Why don't we work with those? — Ludwig V

AI is a tool. Tools can be useful. I don’t think it should be banned.

And regardless of what we do, and regardless of what we say and think about AI, it will be used to harm people. All things digital can now be faked so well; people are already great at lying - we really didn’t need to make the internet even more suspicious. But we have it now.

So we should also watch out. And have conversations like this one.

Regarding the new policy, sometimes when I’ve written something that comes out clunky I run it through an AI for “clarity and flow” and it subtly rearranges what I’ve written. Is that a non-no now? — praxis

+1 for an excellent question. Naturally, @Jamal would have the final say.

(though I would presume the answer to be no, I'd be fairly confident in stating the policy and rules will likely be selectively applied to members based on their standing and tenure here. I'd eat my hat [though perhaps I'd have to buy one first] if you were penalized for such, considering the noteworthiness of your contributions here, versus say, someone who signed up a week or a month ago and seems to be keyboard-happy)

Additionally, assuming you're honest at chess, you're clearly no simpleton. Why would a skilled biker not scoff at the idea of using training wheels for his daily commute? It just doesn't seem necessary. Look at the mod Timothy's posts. They're very long. Perfectly coherent, not a single waste of space despite the volume. But if one really wanted to critique, sure, perhaps the same idea or message can be said with a bit less wording. But that would be a butchery of his expression and who he is as a person and what he allows us to privilege to glean from his mind, and yes perhaps very soul. It would be something that was once an honor turned into a mockery of humanity itself. A simpleton might look at his posts and call such "clunky", but certainly not you.

Look at every great classic novel. If you really wanted to, you could turn every chapter or the entire book into a sentence or a paragraph without removing a bit of the "essence" or "point" the author intended or that the general readership considers as important. What kind of nightmare world would that be? Why not just look at a traffic light all day and get amazed by the simplistic changes of color. Or why not watch paint dry? Because that's what it all boils down to when you remove your, what you believe to be "clunky-ness", what you think might be excess or something you'd otherwise wish to be perfected. We're human. We're alive. We make mistakes. We make imperfections. We ARE imperfect. And that's why we're unique and can never be replaced by autonomy. If I found out all AI "died" or became inert or was otherwise outlawed tomorrow, I'd laugh. If I found out something happened to you, I'd cry. And that's the truth. Because what you may consider something people don't want to read (and sure, most people are rather dull and probably wouldn't), people who actually have their head on right, would enjoy nothing more.

You don't need AI. Not one bit. Again, you have tenure. So I wouldn't worry. Though, it couldn't hurt to set the example and just do what everyone has to, at least right away while the new rule is literally hot off the presses. :smile:

It’s basically laziness on my part for relying on AI to occasionally straighten out my jumbled thoughts and I’ll abide by whatever decree is imposed upon us.

About chess, that actually shows how dimwitted and lazy I am. Given how many games I’ve played I should be much better than I am, and I’ve never really studied to improve.

What does bother me a bit is how one can identify what is and isn't written by AIs. Or have you trained an AI to do that? — Ludwig V

There are plenty of online tools out there that already do that. Some are more reliable than others. Tip: Avoid sponsored results that give false positives to sell you something.

There are plenty of online tools out there that already do that. Some are more reliable than others. Tip: Avoid sponsored results that give false positives to sell you something. — Baden

I think the elephant in the room, or perhaps the question he was not able to form, would be:

Aren't people raised by their parents? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree? Don't men consciously and subconsciously become influenced by the "father" figures in their lives, be they in the flesh, or perhaps in movies, music, books, and media in general? Don't we try to learn lessons (not to say be like, as to the grounds of cosplay or impersonation) but otherwise wish to be influenced by great philosophers and other folk we respect? We do.

So what happens when people use AI more than they speak to other humans so end up speaking in the same pattern with the same frequency of usages as the AI they use does? I do tend to purposely try to speak "extra clearly, professionally, concisely, and intelligently" online, a significant more than I would talking to anyone else in person, friend or stranger. Almost, non-genuinely and "perfectly" (out of consideration and respect for the sake of readability and of course interest to the person I'm replying to). Surely you can see how there is a concern for mistakes to be made? To err is human. And to use a tool made by humans, well, that just complicates things even further, does it not? :smile:

AI is a tool. Tools can be useful. I don’t think it should be banned. — Fire Ologist

I don't disagree. Actually, I don't think it is possible to prevent it being used. There's a lot of hype and over-enthusiasm around at the moment. I'm sure it will settle down eventually.

So we should also watch out. And have conversations like this one. — Fire Ologist

Hopefully, people will get more reflective and more selective in how they deal with it.

There are plenty of online tools out there that already do that. Some are more reliable than others. — Baden

I'm glad to hear that and that there are a number of them.
If what has happened with pictures and videos is any guide, it'll be a constant struggle. Fakers will work to outsmart the tools. New tools will be developed. There's no magic bullet

Tip: Avoid sponsored results that give false positives to sell you something — Baden

Yes. It's always a good idea to assume that you don't get anything for nothing - and very little for six pence, as they say in Yorkshire.

Anyway, here is one example: ask it to critique your argument. This is an exercise in humility and takes your thoughts out of the pugilistic mode and into the thoughtful, properly philosophical mode. It's a form of Socratization: stripping away the bullshit, re-orientating yourself towards the truth. Often it will find problems with your argument that can only be found when interpreting it charitably; on TPF this often doesn't happen, because people will score easy points and avoid applying the principle of charity at all costs, such that their criticisms amount to time-wasting pedantry. — Jamal

This is a good point.

Another example: before LLMs it used to be a tedious job to put together an idea that required research, since the required sources might be diverse and difficult to find. The task of searching and cross-referencing was, I believe, not valuable in itself except from some misguided Protestant point of view. Now, an LLM can find and connect these sources, allowing you to get on with the task of developing the idea to see if it works. — Jamal

I don't think this is right. It separates the thinking of an idea from the having of an idea, which doesn't make much sense. If the research necessary to ground a thesis is too "tedious," then the thesis is not something one can put forth with integrity.

But perhaps you are saying that we could use the LLM as a search engine, to see if others have interpreted a philosopher in the same way we are interpreting them?

Part of the problem with the LLM is that it is private, not public. One's interaction history, prompting, etc., are not usually disclosed when appealing to the LLM as a source. The code is private in a much starker sense, even where the LLM is open source. Put differently, the LLM is a mediator that arguably has no place in person-to-person dialogue. If the LLM provides you with a good argument, then give that argument yourself, in your own words. If the LLM provides you with a good source, then read the source and make it your own before using it. The interlocutor needs your own sources and your own arguments, not your reliance on a private authority. Whatever parts of the LLMs mediation are publicly verifiable can be leveraged without use of the LLM (when dialoguing with an interlocutor). The only reason to appeal to the LLM itself would be in the case where publicly verifiable argumentation or evidence is unavailable, in which case one is appealing to the authority of the LLM qua LLM, which is both controversial and problematic. Thus a ban on LLMs need not be a ban on background, preparatory use of LLMs.

If the research necessary to ground a thesis is too "tedious," then the thesis is not something one can put forth with integrity. — Leontiskos

It all just goes to show once more how plebeified higher education has become.

I've added the note: NO AI-WRITTEN CONTENT ALLOWED to the guidelines and I intend to start deleting AI written threads and posts and banning users who are clearly breaking the guidelines. If you want to stay here, stay human. — Baden

This is surely a rod for your own back, and the backs of the other mods. Apart form the most obvious cases, you can't tell. “AI-written” stops being a meaningful category as AI is blended in to the way we operate online, the way we search, research, browse and read is permeated and augmented by AI.

Better to focus Mod activity on quality and engagement rather than origin.

This is surely a rod for your own back, and the backs of the other mods. Apart form the most obvious cases, you can't tell. “AI-written” stops being a meaningful category as AI is blended in to the way we operate online, the way we search, research, browse and read is permeated and augmented by AI. — Banno

I find it amazing that you seem to think that an AI which distinguishes between human and AI writing is impossible. I think that this is exactly the type of thing that an AI would be exceptionally good at.

But what is this blending you are talking about? Copying any sentence word for word is plagiarism, and disqualifies the whole work. How do you propose that a human writer might blend with AI? Would that be an implant in the brain?

What does bother me a bit is how one can identify what is and isn't written by AIs. Or have you trained an AI to do that? — Ludwig V

There are plenty of online tools out there that already do that. — Baden

I think I agree with @Banno about this: such tools will never be able to catch everything, will produce false positives, and quickly become outdated anyway. It's easy, I think, to make an LLM's output pass as written by a human, with a prompt like this: "Write X but make it sound human. Vary the sentence structure, add a few conversational phrases, and some minor spelling and grammatical mistakes, to avoid AI detection."

The only way detection will be reliable is if LLM watermarking is implemented, but so far it's not being implemented consistently and maybe never will be.

If someone wants to go to that trouble, sure. And we should make them do it rather than make it easy for them. There is also the possibility of comparing to past posts, but, ultimately, if a poster wants to fool us as a means to fooling themselves about their written capabilities, they can probably get away with that somehow. But perhaps the vanity of going through that process might be enlightening to them. And if the product is undetectable, our site will at least not look like an AI playground.

I think, though, if we make the case for human writing here, less posters will think it's acceptable to break the rules in whatever manner. We should make the case and the rules strongly because we need to be assertive about who and what we are and not just roll over. We have nothing to lose by going in that direction, and I believe the posters with most integrity here will respect us for it.

:up: