[requires disclosure] A user has an idea for a forum post, then co-writes it with an LLM, turning a verbal mind-dump into bullet points, into an essay, into bullets again, etc… It turns out good.
I think this category, back and forth idea and drafting iteration between human and AI(s), has an enormous amount of value. The chatbots are very good at both generalizing from pithy insights and organizing material pretty effectively. Discussion and feedback over several rounds, at least for me, can produce content that well conveys my ideas much more quickly than if I were to just do it myself.
I think it is unfortunate that most of the discussion seems to be about demonizing the use of all AI for writing-generation, rather than distinguishing the good for the bad, and encouraging its positive use to enable contributions that otherwise just would not have happened.
Exactly. I care that the ideas in the post are good. Who does the actual “typing” is irrelevant for me.
And ghostwriting is nothing new. It’s somewhat common practice for busy top researchers to verbally discuss topics with more junior researchers who still have a good grasp on what they’re talking about and then for the junior researchers to write there verbal discussions down in the form of an easily digestable article.
Perhaps there are reasons why ghostwriting should be disclosed or not, but I don’t see why ghostwriting by an AI is a special case that deserves more attention than human ghostwriting.
I’m yet to see a brilliant article which I think is written in this manner. (I might have missed it), and I think we should be aiming high here on the forum. I also think that stylistically, if everyone starts co-writing with AI, posts will become boring and start sounding samey. I agree this method could enable contributions that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, but I’m happy to sacrifice OK/Good contributions to maintain human voice, and what I perceive at least to be higher overall quality of writing.
That’s actually a fantastic challenge: What post that gets above e.g. 200 karma has had the most AI usage? I mean if AI-heavy workflows can generate excellent content, that’s a win, no? More along the line of AI for epistemics things some EAs are working on, and might even help if AIs can help with sharing information on AI safety—at some point AI safety might need to become mostly automated to keep up with AI progress. In addition to the limit, I would be super excited to have some competitions on using AI heavily to write the best content, do the best research, and share lessons on how to use it to do even more good.
I think that’s a good starting point and I’d encourage people to share if there are good examples. It’s not necessarily a win though even if they can generate high quality argument. I don’t like the sameyness of LLM writing, I much prefer huam thought from the brainsto the page.
I’ve got no problem with AI safety work becoming automated if need be, it’s just the writing for human consumption that I don’t like right now. I suspect I’ll change my mind at some point when LLM writing becomes genuinely indistinguishable from good human writing, because then what can actually be done about it even if there is an objection?
I think something like the EA forum has a decent chance of LLM writing which is OK with people because here substance rules over style, although style is still valued.
Hmm, I’ve used LLMs to varying degrees in writing articles. Usually not to the point of writing significant amounts of text, but a case where I think it clearly helped to improve the output is this story: https://strangecities.substack.com/p/some-days-soon
(I notice that I’m more likely to find LLMs helpful in drafting things when writing fiction. I think it’s least likely to help when it’s important to convey my precise epistemic status towards the things I’m saying.)
“Usually not to the point of writing significant amounts of text”
This is the key point for me. Using AI for research, brainstorming and even to some degree structure makes perfect sense to me. It’s the actual final writing itself that’s the topic of this post and conversation.
I agree a lot of the time but there are also some absolute banger comments on the Forum that I’m glad people sweated over. And there is a difference between thinking seriously and being loose about form and just being loose all around.
Hang on, the category/example you cite is listed in the ‘Recommended use of LLMs’ section. So, I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with?
Indeed, almost half the post is about distinguishing good from bad uses of LLMs, thus I’m struggling to make sense of your last paragraph. Are you referring to discussion (which demonizes all AI use for writing) that has happened elsewhere?
Requiring disclosures to be at the top of the post (rather than e.g. allowing them to be at the bottom) does feel like it’s sending some implicit “this is kind of bad so people need to be warned about it” message, even if it’s in a “recommended uses” section.
Like I think people might reasonably worry about others pre-judging posts with this disclaimer, and hence (perhaps, sometimes) prefer workflows where they don’t need to include the disclaimer, even if this makes their posts worse.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer here—like, presumably the point of the policy is to allow this kind of pre-judging and let people make differently-informed choices about what they engage with. But I think the post kind of papers over this tension.
I can clarify that in writing this policy that was definitely part of my reasoning (i.e. to make it slightly costlier to use AI for final drafting).
I do think that “even if this makes their posts worse” is going to be fairly rare.
Though, as AI gets better at writing, we might all come to look on disclaimers differently. At some point readers may even prefer to know an AI has already checked over a post before they bother to read it.
I think there are very few justifications for consumers not knowing what they are buying. We should know as much as possible. When we eat food all the ingredients should be there on the packet. If some people think AI written posts are likely to be better, than people might even be more likely to read them? We should have the right to read or not read heavily AI written posts.
Labelling from my perspective is not about it being “good” or “bad” persay, but helping people make informed decisions.
Ok so I can kind of tune into what you’re saying here, but I also feel kind of uneasy about it. I guess I’d be curious what you make of the following potential arguments:
Ingredients are important because we can’t directly discern what’s in food. But with writing we can see exactly what’s there and judge that directly without needing to judge the process. (This perspective would endorse reviews being posted warning people not to read low-quality stuff.)
Requiring disclosure is an inappropriate form of thought policing—people should have the right to use whatever cognitive processes and augmentation methods they like, and take responsibility for the words they then share. If this produces LLM garbage it’s not on them to label that up front, but this should have the natural consequence that people stop listening to them.
I’m not disagreeing with this post (or, in any event, not in the comment to which you replied). I am noting that most of the discussion that I have seen has been pretty against AI-generated writing writ large, conflating the good use of it with the bad use. I am noting my opinion that there is a lot of value in this usage. When I am saying “most of the discussion”, I am not talking about this post specifically, but the broader discussion there has been about the use of AI to generate writings.
[requires disclosure] A user has an idea for a forum post, then co-writes it with an LLM, turning a verbal mind-dump into bullet points, into an essay, into bullets again, etc… It turns out good.
I think this category, back and forth idea and drafting iteration between human and AI(s), has an enormous amount of value. The chatbots are very good at both generalizing from pithy insights and organizing material pretty effectively. Discussion and feedback over several rounds, at least for me, can produce content that well conveys my ideas much more quickly than if I were to just do it myself.
I think it is unfortunate that most of the discussion seems to be about demonizing the use of all AI for writing-generation, rather than distinguishing the good for the bad, and encouraging its positive use to enable contributions that otherwise just would not have happened.
Exactly. I care that the ideas in the post are good. Who does the actual “typing” is irrelevant for me.
And ghostwriting is nothing new. It’s somewhat common practice for busy top researchers to verbally discuss topics with more junior researchers who still have a good grasp on what they’re talking about and then for the junior researchers to write there verbal discussions down in the form of an easily digestable article.
Perhaps there are reasons why ghostwriting should be disclosed or not, but I don’t see why ghostwriting by an AI is a special case that deserves more attention than human ghostwriting.
I’m yet to see a brilliant article which I think is written in this manner. (I might have missed it), and I think we should be aiming high here on the forum. I also think that stylistically, if everyone starts co-writing with AI, posts will become boring and start sounding samey. I agree this method could enable contributions that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, but I’m happy to sacrifice OK/Good contributions to maintain human voice, and what I perceive at least to be higher overall quality of writing.
That’s actually a fantastic challenge: What post that gets above e.g. 200 karma has had the most AI usage? I mean if AI-heavy workflows can generate excellent content, that’s a win, no? More along the line of AI for epistemics things some EAs are working on, and might even help if AIs can help with sharing information on AI safety—at some point AI safety might need to become mostly automated to keep up with AI progress. In addition to the limit, I would be super excited to have some competitions on using AI heavily to write the best content, do the best research, and share lessons on how to use it to do even more good.
I think that’s a good starting point and I’d encourage people to share if there are good examples. It’s not necessarily a win though even if they can generate high quality argument. I don’t like the sameyness of LLM writing, I much prefer huam thought from the brainsto the page.
I’ve got no problem with AI safety work becoming automated if need be, it’s just the writing for human consumption that I don’t like right now. I suspect I’ll change my mind at some point when LLM writing becomes genuinely indistinguishable from good human writing, because then what can actually be done about it even if there is an objection?
I think something like the EA forum has a decent chance of LLM writing which is OK with people because here substance rules over style, although style is still valued.
Hmm, I’ve used LLMs to varying degrees in writing articles. Usually not to the point of writing significant amounts of text, but a case where I think it clearly helped to improve the output is this story: https://strangecities.substack.com/p/some-days-soon
Functionally, I wrote a complete draft, then got Claude to redraft, then I went through and stitched the best bits of the two drafts together (or wrote new versions where that seemed best). (If you thought the original draft was better I’d be interested to hear that: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1icY2wpcgvKszfzHFButKcOwV8B9xMypTAk48kjnOGz0/edit?usp=drivesdk )
(I notice that I’m more likely to find LLMs helpful in drafting things when writing fiction. I think it’s least likely to help when it’s important to convey my precise epistemic status towards the things I’m saying.)
“Usually not to the point of writing significant amounts of text”
This is the key point for me. Using AI for research, brainstorming and even to some degree structure makes perfect sense to me. It’s the actual final writing itself that’s the topic of this post and conversation.
‘higher overall qualirt of writing’ lol Nick was that on purpose.
nope lol. That was just bad spelling to show lack of LLMs.
I genuinely think comments should have the lowest bar of writing imaginable lol. Just get your thoughts out there and move the discussion somewhere!
I agree a lot of the time but there are also some absolute banger comments on the Forum that I’m glad people sweated over. And there is a difference between thinking seriously and being loose about form and just being loose all around.
100% comments can be any level—the best ones of course are far better than most posts. I’ve sweated over a handul myself ;).
Hang on, the category/example you cite is listed in the ‘Recommended use of LLMs’ section. So, I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with?
Indeed, almost half the post is about distinguishing good from bad uses of LLMs, thus I’m struggling to make sense of your last paragraph. Are you referring to discussion (which demonizes all AI use for writing) that has happened elsewhere?
Requiring disclosures to be at the top of the post (rather than e.g. allowing them to be at the bottom) does feel like it’s sending some implicit “this is kind of bad so people need to be warned about it” message, even if it’s in a “recommended uses” section.
Like I think people might reasonably worry about others pre-judging posts with this disclaimer, and hence (perhaps, sometimes) prefer workflows where they don’t need to include the disclaimer, even if this makes their posts worse.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer here—like, presumably the point of the policy is to allow this kind of pre-judging and let people make differently-informed choices about what they engage with. But I think the post kind of papers over this tension.
I can clarify that in writing this policy that was definitely part of my reasoning (i.e. to make it slightly costlier to use AI for final drafting).
I do think that “even if this makes their posts worse” is going to be fairly rare.
Though, as AI gets better at writing, we might all come to look on disclaimers differently. At some point readers may even prefer to know an AI has already checked over a post before they bother to read it.
I think there are very few justifications for consumers not knowing what they are buying. We should know as much as possible. When we eat food all the ingredients should be there on the packet. If some people think AI written posts are likely to be better, than people might even be more likely to read them? We should have the right to read or not read heavily AI written posts.
Labelling from my perspective is not about it being “good” or “bad” persay, but helping people make informed decisions.
Ok so I can kind of tune into what you’re saying here, but I also feel kind of uneasy about it. I guess I’d be curious what you make of the following potential arguments:
Ingredients are important because we can’t directly discern what’s in food. But with writing we can see exactly what’s there and judge that directly without needing to judge the process. (This perspective would endorse reviews being posted warning people not to read low-quality stuff.)
Requiring disclosure is an inappropriate form of thought policing—people should have the right to use whatever cognitive processes and augmentation methods they like, and take responsibility for the words they then share. If this produces LLM garbage it’s not on them to label that up front, but this should have the natural consequence that people stop listening to them.
Hi Nick. This comment is empty.
I’m not disagreeing with this post (or, in any event, not in the comment to which you replied). I am noting that most of the discussion that I have seen has been pretty against AI-generated writing writ large, conflating the good use of it with the bad use. I am noting my opinion that there is a lot of value in this usage. When I am saying “most of the discussion”, I am not talking about this post specifically, but the broader discussion there has been about the use of AI to generate writings.