I'm scared people might actually like ChatGPT's writing.
Some weeks back there was a popular post on the Discovery page recommending another blog (I don’t want to call anybody in particular out, because this is just an example of a society-wide trend!). This was an authentic human saying “I love this blog, the writing is beautiful and it really speaks to me”. Wanting to feel inspired myself, I checked out this other blog and every single post was AI-generated. Specifically, it was very obviously ChatGPT. It was generated last year so before so many people were wise to the tells, and did have the em dashes edited out, but otherwise every paragraph was packed do the absolute gills with doing things "quietly" and introducing thoughts with "And honestly?" and if you're familiar with LLM writing you get the idea.
If you aren't — I've noticed people can get a little defensive and uncomfortable when a so-called "LLM tell" is a word or phrase they use in their own writing, but I really don't think this is necessary! Despite people's fears that they'll be mistaken for AI I've yet to meet anybody who's natural writing sounds anything like AI. You might have one tell but not all of them at once.
Anyway.
One one level it shouldn't matter if one person found a robot thought-provoking. Or when people rely to a ChapGPT slop post on Reddit with "oh my gosh this was so well written" or a ChapGPT quip with "hilarious!!!!!" We can find meaning wherever we want! But whenever I encounter somebody who likes this stuff I feel this growing sense of dread and it's even worse when they clearly don't know it's AI they're responding to.
I guess it's scary to think maybe I'm getting tricked somewhere, by more subtle LLM product, and I have no idea.
And those of us who want to write, it's distressing if some people think a robot does it better.
But I also just get mad. This is what people want?! This is crap! Most of this kind of writing doesn't build to anything, doesn't say anything. It doesn't even try to make its paragraph different lengths.
Ultimately I just get worried that I'm going to spend the rest of my life running from my least favorite author of all time. I checked out a physical book from the literal library that had ChatGPT-generated text in it! Who will stop this bastard?!
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This post was last edited 2 weeks, 6 days ago.
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