The second way in which this post is an experiment is that it’s an example of what I’ve been calling AI-enhanced writing. The experiment here is to see how much more productive I can be in the research and writing process by relying very heavily on AI assistance — Ttrying to use AI rather than myself wherever I can possibly do so. In this case, I went from having the basic idea to having this draft in about a day of work.
I’d be very interested in people’s comments on how apparent it is that AI was used so extensively in drafting this piece — in particular if there are examples of AI slop that you can find in the text and that I missed.
When I read the first italicised line of the post, I assumed that one of the unusual aspects was that the post was AI-written. So then I was unusually on the lookout for that while reading it. I didn’t notice clear slop. The few times that seemed not quite in your voice/a bit more AI-coded were (I am probably forgetting some):
The talk of ‘uncontacted tribes’ - are there any? Seems like more something I would expect AIs to mention than you.
‘containerisation tools’ - this is more computer techno-speak than I would expect from you (I don’t really know what these tools are, maybe you do though).
‘Capacitors dry out, solder joints crack, chips suffer long-term degradation.’ - I quite like this actually but it is a bit more flowery than your normal writing I think.
So overall, I would say the AIs acquitted themselves quite well!
I strongly endorse this and think that there are some common norms that stand in the way of actually-productive AI assistance.
People don’t like AI writing aesthetically
AI reduces the signal value of text purportedly written by a human (i.e. because it might have been trivial to create and the “author” needn’t even endorse each claim in the writing)
Both of these are reasonable but we could really use some sort of social technology for saying “yes, this was AI-assisted, you can tell, I’m not trying to trick anyone, but also I stand by all the claims made in the text as though I had done the token generation myself.”
I didn’t suspect while reading the post that it drafted heavily with AI.
On reflection, and having now seen this comment, the writing style does feel a bit different than your other writing that I’ve read, in some fairly thematically AI ways—shorter paragraphs, punchier prose, bolded bullets, etc. I don’t know if it is better or worse—it was very easy to scan and understand quickly, but I do wonder if some of your usual precision or nuance is missing. (Though this is probably more to do with being an early stage draft rather than being AI-assisted).
The second way in which this post is an experiment is that it’s an example of what I’ve been calling AI-enhanced writing. The experiment here is to see how much more productive I can be in the research and writing process by relying very heavily on AI assistance — Ttrying to use AI rather than myself wherever I can possibly do so. In this case, I went from having the basic idea to having this draft in about a day of work.
I’d be very interested in people’s comments on how apparent it is that AI was used so extensively in drafting this piece — in particular if there are examples of AI slop that you can find in the text and that I missed.
When I read the first italicised line of the post, I assumed that one of the unusual aspects was that the post was AI-written. So then I was unusually on the lookout for that while reading it. I didn’t notice clear slop. The few times that seemed not quite in your voice/a bit more AI-coded were (I am probably forgetting some):
The talk of ‘uncontacted tribes’ - are there any? Seems like more something I would expect AIs to mention than you.
‘containerisation tools’ - this is more computer techno-speak than I would expect from you (I don’t really know what these tools are, maybe you do though).
‘Capacitors dry out, solder joints crack, chips suffer long-term degradation.’ - I quite like this actually but it is a bit more flowery than your normal writing I think.
So overall, I would say the AIs acquitted themselves quite well!
I strongly endorse this and think that there are some common norms that stand in the way of actually-productive AI assistance.
People don’t like AI writing aesthetically
AI reduces the signal value of text purportedly written by a human (i.e. because it might have been trivial to create and the “author” needn’t even endorse each claim in the writing)
Both of these are reasonable but we could really use some sort of social technology for saying “yes, this was AI-assisted, you can tell, I’m not trying to trick anyone, but also I stand by all the claims made in the text as though I had done the token generation myself.”
I didn’t suspect while reading the post that it drafted heavily with AI.
On reflection, and having now seen this comment, the writing style does feel a bit different than your other writing that I’ve read, in some fairly thematically AI ways—shorter paragraphs, punchier prose, bolded bullets, etc. I don’t know if it is better or worse—it was very easy to scan and understand quickly, but I do wonder if some of your usual precision or nuance is missing. (Though this is probably more to do with being an early stage draft rather than being AI-assisted).