Post AVULwqqfWSJJu7eHsu by glyph@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by glyph@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AVUKDpfaxS3HGORFxI by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T19:23:52Z
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I'd love to hear more opinions on generative AI from people who aren't confident writersI feel like most of the commentary I see is from people who write with confidence - almost by definition, since writing confidently is an important prerequisite for widely broadcasting your opinions on things
(DIR) Post #AVUKNlniCKYq9wyR84 by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T19:25:28Z
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I have a hunch that there are lots of people out there for whom the ability to have a computer help them write is a massively valuable thing, but their stories have so far not attracted much attention in the wider AI discourseI'd love to upgrade that hunch with actual information
(DIR) Post #AVUKZ5v5jha1k7pF5s by msprout@fosstodon.org
2023-05-09T19:26:14Z
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@simon i'm an artist who once was trained as a journalist, once upon a time. genAI is nice for me because while I *can* write, i also *hate* writing. lol.
(DIR) Post #AVUKkMXsGNLGUXL4S0 by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T19:27:20Z
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It's interesting to compare this to generative images, where I've seen plenty of opinions that people don't "deserve" the ability to produce images of that quality without putting in significant effort firstTrying to apply the same argument to writing feels more callous to me
(DIR) Post #AVUKyywgHzVxdpuftw by mistersql@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:30:20Z
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@simon WaPo article leads with story about guy with Dyslexia using ChatGPT to write his messages/clean up the text.Too early for studies and like you said, these people aren't the people you'd expect to have blogs and post their own experiences.https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/10/chatgpt-ai-helps-written-communication/
(DIR) Post #AVULA6rvAfh1OszcHI by matt@toot.cafe
2023-05-09T19:30:48Z
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@simon Not sure if I qualify for being a less than confident writer. I've been programming for a while, and I can write articles when needed. But about a month ago, I started playing around with using ChatGPT to write fiction. The last time I had written a complete short story was in high school. Now with ChatGPT I can explore a story idea, prompting it to write each scene.
(DIR) Post #AVULA8PHS7yIAdblui by matt@toot.cafe
2023-05-09T19:32:28Z
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@simon Now I'm working on a novella as a side project. I still need to do quite a bit of editing, and some heavy rewriting, but I think ChatGPT made it easier to start playing with writing a story.
(DIR) Post #AVULLa4Ex30j8zDzgu by pamelafox@fosstodon.org
2023-05-09T19:31:38Z
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@simon yeah interesting. especially since LLM-aided writing could help non-fluent-English speakers overcome discrimination based on non-fluency. it'd be great if we could get LLMs to those folks.
(DIR) Post #AVULZrNJOn7MsPxDmq by digifox@tech.lgbt
2023-05-09T19:33:23Z
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@simon I'd argue that having a computer write for you is surrender, not a tool. I don't consider myself a confident writer, but the idea of handing over any of my writing to a computer that isn't tailored to my linguistic and cultural background is uncomfortable, and it should make everyone uncomfortable. Writing is more than just filling space between ideas.It's not about "deserving" to produce things without effort, it's about the fact that the ensuing production is mostly bland filler without any unique traits that identify it as "yours." If our society requires that people generate massive amounts of writing where they are OK with their own voice being replaced by the global-mean-internet-immersed-English-speaker voice, then I'd argue we should fix those systems instead.
(DIR) Post #AVULmSdcgJDnvAam8m by scottm@ruby.social
2023-05-09T19:36:00Z
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@simon I have a friend whose first language is not English who has had the recent need to write polite but firm letters to landlords, etc., recently. He used ChatGPT to construct letters that used that distinctive sub-dialect of Etiquette English that he wouldn’t have been able to write on his own.
(DIR) Post #AVULwqqfWSJJu7eHsu by glyph@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:36:49Z
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@simon This feels like one of those things that is aesthetically presented as liberatory but rapidly becomes a stigmatizing class marker, sold only to people who can't tell the difference. Like an MLM. "Finally, the benefits of (owning your own business|confident writing) is available to the masses! It's easy to get started, just pay (your upline|ChatGPT's escalating costs)." But no actual investor is fooled by MLM garbage products and nowhere that requires quality writing will be fooled by LLMs
(DIR) Post #AVUMAdil7x0fFBWXlA by jadp@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:39:36Z
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@simon Generative Pre-trained Transformers #GPT and Large Language Models #LLM are useful tools, especially for those who are not, or no longer consider themselves, confident writers. I like open source tools, such eg from @huggingface that are transparent about their training sets and models — with the hope of understanding the biases and dangers of the tool. I don’t like calling any of these advanced computational statistics and machine learning #ML tools as “artificial intelligence” #AI
(DIR) Post #AVUMNIlkKwpg1lxVtw by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T19:42:28Z
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@glyph sure, but there are SO many situations that don't require quality writing: they need clear, boring, uncreative writing that clearly communicates some information
(DIR) Post #AVUMZxQyyFelchHW1Q by codingGarden@mstdn.social
2023-05-09T19:42:47Z
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@simon totally, for me, business emails, reports and such texts are usually horrible to start to write. But with chatgpt (and dolly locally on my laptop now) I can get a starting point easier. Still not game changing, I am not mass advertising now, but a little better.
(DIR) Post #AVUMkuvccycD2Lq4Y4 by nevali@troet.cafe
2023-05-09T19:45:23Z
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@simon Grammarly customers are not front-page news
(DIR) Post #AVUMzmqAyq5yISNk48 by digifox@tech.lgbt
2023-05-09T19:48:53Z
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@simon @glyph Yep, and those scenarios in most situations should not require enough filler/bridging material to be any longer than the prompt you provide to ChatGPT. If they do, we should fix that.
(DIR) Post #AVUNAFjCQr8gml6pnM by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T19:49:09Z
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@mistersql wow, that story is from just ten days after ChatGPT was released - I'd love to see an updated version of that story now ChatGPT is nearly six months old - cc @willoremus
(DIR) Post #AVUNKO0yTeVJNkFtgm by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T19:50:23Z
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@digifox my hunch is that reqching less confident writers how to use ChatGPT is a lot more realistic than convincing society as a whole to stop requiring formal letters!
(DIR) Post #AVUNU8BUBnnZBFoovg by glyph@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:50:31Z
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@simon I guess I share your curiosity here, because I am curious if LLMs *can* provide this, and what experiences this type of user has. I feel like I should withhold details to protect the accused here, but I've had a few interactions where someone has attempted to work around their lack of english skills by pasting LLM output at me and I immediately clocked it because it was full of meandering fluff and the substance itself was confusingly ambiguous, as well as just wrong in places.
(DIR) Post #AVUNezgG97IbzaOOpc by matt@toot.cafe
2023-05-09T19:50:48Z
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@simon @glyph Well, the person needing to do that communication is already writing natural language in the form of a prompt, so for the kind of writing you describe, they could just as well write the information itself with no fluff. In an ideal world, anyway.Yes, I'm playing with ChatGPT for creative writing, and might even publish the (heavily edited and in some places rewritten) result. But some of my original skepticism about the utility of LLMs for non-fiction writing still remains.
(DIR) Post #AVUNugqVwMdqD9fpOy by tommorris@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:55:13Z
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@simon Even if one is able to write confidently, generative AI may come in useful for churning out really boring or tiresome written makework that's of minimal value.Cover letters and personal statements, for instance.https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/3/8/23618509/chatgpt-generative-ai-cover-letter
(DIR) Post #AVUO9WOJ5sj685YIAC by workingwriter@fosstodon.org
2023-05-09T20:04:53Z
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@simon My son-in-law told me he's been using ChatGPT to help him write email to co-workers and clients. He gets more and better replies as a result, he says.
(DIR) Post #AVUOKTCPIlepPoCsNs by heckj@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T20:06:24Z
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@simon FWIW I’ve had several writer friends indicate they never wanted LLMs to “write their work”, but found tremendous value in requesting a critique of their work - acting as a set of suggestions for identifying, common and uncommon writing problems.
(DIR) Post #AVUOX0wherMzYOqJv6 by derivadow@mastodon.me.uk
2023-05-09T20:07:24Z
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@simon similarly I reckon there is something for writers who don’t have easy access to an editor eg people who don’t work in that sort of company, early career, less socially confident etc.
(DIR) Post #AVUOzlGr14K1KvyZjU by nevali@troet.cafe
2023-05-09T20:17:32Z
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@simon also, two words: "second language"
(DIR) Post #AVUPV0jBb6usFj83Jg by glyph@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:52:26Z
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@matt @simon I have also experimented with it for creative writing prompts and it can be hilarious and inspiring. But this parallels the story I have found about expertise level with programming as well. Experts can gesture vaguely at it and have it spit out wrong and misleading garbage, but the few real clues present in the sludge are enough to make it valuable. Novices give it a prompt and think it has solved their problem, which later embarrasses them horribly.
(DIR) Post #AVUPV1R8xg4uS3h9pg by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-05-09T20:23:20Z
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@glyph @matt Maybe that's a self-healing flow then: how does the way a novice uses LLMs change after they've been horribly embarrassed?
(DIR) Post #AVUPV2TJ77P3f3iOqO by glyph@mastodon.social
2023-05-09T19:58:27Z
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@matt @simon I just used it yesterday to help with a relatively simple X.509 certificate parsing puzzle, and it gave me a hilariously wrong example full of terrible security bugs and outright crashes, *but* it included all the terms I was blanking on and allowed me to quickly correct it into something close to what I wanted. I cannot imagine how a new CS grad would have interacted with this output though.
(DIR) Post #AVUPkeVZycOByQDsmG by matt@toot.cafe
2023-05-09T20:26:04Z
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@simon @glyph I guess that depends on whether we're talking about mere embarrassment or something more high-stakes.
(DIR) Post #AVURxwS0mJDVII1Dyi by piskunovim@fosstodon.org
2023-05-09T20:50:24Z
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@simon Hi! I'm not a writer, but recently I've started using ChatGPT to enhance my texts. This doesn't mean that the AI generates my ideas or dictates how I present information, but it's incredibly helpful in refining my sentences and conveying my thoughts effectively.Midjourney also may assist you with the task at hand, but ultimately, you retain control over the final outcome.The potential it unlocks is evident to me, especially since this text was produced with the aid of AI.
(DIR) Post #AVUbWQUyT0Hpv1vHYO by tom@cow.army
2023-05-09T22:37:27Z
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@simon I’m a programmer / data nerd, and write the world’s most boring write ups of otherwise really interesting stats. ChatGPT has made an incredible difference to my day to day work.
(DIR) Post #AVUgd61lTZ6KE7GBuK by CelesteBancos@mathstodon.xyz
2023-05-09T23:34:54Z
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@simon I think it feels callous because of how our society judges people with a lack of writing ability a lot more harshly than it does those who lack artistic ability.
(DIR) Post #AVUhSrq3TV3nHMTAJc by b3n@g0v.social
2023-05-09T23:44:16Z
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@simon I remember stories by twitter bros about how they set up ChatGPT processes for repairmen etc who struggled with customer acquisition due to their bad writing. Would be nice to have more than ads though…
(DIR) Post #AVUoctslQl4UBzT3ey by emily@sparkly.uni.horse
2023-05-10T01:04:28Z
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@simon I think I'm at least adjacent to that category? Native English speaker, but I don't write a lot because it's hard for me to serialize the conceptual space in my brain to words. (I'm much worse verbally. I strongly prefer communicating in writing because it allows me to spend arbitrary amounts of time editing before hitting the send button, which is very helpful because everything I write over a sentence long comes out as incoherent garbage the first couple of tries.)I have trouble effectively using ChatGPT to write things for the same reason: it takes a lot of effort for me to dump all my brain-context into it, just as much as I would have spent writing the thing myself. It takes words as input to produce words, but I don't already have words. To use the calculator-for-words analogy, it's like I have a standard calculator, and that's helpful for many things, but the kind of math I need to do is the weird-symbol-manipulation kind and not the adding-numbers kind. I might need to add a few numbers near the end, but that wasn't the hard part.
(DIR) Post #AVXr2Xa9kNzdwQzvQO by PlaneSailingGames@chirp.enworld.org
2023-05-11T12:16:00Z
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@simon there was an interesting blog post by @Edent which looked at the progress of spellcheck and grammar check in his lifetime. Worth a look, he makes some interesting points https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/11/is-it-cheating-to-use-spell-check/
(DIR) Post #AVYCfJYHwVhal7SDZY by alexhern@tech.intersects.art
2023-05-11T16:18:19Z
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@simon my go-to thing for when I’m feeling worried about AI is to remember that my daughter, who has down syndrome, will be able to present herself as an articulate and confident writer unlike almost anyone with her condition before her