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Europeans are effortposting on X right now, centering around a reported $140 million fine apparently for how X changed the blue checkmark and restricted API access to researchers. But this comes at a time when Europeans are bearing down on Musk for not curating feeds based on the opinions of paid 'misinformation experts', an industry effectively invented post-2016 election.
It is a terrible look for Europe. They are falling behind China and the US economically while acting as the global regulators for industries they are no longer capable of building themselves. Their posture has become so hostile to business that Apple is now withholding major features from the European market. Jamie Dimon just sounded the alarm on how their hulking regulatory regime is dragging down their ability to innovate, warning that they’ve effectively driven investment out.
My impression of European bureaucrats in the last 24 hours is of a body staffed by a bunch of snooty has-beens. The economist Robin Brooks has been noting the deep hypocrisy here too: their moralizing doesn't match their actions on things like Ukraine, given they are still buying endless amounts of Russian oil via backchannels and refineries in places like India.
The free speech thing is really annoying too. I was actually surprised to see Trump hold back on this when meeting PM Starmer in Scotland. There is a real and serious difference in free speech between our nations. As an American, I can express myself without fear that some busybody will knock on my door.
It’s upsetting because while things might have been less turbulent under Harris, I’m truly glad that the attempt to codify a global regime of 'acceptable' online speech has met resistance. It’s odd to think that we nearly saw a unification of US/EU efforts on this front, importing their safetyism to our shores.
Europe is and always will be our friend, but they’re not on their game right now. The reactions aren't principled—they’re distasteful.
Hmm.
Not sure what to think of this account of this comment. There's definitely some AI used here, and that's bad, but it also seems that there is some sort of human touch involved. There are also other comments from this account with obvious AI usage.
There's something odd about the comment as well. What's with the namedrops of Jamie Dimon and Robin Brooks with absolutely no context or links. The entire comment is incoherent, which could easily be from a weak writer, but feels suspiciously like copypasta from ai here.
Something is also extreeeemely suspicious about how this user almost always uses contractions "it's" but somehow end up using the uncontradicted form here and there. It's (lol) unlikely for a writer not to use the same form across a short body of text written quickly. But also it's also a sign that the entire text isn't wholesale copied from ai.
Personally I think this poster has the right intentions overall and the mods just need to tell him to knock it off with the slop.
Hey it’s not slop right? Mods I openly admit having Gemini check my rough drafts and rewrite them (with light touches after to remove most of the ai hallmarks). I provide it a ChatGPT report on sources and current events to ensure the references are clear. I feel that this is a good way to clear up my thoughts, make them more organized and coherent, and provide higher quality than I would otherwise. I try to have it maintain my original tone where possible.
I don’t think I am outsourcing my thinking or perspective to AI but using it to improve my thinking. If I’m reprimanded for it, that’s fair. I feel I’m contributing good faith, honest arguments and will stop if told to do so.
This is the part I like the least for the tiny bit that's worth. ChatGPT hallucinates sources fairly regularly. And setting that aside, you shouldn't write (or let an AI write on your behalf) as though you could safely assume everyone is familiar with the sources, especially when you yourself wouldn't have been if not for the AI.
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If it's obvious to people reading your post that you used AI, then yes, you are.
I have no doubt there are other people using AI to help or generate their posts, but if you edit it enough that we can't tell, it might as well be yours. If we can tell, though, then I put you in the same category as a bot. There's a difference between using it as a spelling and grammar checker and using it to generate entire lines (like the telltale "It's not X-emdash-it's Y").
@cjet79 already decided not to ban you and remove your post. I might have decided differently.
This was my draft prior to AI review. It sucks getting this kind of flack from mods and posters but do realize that the post is probably 85% my thinking with minor edits. I think you might realize the assessment is a bit harsh:
Review this post for the Motte given widespread EU/US dynamic on twitter in last 2 days:
Europeans are effortposting on X and it centers around a 150 million dollar fine apparently for how they changed the blue checkmark and not allowing api access for researchers. But it comes at a time when Europeans are bearing down on Musk for not curating feeds based on the opinions of paid misinformation deciders, a position invented in 2016.
I think it’s a real bad look for Europe to be falling behind China and the US economically and also acting as major regulators of companies they can’t build themselves. Their posture has become so unfriendly to business that Apple just doesn’t release some features for Europeans anymore. Jamie Dixon just sounded the alarm on their economic policies dragging down their ability to innovate.
My impressions online of European bureaucrats in the last 24 hours have been of a hulking regulatory body with a bunch of snooty has-beens. This European economic, Robin Brooks, has been noting too that their actions don’t match the rhetoric on things like Ukraine, buying endless amounts of Russian oil etc.
The free speech thing is really annoying too. I was surprised to see Trump hold back on this when meeting PM Starmer in Scotland when asked about it. There is a real difference in free speech that means as an American I can feel comfortable expressing myself without fear that some busybody will come knock on my door.
It’s upsetting because while things may have been much less turbulent under Harris, I’m truly glad that the attempts to codify a global regime of acceptable online speech over last X years has met resistance. It’s odd to think that there would have been a unification of efforts on this front under her.
Europe is and always will be our friend but they’re not on their game right now and the snooty reactions are distasteful.
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This is what they call a "cope" -- you're rephrasing the distasteful truth to something less accurate but more palatable. If an external actor "improves" your product in ways you couldn't have done yourself, you have in fact outsourced at least that part of your product.
Please read pre ai draft above - I wanted to start a conversation on a topic, most of which was mine. I don’t love that some hallmarks of ai came out, but it really was mostly editing.
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There's a difficult question in the difference between "your product" and "my thinking or perspective".
For a toy problem, I threw together a short story today, about 1200 words in the original draft, zero AI. Wrote it in FeatherPad (a notepad-like), so not even spellcheck.
Except no, that's a bit of a lie. I Googled a well-known phrase about birds in gilded cages, because I wanted to play on the original text, and Google's awful built-in LLM did give me some interpretations, even if not the one I actually went with. Still, I can't say I completely avoided influence from it. In this case, I am doing the thing and the thinking, the AI's just helping save time doing it. Am I outsourcing my product to Google? To a song from the 1900s?
After finishing the draft, I shoved the full text as a file upload into Grok with a request to check for spelling errors, overall coherence, typographical errors, and clarity. It caught a dropped fragment I didn't, and had a few suggestions. I took some, and didn't take others, but every keystroke going into the final product I wrote by keyboard, no copy-paste. In this case, these fixes are something I could do, but some parts probably not as reliably as the AI, while other parts, the AI is doing stuff I don't want.
Okay, what if I wrote the original really badly: a rough outline that hit all the same story beats and general concepts, but without any of the stylistic techniques, writing quality, or many specific segments I wanted in the story. That'd clearly be against the rules for where I submitted the story, and probably not result in anything nearly as good. And since I'm not a good writer, that's really damning it with faint praise.
Actually, let's try it: Grok (story) and ChatGPT (story).
For a tl;dr, not great, not terrible. Definitely didn't get the themes down, and the humor's not great, but ChatGPT's tone is mostly on the right tack, and I could probably inject a lot more dry comedy if I pushed it harder or feed it back in on itself with instructions to crank those aspects up. I'm not exactly a prompt expert. They did a good enough job on the 'enrichment' lists that I'm pretty glad I didn't try them before writing my own version, because I'd have probably gotten stuck on them and not moved to the ones I did use. And even if those were 'worse' from a realism perspective they were imo 'better' from a thematic writing one.
These LLMs clearly produce a better product than the outlines I put into the prompts. Whether it's better as a product than the short story I actually wrote is pretty dependent on what you're measuring; I'd argue I went quality over quantity, but writers get paid on the latter. The only real ideas the LLMs shove out are the enrichment concepts, and I could demonstrably come up with different ones. Indeed, a lot of the token cost for the LLMs is poking it into even moderately-good ideas. Does that outsource my ability to do things that way?
... except ironically, a guest-mode story prompt came up with an additional good theme to introduce: spelling out the main character's lack of trust in himself. It's a theme that works great for most horror fans that this story archetype is built around, but it's not really one I could see without being prompted. I don't think it's necessary for the product, but it's definitely a different idea.
I dunno where on that line Ademonera's post falls. I'd be less happy with it if they were using ChatGPT to source names and events, and then just using the names and events without reflecting on what they actually meant (or if they even meant anything). I wouldn't really care if it were glorified spellcheck, since at least it's not another Grammerly user. And if it's that messy spot where they had an outline of all the material they wanted to hit, but let the LLM reshuffle it into a narrative... well, I guess I wouldn't really see the point.
But the problems are separate ones.
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Not a mod, but for what it's worth, I would rather read your slightly less coherent, less well-sourced, but fully organic comments rather than something passed through a slop machine. I thought your ideas were interesting enough on their own. The cons of being called out for slop outweigh any minor stylistic improvements you might gain.
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Also Gemini 3 still does the em dash thing, obviously. I removed two of them but hey I’m only human (?)
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