4 ms·
> I’m not a particularly big fan of generative AI. I do not use and have never used it at any stage of the research, outlining, or writing process for any artic
by levl289 16d ago
> I’m not a particularly big fan of generative AI. I do not use and have never used it at any stage of the research, outlining, or writing process for any article I’ve ever written, except for the times when I’m testing it so I can write about it.
This is wild from a "tech" site. I used to read their articles fairly religiously, but this bent by their writers and commenters is really telling, and a signal to start looking elsewhere.
- rozal 16d ago[dead]
- marbletiles 16d agoWhat does it tell you? It gives me much more confidence in their output tbh. Reading generated text is unpleasant; feels like mediated and averaged-out humanity.
- timbaboon 16d agoThere is a lot more to tech than gen AI…
- edot 16d agoContinuing the quote gives more context, which I agree with: "The obviously AI-generated flyers that come home from school with my kid or that get circulated around neighborhood groups strike me as benign but deeply tacky; the kinds of AI-generated images that get passed around by politicians online don’t even have the benefit of being benign. More than anything, I’m just tired of seeing it everywhere, tired of being on the lookout for it, tired of it polluting every stream of information I have access to. Wasting time actively trying to avoid auto-generated slop is now a daily fixture of my life." Obviously, one should be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it, and much like any tool that can be misused, just because some malign actor (or dumb actor) uses it "wrong" doesn't mean you should also not use it.
- whateveracct 16d agoIt costs money, but I've been enjoying my Pangram subscription for this. Saves me slop on the internet and confirms whether or not my colleagues' words are what i'm reading or not.
- whateveracct 16d agowait so not using GenAI makes you persona non grata in "tech" now? nobody tell my boss
- levl289 16d agoIt is a tool in a tool box. If a technician avoided a tool outright, I would (and do) question their biases.
- wiml 16d agoEvery technician or craftsman develops some strong opinions about which tools are good tools and which tools are bad tools.
- hollandheese 16d agoA nuclear weapon is a tool in a tool box. And nobody's used it since WWII for a good reason.
- tacoooooooo 16d agoregular people have access to this?
- SmasherEpilepti 16d agoSome tools should be avoided outright, because they're bad tools. You can hammer nails in with a rock, making it a tool, but I wouldn't question the biases of a craftsman who avoided using rocks in their work. I use LLMs for work, but your statement here doesn't hold water at all.
- ngcazz 15d agoBig Hammer wants to replace all your tools with Hammers and OP is right along with them
- whateveracct 15d agowhat if i think the tool is mostly crap?
- bradly 16d agoWhy? You can type a prompt into the robots if you want their take. Where are you suppose to find out what a human thinks?
- mediaman 16d agoIt's not to write the article. I would hope they don't do that; I wouldn't want to read it. But I do want them using it to help them research, find interesting contrary views on a subject, gut-check assertions (how many weirdly wrong statements in articles would have been caught by feeding it to an LLM and asking it to question unfounded or incorrect claims?), check technical accuracy of things outside the writer's core domain, track interview transcripts, search/summarize across prior work, do data exploration of public/government reports. Etc. It's a very empowering tool for journalism! Instead, it's become a religious issue that is more or less at the level of "one drop" theory.
- applicative 16d agoI'm not sure who has the religious issue.
- hollandheese 16d agoWhy would they need AI to do any of those things? Wrong statements should be caught by editors and fact-checkers. It more sounds like you're wanting people to shoehorn in AI where it doesn't belong.
- mediaman 11d agoYes, and instead of sending an letter by post I could send a carrier pigeon. I don't "need" the postal service at all! Why am I shoehorning the postal service in where it doesn't belong?
- salamandars 16d agoIs there anything you can point to that demonstrates how journalism has been improved by AI research?
- nirava 15d agoThis is a completely reasonable take from a normal human being. YK some people become journalists because they enjoy the act of research, writing and investigating. And in all honesty, LLMs are still INCREDIBLY bad at communication. They get stuff done, sure, but god, for something named "large language model" all their attempts at human style communication makes me want to turn off the computer for good.