Eventually, as models and their users both improve, we'll collectively realize that trying to reliably discriminate between AI and human writing is no different than reading tea leaves. We should judge content based on its intrinsic value, not its provenance. We should call each other out for poor writing or inaccurate information — not because if we squint we can pick out some loose correlations with ChatGPT's default output style.
Consciously trying not to "sound like an LLM" while writing is like consciously trying not to think about the fact that you're currently breathing, or consciously trying to sound like a cool guy.
The stakes are a bit different for students unfortunately, who who’ll have their writing passed through some snake oil AI detector arbitrarily. This is unfortunate because “learning how not to trigger an AI detector” is a totally useless skill.
Generally, I don’t think we need AI detection. We need dumb bullshit detection. Humans and LLMs can both generate that. If people can use an LLM in a way that doesn’t generate dumb bullshit, I’m happy to read it.
I don't use AI in my writing. If I were still in school would I be tempted? Probably. But in work and personal writing? Never crosses my mind.
But the people you will reach online will be online, and not some random person-off-the-street. The average person on the street will give the same blank stare on the topic of compilers, regular expressions, black-holes, or robotics, but I still want to read about those topics. And if I want an LLM's take on those topics, everyone knows where to turn to get that.
There are zillions of words produced every second, your time is the most valuable resource you have, and actually existing LLM output (as opposed to some theoretical perfect future) is almost always not worth reading. Like it or not (and personally I hate it), the ability to dismiss things that are not worth reading like a chicken sexer who's picked up a male is now one of the most valuable life skills.
Of course there are cases where you can tell that some text is almost certainly LLM output, because it matches what ChatGPT might reply with to a basic prompt. You can also tell when a piece of writing is copied and pasted from Wikipedia, or a copy of a page of Google results. Would any of that somehow be more worth reading if the author posted a video of themselves carefully typing it up by hand?
1: You're assuming a specific type of output in a specific type of context. If LLM output were never worth reading, ChatGPT would have no users.
I only have a limited amount of time to read. Skipping someone's Internet comment because it looks like spam often means I get to engage with something else.
If someone who typically bills $500/hr spends 30 - 60 minutes on a comment or blog post, that's still $250 - 500 worth of their time invested regardless of whether or not an LLM was involved. An LLM is comparatively cheaper than hiring a human editor or research assistant, but it's not negative cost.
Likewise, prompting ChatGPT with "write a blog post about bees" may be cheaper than hiring someone off Fiverr to respond to the exact same prompt, but in either case the resulting content will be low-value (yet still higher-value than the string "write a blog post about bees") because its source material was cheap. The fact that the latter version would have been written by a human is incidental.
"delve" was a red flag 650 years ago!
When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? — Fr John Ball's sermon addressing the rebels of the Peasant's Revolt, 1381
I think there is a very interesting discussion to be had over how LLMs are actively changing the way we write, or even speak.
I like how this is presented as a given thing that will happen, that models are going to just improve forever. That there isn’t some plateau on “user skill with LLMs” like it’s fucking calculus mixed with rocket science that only the elite users will ever attain full fluency in using.
This is starting to read like religious cult propaganda, which is probably scarier than whatever else ends up happing with this shit.
In the 20th century, there were two spaces after an end of sentence period. (I still do that.)
Only if you used a typewriter. I was using (La)TeX in the twentieth (1990s), and it defaulted to a rough equivalent of 1.5 spaces (see \spacefactor).
Two ('full') space characters were added because of (tele)typewriters and their fixed width fonts, and this was generally not used in 'properly' published works with proportional typefaces; see CMoS:
* https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/O...
Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style (§2.1.4) concurs:
* https://readings.design/PDF/the_elements_of_typographic_styl...
* https://webtypography.net/2.1.4
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St...
I keep punctuating like it's the 18th Century, myself;—compound points are my favorites:—like the colon-dash compound, AKA the "dog's bollocks."
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
Which is to say, we all compromise.
I'd hate to lose my em- and en-dashes, but the original post seems to misuse en-dashes where hyphens belong (it could just be a font issue, but no matter).
Maybe I’ll take a short pause in a sentence–or show a huge range 0 — 999.
Other than splitting infinitives and ending sentences with a preposition, of course. They are a weighty burden no soul should have to ever put up with.
I grew up online in teletype and ADM5. To some extent, my sense of how text presents is dominated by monotype/fixed-width and em-dashes just never worked in that 7 bit world.
Two hyphens is too much. one hyphen is not enough.
Sam Altman more than anyone else popularised this style and for a while every thrid or fourth comment on any AI-related topic was all lowercase.
Remember, meaning is based on common usage, so now em dash is slop-nonymous, semicolons can take on a more casual vibe.
For example: I love pizza — it's my comfort food.
Can just become: I love pizza; it's my comfort food.
For asides: I love pizza — especially pepperoni.
Can just become: I love pizza (especially pepperoni).
This video will be too voluminous or intrusive to be viewed manually, so it will be analyzed by (you guessed it) AI to determine if the work was authentic.
It will probably be developed and required by the corrupt education industry, but perhaps some writers will voluntarily use it to buy authenticity or stand out. But either way, the machine will once again find another way to take our agency and make our lives less enjoyable.
The key to do it without the LLM stigma is surrounding it with spaces which still doesn't violate typical writing rules.
> “This was not just X; it’s really Y”
Here are some real examples taken from various sources:
> "Regenerative businesses don't just minimise harm; they actively create positive change for the environment and people."
> "This milestone isn’t just about our growth. It’s about deepening our commitment to you…"
> "This wasn’t just a market rally. It was a real-time lesson in how quickly sentiment can fracture and recover when fundamentals remain intact."
Hard to say for certain that this is AI slop, but just like em dashes, I see it routinely pop up in LLM prose. And I feel like it’s infected nearly everything I’ve read that was written within the last year.
But I agree that triple em-dash for pause is not half bad either. I could see it becoming a thing, with how it goes the opposite direction and is so over the top :)
Compose --- should produce —
For en dash it's
Compose --. produces –
Not all fonts show the difference though.
Anyway, I've used em- and en-dashes for a long time now (had it built into keyboard layout on "3rd level", AltGr+key), and not going to stop now.
Getting your knickers in a twist over a minor typographical construction is rather contrived as an indicator of a non human author of a text. It will do for now but won't tomorrow.
I can mostly spot LLM output on sight but I can be fooled. I never use silly rules like "em-dash => LLM". That's just silly.
I don’t use the word “delve” anymore, however.
> not chatgpt output—i'm just like this.
> https://xkcd.com/3126/ — Disclaimer
(On the other hand, maybe it's just low-paid writers in South Africa: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/16/techscape... )
When you are talking, an aside can make a lot of sense because you are thinking and speaking in real time. When you write you have the luxury of time to reformulate your words more precisely. Em dashes are best kept for prose that mimics speech rather than constructing logical text.
It's no coincidence that em dashes are rare in legal texts because they are too imprecise. Where as semicolons are extremely common in legal texts.
The S in semicolon stands for S-Tier. Maybe the E in em dash stands for E-Tier?
lolz
An em dash that’s not a sudden interruption shouldn’t have any spacing around it.
It is an interruption to me and I think that little pause is intentional. if the author wants no pause they should have used parentheses
Also, the AP Style guide is hardly relevant when it comes to most writing—especially creative writing.
This is necessary nuance that I'll have take into consideration. Thank you.
