybe you're French and you use latin-roots words in English that are considered "too smart" for the average writer. And the problem is that people run those tools, see "80% chance to be written by AI", and instead of considering that 20% is high enough to consider you don't know, will assume it's definitely written by AI.
- tosti 7mo ago
  Exactly. Depending on what nutrians I've been consuming, the Indians/intelligence in my head could also be artificial. Perhaps that's why I fail those captcha tests most of the time.
jofzar 7mo ago
> Also, why would using a LLM based grammar checker trigger an AI writing detector? Did it end up rewriting substantial parts of the original submission?) Grammarly has seriously started rewriting whole paragraphs recently, I have been having to reject more and more "prompts" where in the past I would accept them almost by default because they actually were Grammer checks.
Karuma 7mo ago
Yes, these people are so unbelievably stupid that think others more intelligent than them can't tell when they use AI to write their stuff. And then they act so annoyed when they get exposed... It's unbearable. The article here is still full of AI slop, and so many people in the comments are defending the author. Blows my mind.

by andai 7mo ago

whilenot-dev 7mo ago

What makes you think that? I presume that's just the authors (sarcastic) way to say "beware: may contain typos and grammatical errors".

Freak_NL 7mo ago
There are a bunch of typos in there which jar a bit ('deterioted'), but I guess that makes sense for this specific article. Personally, I would recommend them to simple use any old editor with spellchecking enabled. That suffices for most writing where you just want to keep your own voice. To me, the red crinkly line just means that I should edit that word myself. In the rare case where I'm stumped on the spelling I'll look at the suggested edit of course, but never as a matter of course.
- roysting 7mo ago
  The problem here, the overarching issue is that the subject complaint about AI slop is actually a bigger issue that has been plaguing America in particular for many years now, and of which the AI slop era is only a current top. The qualities of American writing have clearly been on a precipitous decline for a very long time now, predating AI slop and even spell checkers and computers. Computers, digital text, and digital information distribution/transportation have made writing and thoughts cheap. Arguably due to what we are surely all aware of, humans rarely value that which is cheap, whether monetarily or in effort and consequential qualities. What people seem reluctant or maybe unable to acknowledge is that predating the current AI Slop, was what could be called Human Slop, low quality, low effort, careless output that was cheap; regardless of whether AI slop now outperforms. It is why you are justified in pointing out that even in the post complaining about AI Slop, the human has apparently abandoned what would have been common practice in just the recent past, using basic spellcheckers or simply reviewing what was written and also practicing with deliberation; the art and skill of writing, grammar, and sentence structure. No one is perfect and that is also what makes anything human, somewhat inexplicable and random variation. However, it takes a certain refinement before unique human character becomes a positive quality and is not just humans being sloppy ... human slop.
  - shagie 7mo ago
    > The qualities of American writing have clearly been on a precipitous decline for a very long time now, predating AI slop and even spell checkers and computers. https://www.literaturelust.com/post/what-writers-need-to-know-about-readability https://www.literaturelust.com/post/what-writers-need-to-kno... > Every NYT bestseller from 1960 to 2014 falls in the seventh-grade level spread, from 4th to 11th. > ... > Since 2000, only 2 bestsellers have scored higher than 9th-grade readability. > ... ... > The bestselling authors of our time are writing at the 4th-grade level. > > “8 books tie for the lowest score,” a 4.4, just above 4th-grade level. Prolific, well-known authors with huge sales: James Patterson, Janet Evonvich, and Nora Roberts.” > These three authors have written a combined total of 419 books.
    - andai 7mo ago
      Whenever I read something from roughly the first half of the 20th century (I'm not sure where the cutoff point is, it seems to the 1960s), I'm struck by the quality of the writing. I'm not sure what happened, but it's pretty clear that at some point we stopped taking ourselves seriously. We see the same thing in how people dress. People used to write "respectably", and they used to dress the same, and in TV interviews they spoke with great care and deliberation. Then we threw all of it down the toilet.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

emptyfile 7mo ago

[dead]

Cthulhu_ 7mo ago

Because they're self-aware perfectionists and are actively working to stop it, because they reach for all kinds of tools like grammar checkers and AI, but they're aware that using those will make the post lose "their" voice, or the human element of the post. And that's, I think, a valid choice; you can choose to use all the tools and make something gramatically and stylistically as close to perfect, but who would want to read something as dry? That's for formal writing, and blog posts are not formal.

watwut 7mo ago
If you use grammar checker as a grammar checker, it wont make you loose your voice. It will make you use correct grammar. > you can choose to use all the tools and make something gramatically and stylistically as close to perfect, but who would want to read something as dry If it is dry, then it is not stylistically perfect. Per definition, dry writing is just an imperfect writing. Stylistically perfect writing does not have to be dry and usually is not dry. What happens here is that people use "stylistically perfect" when they mean "followed a bad stylistic advice".
- jerukmangga 7mo ago
  I see both sides here. Wanting to preserve your natural voice is valid, but editing and using tools don't necessarily take that away. In fact, they can help make your intended message clearer. It probably comes down to how much control you keep over the final result rather than wheater you use tools at all.
  - watwut 7mo ago
    What annoys me here is that people say "I use AI as style checker to make my writing better" or claim that good writing is unfairly judged as being by AI ... and then proceed to describe inferior writing results they achieved with AI. None of what author wrote there signals that the way he uses AI made his writing better. His use of AI made his output inferior. And not just in a the "loosing own voice" way worst, but literally in the "the final text is less effective writing". I do not mean this comment to be kick against AI. It is very good for some stuff, it is less good for other stuff. What annoys me is someone calling output superior while actually complaining about it being inferior. Hey, maybe that llm needs to be used differently to achieve actually good writing results.

eloisant 7mo ago

There is no reliable way to detect AI writing. It probably trains on texts known to be AI, on texts known to be written by humans, then classify the text according to this training. The problem is that it has a pretty high false positive rate. Maybe it thinks it's AI because there are absolutely no spelling mistakes. Or maybe you're French and you use latin-roots words in English that are considered "too smart" for the average writer. And the problem is that people run those tools, see "80% chance to be written by AI", and instead of considering that 20% is high enough to consider you don't know, will assume it's definitely written by AI.

tosti 7mo ago
Exactly. Depending on what nutrians I've been consuming, the Indians/intelligence in my head could also be artificial. Perhaps that's why I fail those captcha tests most of the time.

jofzar 7mo ago

> Also, why would using a LLM based grammar checker trigger an AI writing detector? Did it end up rewriting substantial parts of the original submission?) Grammarly has seriously started rewriting whole paragraphs recently, I have been having to reject more and more "prompts" where in the past I would accept them almost by default because they actually were Grammer checks.

Karuma 7mo ago

Yes, these people are so unbelievably stupid that think others more intelligent than them can't tell when they use AI to write their stuff. And then they act so annoyed when they get exposed... It's unbearable. The article here is still full of AI slop, and so many people in the comments are defending the author. Blows my mind.