I disagreeâdisclosure is for the benefit of the reader, not the author[1]. If the reader had to read half a post, or even an entire post, before they were told they were reading LLM-generated text, they might be wasting quite a lot of time and attention.
Weâll see how this shakes out in practice though. If it proves too costly for authors of good quality posts which are LLM-assisted, we can always reconsider.
I agree disclosure is for the benefit of the readerâIâm saying that, as a reader, I disprefer having to skip through a sentence at the top of many new posts disclaming that they used LLMs for copy editing and feedback.
I think the main thing I care about is âwere large sections of this written directly by LLMâ which I would prefer as first sentence so I know when to not read (which is actually the policy as written here, though I only realized that as of writing this comment). Butâit appears that the default warning box has started scaring people into disclosing all forms of LLM usage at the top of essays, which I argue is a bad norm.
I wonder if the disclosures could be non-text by defaultâe.g. colour-coded with an optional footnote for details.
The thing Iâm not liking as a reader is having words to process on this stuff at the start (for me this isnât just cases where people arenât following policy; Iâve felt it some about a case where the words were one of the suggested wordings from the policy). Non-text ways to signal could potentially get best-of-both-worlds in terms of reader attention.
Hmm yesâwould it also work if it was a coloured callout you could get used to and ignore? I explicitly want newer users to know what the disclosures meanâi.e. a colour code without any text would be too esoteric.
Yeah I think that would be an improvement over the current behaviour. Iâd still probably prefer something very short (âLLM usage: zero/âminimal/âmoderate/âmajorâ) which can be expanded if people want more texture.
From what I can see, the main issue here who writes the words, about how much LLMs are used in the process.
If most of the brainstorming, research and structuring was done by the LLM but you wrote the words yourself, from my perspective that wouldnât require any caveat at all. But if LLMâs wrote half of the words than I would definitely want to know at the top of the post (and personally I probably wouldnât read it).
Thatâs why itâs so important that we get clear labelling. On this forum we should be able to choose whether or not to read something not written by a human. I would hope that only a minority of posts will have heavy LLM writing, so most posts wonât need any disclosure at all.
I completely agree with @Austin that people shouldnât write anything if they use LLMs for feedback and copy editingâlike he said they shouldnât have to under this policy. I have seen people stating doing that, but hopefully it will settle down when they realise it isnât necessary.
I donât understand why you put such a significance on the drafting of the material. Someone could have more problematic use of AI if they simply deferred to erroneous AI research findings and made a post in his/âher own words. Someone could brainstorm and follow the erroneous reasoning of an AI and do so in human words. Conversely, AI could draft words where the research and reasoning is checked and the words to express the thoughts are iterated many times between human/âAI to come to a very strong and clear method of expressing it.
Your drawing the line at drafting both does not capture many bad uses of AI and also captures many good or great uses of AI, in my view.
I think your perspective is reasonable here, itâs just not whatâs important to me. Genuine unfiltered human interaction is important to me. Knowing that Iâm talking with someone without an AI in between is important to me. If thatâs not important to you thatâs fine. This is important to me not only because I value true direct human interaction, but also (as a secondary problem) because I think AI writing is samey and boring. Maintaining a public writing space with true diversity, quirkiness and strong voices is part of what drives engagement and excitement.
When I see your name on something, I want it to be 100% your voice and your words like we are talking in a public space. Or at the very least I want you to tell me if itâs not. If youâre not concerned with that, then we have a fundamental almost axiomatic difference about what matters in a forum like this. I think thatâs part of the reason why thereâs a bit of a chasm between our views, and those who are happy with AI writing things. The quality of ideas and reasoning is only half of what matters for me. The other half is the discussion and interaction between usâthe mingling of our minds. Iâm not sure we can resolve this difference. If you genuinely donât mind whoâs âbrainâ words came from, and think that otherâs donât have the right to know that as well, thatâs reasonable but we may have fundamentally different beliefs.
A human or an AI could do good or bad research, Iâm less concerned with that. Karma will sort that out. Karma canât answer the human interaction question above. We can discern from outside whether an argument is good or not. We canât discern from outside whose words they areâthatâs why we need the start-of-post disclosure at the very least (I would go further). An analogy might be if someone did a bunch of research for you and sent it to you, and then you used half of their words in your post. Ignoring the plagiarism element, that wouldnât be you talking with me it would be someone else which would be dishonestâunless you said âhey this article is half my research assistantâs words and half mine).
I think as a human I have the right to know who Iâm interacting with.
scaring people into disclosing all forms of LLM usage at the top of essays, which I argue is a bad norm
Yep, thatâs different. Iâve only seen one example of this so far, but if it continues itâs probably just a design issue we can tweak (i.e. maybe the copy isnât clear enough on the post-page).
I disagreeâdisclosure is for the benefit of the reader, not the author[1]. If the reader had to read half a post, or even an entire post, before they were told they were reading LLM-generated text, they might be wasting quite a lot of time and attention.
Weâll see how this shakes out in practice though. If it proves too costly for authors of good quality posts which are LLM-assisted, we can always reconsider.
Though we donât want disclosure to be too onerous, which is why it is currently just text rather than the callout boxes LessWrong is using.
I agree disclosure is for the benefit of the readerâIâm saying that, as a reader, I disprefer having to skip through a sentence at the top of many new posts disclaming that they used LLMs for copy editing and feedback.
I think the main thing I care about is âwere large sections of this written directly by LLMâ which I would prefer as first sentence so I know when to not read (which is actually the policy as written here, though I only realized that as of writing this comment). Butâit appears that the default warning box has started scaring people into disclosing all forms of LLM usage at the top of essays, which I argue is a bad norm.
I wonder if the disclosures could be non-text by defaultâe.g. colour-coded with an optional footnote for details.
The thing Iâm not liking as a reader is having words to process on this stuff at the start (for me this isnât just cases where people arenât following policy; Iâve felt it some about a case where the words were one of the suggested wordings from the policy). Non-text ways to signal could potentially get best-of-both-worlds in terms of reader attention.
Hmm yesâwould it also work if it was a coloured callout you could get used to and ignore? I explicitly want newer users to know what the disclosures meanâi.e. a colour code without any text would be too esoteric.
Yeah I think that would be an improvement over the current behaviour. Iâd still probably prefer something very short (âLLM usage: zero/âminimal/âmoderate/âmajorâ) which can be expanded if people want more texture.
From what I can see, the main issue here who writes the words, about how much LLMs are used in the process.
If most of the brainstorming, research and structuring was done by the LLM but you wrote the words yourself, from my perspective that wouldnât require any caveat at all. But if LLMâs wrote half of the words than I would definitely want to know at the top of the post (and personally I probably wouldnât read it).
Thatâs why itâs so important that we get clear labelling. On this forum we should be able to choose whether or not to read something not written by a human. I would hope that only a minority of posts will have heavy LLM writing, so most posts wonât need any disclosure at all.
I completely agree with @Austin that people shouldnât write anything if they use LLMs for feedback and copy editingâlike he said they shouldnât have to under this policy. I have seen people stating doing that, but hopefully it will settle down when they realise it isnât necessary.
I donât understand why you put such a significance on the drafting of the material. Someone could have more problematic use of AI if they simply deferred to erroneous AI research findings and made a post in his/âher own words. Someone could brainstorm and follow the erroneous reasoning of an AI and do so in human words. Conversely, AI could draft words where the research and reasoning is checked and the words to express the thoughts are iterated many times between human/âAI to come to a very strong and clear method of expressing it.
Your drawing the line at drafting both does not capture many bad uses of AI and also captures many good or great uses of AI, in my view.
I think your perspective is reasonable here, itâs just not whatâs important to me. Genuine unfiltered human interaction is important to me. Knowing that Iâm talking with someone without an AI in between is important to me. If thatâs not important to you thatâs fine. This is important to me not only because I value true direct human interaction, but also (as a secondary problem) because I think AI writing is samey and boring. Maintaining a public writing space with true diversity, quirkiness and strong voices is part of what drives engagement and excitement.
When I see your name on something, I want it to be 100% your voice and your words like we are talking in a public space. Or at the very least I want you to tell me if itâs not. If youâre not concerned with that, then we have a fundamental almost axiomatic difference about what matters in a forum like this. I think thatâs part of the reason why thereâs a bit of a chasm between our views, and those who are happy with AI writing things. The quality of ideas and reasoning is only half of what matters for me. The other half is the discussion and interaction between usâthe mingling of our minds. Iâm not sure we can resolve this difference. If you genuinely donât mind whoâs âbrainâ words came from, and think that otherâs donât have the right to know that as well, thatâs reasonable but we may have fundamentally different beliefs.
A human or an AI could do good or bad research, Iâm less concerned with that. Karma will sort that out. Karma canât answer the human interaction question above. We can discern from outside whether an argument is good or not. We canât discern from outside whose words they areâthatâs why we need the start-of-post disclosure at the very least (I would go further). An analogy might be if someone did a bunch of research for you and sent it to you, and then you used half of their words in your post. Ignoring the plagiarism element, that wouldnât be you talking with me it would be someone else which would be dishonestâunless you said âhey this article is half my research assistantâs words and half mine).
I think as a human I have the right to know who Iâm interacting with.
Yep, thatâs different. Iâve only seen one example of this so far, but if it continues itâs probably just a design issue we can tweak (i.e. maybe the copy isnât clear enough on the post-page).