This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
That's fair. This is a tough issue though, because AI is at this point impossibly looped into basic editing processes, and there's a spectrum. It is AI now, because I ask AI for a spell check, or to fix commas? 1.Write a something for me on this topic is one thing. 2. Draft these bullet points into a post is another. 3. Take this draft, and help me edit for grammer/wording, is another still. It's closer to blue underline suggestions in Word. For me personally, I don't really do option 1 ever. I will occassionally use option 2 in work emails. But option 3, which should be useful,I find the AI to be overly zealous in rewording, then have to tweak back. It's a general problem I have at work with AI generation. AI is a very zealous editor, and instead of tightening a clause or fixing a word, it tries to aggressively redraft things into AI voice. Perhaps somethign like Grammerly is better, but ChatGPT sucks in this regard.
However, in this case, I don't think AI was noticed here. I think stilted prose was noticed, and everything that doesn't feel organic, registers as AI now. The biggest difference between my OP and, say this comment, is that I tried to write it out in a word processor and create a structure, rather than stream-of-consciousness into the comment field.
I have tried (and mostly failed) to get AI to write fiction for me since I have mostly tapped out the prog fantasy space for fiction that I enjoy. There are several ways to get the AI to do more or less of it's 'own' writing. You can simply prompt it with something like, 'Edit this for spelling and grammar while changing as little as possible and maintaining my words and voice, minor technical errors are fine only fix things that are obviously mistakes : Paste Text. Whenever I use the prompting above, the AI changes almost nothing.
The quote was what Chatgpt spat out when prompted in that way to edit this comment. I doubt anyone would flag the AI output as AI (unless they were familiar with my writing and shocked my the lack of mistakes).
More options
Context Copy link
No if it only fixes commas and spelling. If it can't help slopping all over what nobody asked for, then yes it's AI slop.
Completely AI slop. I am completely against this.
This is exactly the reason why I think option 3 is still sloppified in current_year. Because it's quite tricky to just get AI to "help" fix the issues and organize your thoughts without slop leaking in somewhere or another.
No, there are definite sentences and phrases in there that are totally chatgpt-isms. I don't want to reveal the more subtle tells in fear that people will simply edit them out. But there's parts of your post that you forgot to "tweak back" from the AI output.
All fair points. I'm not particularly proud of the structural product of op, so no point belaboring. Happy to engage further on the actual content
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link