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Notes -
AI output detected.
Sigh... It's all so tiresome....
Before the accusations of paranoia: I am highly confifent that AI output is present and found it with my brain first. But other supporting factors (not a smoking gun, just supporting evidence):
97% score for a randomly chosen section on gptzero
Comparison with past writing by self made on the topic of china: https://www.themotte.org/post/3302/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/374614?context=8#context - writing is substantially different in style - 0% score on gptzero
Discussion of using AI in general, though not one particular circumstance: https://www.themotte.org/post/3411/a-broken-model-of-the-world/392472?context=8#context
Self_made, your writingnis better than this. AI or not, I can't read this, but I read the entire essay about broken world models just fine. As a mod, I'm sure you're much more familiar with the rules than I am and wouldn't break them, but whatever AI or other peocess used here made the final essay worse in my imo.
My man, I quite literally said, in the essay itself, that I used ChatGPT for help. That is not the same as using it to write an essay!
I am not an expert on geopolitics or economics. I asked ChatGPT for help with relevant theories (I do know about the Gravity model of trade and am tangentially familiar with Acemoglu). Why? Because nobody with more expertise brought this up first in a hot minute.
You do realize that's in the context of an essay with no AI involvement beyond feedback? I have few qualms about disclosing it when it's actually relevant, or denying my usage. You don't have to use GPT-Zero, which is an unreliable tool at the best of times. You can just ask. The honest answer here is I ran into a very interesting article, wrote a rough draft of an essay, asked multiple models for feedback and edit passes, then did the tedious work of checking for hallucinations. This was over multiple days, and several good points noted by the AI, such as the applicability of various economic models, was probably accepted by me into the final version. As far as I can tell, there are no hallucinations, beyond quotes from poorly sourced Chinese literature that I can't read (suitably signposted and kept as a joke).
The current moderation consensus is that the use of AI to generate all or even most of a post, particularly in an attempt to pad effort or mislead, is a clear violation of the rules. We have refrained from declaring what proportion of an essay or post must be AI written to be worthy of action. It is a ruling mainly made to dissuade spam or bad-faith actors, and using it for editing or proofreading is, as far as I'm aware, above board.
While it's very kind of you to say that you prefer 100% raw SMH, you haven't even seen the raw essay! How would you know if it's better? I don't, or I'd have posted it.
The previous essay on China was a throwaway written in the middle of the night, it lacks the spit and polish of an effortpost written over hours or days. You will see a lot of variance in my style based on how much effort I'm putting in.
Much like goods "manufactured" in Hainan, I believe I have added enough additional value to the base product to post without qualms. It is, after all, mostly mine. Or perhaps the AI added enough value to my base product. The day I throw raw ChatGPT output in here is the day I welcome public crucifixion.
There are multiple schools of LLM opposition, with different concerns that lead to different levels of tolerance. One, which the current policy as you understand and implement it does address, is the one about effort asymmetry - "why should I read and parse a post in good faith if it was generated in a click" etc.; another, though, which I am increasingly coming around to, is more about some sort of neurolinguistic programming Lovecraftian corruption aspect, where you can see an LLM flavour to the writing style, the narrative structure, or even the underlying thought process even if the text was composed by a human using "LLM help", or perhaps just by a human who has spent too much time interacting with LLMs at all. For the latter group, "I edited it myself" may be as reassuring as "I am a human, not a pathogen" coming from a terminal plague victim shambling towards you.
I agree that it is a mistake to assume that people complaining about LLM-usage are monolithic or homogeneous.
When I object to LLM usage, I would point to aspects like:
At the risk of flattering myself, I think these are the "reasonable" reasons to disapprove of specific examples or LLM outputs as a whole. But I haven't made any of those mistakes, which is why I consider myself misunderstood rather than someone cheating their way into the discourse.
Well I can say that this latest post was super-boring to read -- you say that this is not so important to you, which is kind of a weird thing for somebody who wants to be a writer to say. Unless you are writing strictly for your own entertainment, in which case there seems no need to make the product public?
In any case, given that you consider a boring end product undesirable to at least a certain degree, maybe consider the extent to which the LLM's "help" with your writing was actually having the effect of making it more boring to read before "writing" any more of these pieces?
I don't think the draft would have been too exciting either, on top of lacking polish. It's a dry topic. China opened a new free trade zone. Nobody has been shot, yet. Even the Taiwan connection is tenuous.
I'm sure someone could make it exciting, that someone might not be me. I settled for accurate journalism with Chinese characteristics. Any more "spice" would have been the less palatable kind of Yellow Journalism.
Of course. Have I ever struck you as being not into introspection or lacking self-awareness? I have a lot of things written that I haven't shared because I think my own output or with LLM support didn't make it worthwhile.
I have seriously spent time considering that. My takeaway is that the answer is no. LLMs aren't the best at making things exciting or novel (not that they can't do it at all), so what I mostly rely on them for is to take something I think I've done well, then re-arrange, proofread and edit. Most of their suggestions go in the waste bin. Sometimes they do actually say things that make me sit up and go huh, not bad, and those are worth stealing.
You've raised a valid point, speaking generally, so I can only beg the benefit of doubt that I thought of it too.
Kind of? You are getting quite a lot of feedback right now that this particular writing is worse than your less-LLM-inflected (infected?) pieces, and are continuing to bluster on about how great it is.
So why are you doing it? Is there some shortage of actual journalism about China that needs addressing so badly that boring prooompted longposts on the Motte are required?
You could always, like -- write about something that isn't boring?
That doesn’t seem fair. For the world’s biggest rising country and the greatest threat to the American-led world consensus to break with its own economic model and institute effectively a freeport on its own territory seems like big news.
He's the one who said it was intrinsically boring! If the LLM made something super-interesting super-boring instead, he should definitely not be using it!
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