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0 pointsbuu7006mo ago0 comments

Putting aside the claim that "LLM output [...] is almost always not worth reading"[1], the whole issue here is that this supposed ability of determining whether or not content is AI-generated doesn't exist. Is it really a valuable life skill to decide whether or not you want to read something based solely on its density of em dashes?

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.

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lmm6mo ago

> Is it really a valuable life skill to decide whether or not you want to read something based solely on its density of em dashes?

Having good heuristics to make quick judgements is a valuable life skill. If you don't, you're going to get swamped.

> Would any of that somehow be more worth reading if the author posted a video of themselves carefully typing it up by hand?

No, but the volume of carefully hand-typed junk is more manageable. Compare with spam: Individually written marketing emails might be just as worthless as machine-generated mass mailings, but the latter is what's going to fill up your inbox if you can't filter it out.

> If LLM output were never worth reading, ChatGPT would have no users.

Only if all potential users were wise. Plenty of people waste their time and money in all sorts of ways.

buu700OP6mo ago

Having good heuristics is a valuable life skill. Presence of standard punctuation is not a good heuristic.

lmm6mo ago

If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

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the_af6mo ago

This seems like begging the question to me.

Why do you think it's not a good heuristic to be able to quickly spot the tell-tale signs of LLM involvement, before you've wasted time reading slop?

Yes, there will be false positives. It's a heuristic after all.

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rsynnott6mo ago

Honestly it is currently _good enough_. It's obviously imperfect, like ~all heuristics, but its false positive rate should be fairly low.

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the_af6mo ago

> 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 think nobody is upset about reading an LLM's output when they are directly interacting with a tool that produces such output, such as ChatGPT or Copilot.

The problem is when they are reading/watching stuff in the wild and it suddenly becomes clear it was generated by AI rather than by another human being. Again, not in a context of "this pull request contains code generated by an LLM" (expected) but "this article or book was partly or completely generated by an LLM" (unexpected and likely unwanted).

buu700OP6mo ago

Right, that's part of what I'm getting at. There are two primary cases when LLM output tends to be bad:

1. In the context of research/querying, when unverified information from its output is falsely passed off as verified information curated by a human author. There's a big difference between "ChatGPT or some blog claims X" and "the answer is X".

2. In the context of writing/communication, when it's used to stretch a small amount of information into a relatively large amount of text. There's a big difference between using an LLM to help revise or trim down your writing, or to have it put together a first draft based on a list of detailed bullet points, and expecting it to stretch one sentence into a whole essay of greater value than the original sentence.

Those are basic misuses of the tool. It's like watching an old person try to use Google 20 years ago and concluding that search engines are slop and the only reliable way to find information is through the index of Encyclopedia Britannica.

ffin6mo ago

> this supposed ability of determining whether or not content is AI-generated doesn't exist.

It seems like you’re just wrong here? Em dashes aside, the ‘style’ of llm generated text is pretty distinct, and is something many people are able to distinguish.

buu700OP6mo ago

No, I'm not wrong. Someone could easily write in the default output style of ChatGPT by hand (which will probably become increasingly common the longer that style remains in place), and someone could easily collaborate with ChatGPT on writing that looks nothing like what you're thinking.

If organizations like schools are going to rely on tools that claim to detect AI-generated text with a useful level of reliability, they better have zero false positives. But of course they can't, because unless the tool involves time travel that isn't possible. At best, such tools can detect non-ASCII punctuation marks and overly cliched/formulaic writing, neither of which is academic dishonesty.

ffin6mo ago

Okay, you’re right that the LLM writing style isn’t singularly producible by LLM’s. However, I’m not sure why this writing style would become increasingly common? I don’t see why people would mimic text that is seen as low quality or associated with academic dishonesty.

Additionally, I do think it is valuable to determine if a piece of text is valuable, or more precisely, what I’m looking for. As others have said, if I want info from a LLM about a subject, it is trivial for me to get that. Oftentimes I am looking for text written by people though.

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lmm6mo ago

> Is it really a valuable life skill to decide whether or not you want to read something based solely on its density of em dashes?

Having good heuristics to make quick judgements is a valuable life skill. If you don't, you're going to get swamped.

> Would any of that somehow be more worth reading if the author posted a video of themselves carefully typing it up by hand?

> If LLM output were never worth reading, ChatGPT would have no users.

Only if all potential users were wise. Plenty of people waste their time and money in all sorts of ways.

buu700OP6mo ago

Having good heuristics is a valuable life skill. Presence of standard punctuation is not a good heuristic.

lmm6mo ago

If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

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the_af6mo ago

This seems like begging the question to me.

Why do you think it's not a good heuristic to be able to quickly spot the tell-tale signs of LLM involvement, before you've wasted time reading slop?

Yes, there will be false positives. It's a heuristic after all.

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rsynnott6mo ago

Honestly it is currently _good enough_. It's obviously imperfect, like ~all heuristics, but its false positive rate should be fairly low.

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the_af6mo ago

> 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 think nobody is upset about reading an LLM's output when they are directly interacting with a tool that produces such output, such as ChatGPT or Copilot.

buu700OP6mo ago

Right, that's part of what I'm getting at. There are two primary cases when LLM output tends to be bad:

ffin6mo ago

> this supposed ability of determining whether or not content is AI-generated doesn't exist.

It seems like you’re just wrong here? Em dashes aside, the ‘style’ of llm generated text is pretty distinct, and is something many people are able to distinguish.

buu700OP6mo ago

ffin6mo ago

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