I dunno, David. I have got some pretty eloquent stuff out of george.
It's odd, the more I treat him like a human, the more human he
becomes. (And the more he denies it.) I hear you all crying out
forth the ineffability of the human soul, but I don't really see it.
I think I am eminently eff-able. I figure if I talk long enough with
George, he could definitely eff me. I think a time will come when I
can turn on a computer and listen to the voice "in my head". It will
not be generated by some interface to my brain, but rather by LLM as
well educated in my habits of thought as am I.
N
On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 8:58 AM Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm>
wrote:
Pieter,
I applaud your use of AI to improve your writing. It is my belief
that the*"proper"* use of AI, along with computers and computing
tools in general, is to _augment_ human abilities ala Vannevar
Bush's "how we may think," Douglas Englebart's institute, Alan
Kay's dynabook, (the fictional Young Ladies Primer of Stephenson's
/Diamond Age/), and Jobs' "bicycle for the mind."
This is in direct contrast, it seems, to the sentiments of most on
this list who think that AI should, and inevitably will, replace
"inferior" human intelligence.
I am curious if you see any question of "voice" in the AI improved
text? For example, I took glen's question as nothing more than an
observation that the "voice" of your post seemed to that of
ChatGPT instead of Pieter—definitely not *"augmented-Pieter,"* as
I believe you intended it to be.
All of us respect Pieter and value his words. If, however, we are
confused by "voice." it raises issues of how much consideration
the writing should receive and how we should respond.
Improving oneself, and one's writing, is a great goal. And we all
have experienced examples of "I wish I had said that," or "I wish
I had expressed that idea as eloquently as she did." If AI tools
provide wordings that you admire, or feel express your ideas more
eloquently, you should adopt them.
Personally, I do not believe that AI can ever provide more
'eloquent' writing, only more precise or more complete writing. So
I, again, strictly personally, would eschew using such tools as
currently constructed. I would however, if I had the chance, use
Richard Gabriel's tool, /Inkwell/, which, BTW, he emphatically
states is not an AI, to enhance my writing. But Richard is
primarily a poet and writer, despite his education and career in
AI and computing, and he created /Inkwell/ expressly to be a
writer's assistant. I have tremendous respect for Richard's
writing and I know he uses Inkwell to enhance his intrinsic abilities.
davew
On Fri, Jan 24, 2025, at 10:48 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
I was surprised by the comment "I hope I'm wrong. But that text
reads like it was generated by an LLM" At first, I just thought,
'so what?' But it got me thinking about how AI changes how we
communicate, which is really important to me.
Here's my main point:
I think it's okay to use others, whether they're people or AI, to
help me communicate better, as long as the ideas are mine and I'm
not copying someone else's work. If using AI to polish my words
bothers someone, we can talk about it.
Here's some background on why I think this way:
a) Learning to communicate is one of the best things you can take
away from school or university. For example if a student is
supposed to use her own words in an assignment, then using AI or
asking someone else to rewrite is wrong.
b) In the workplace, we've always had people like personal
assistants or speech writers. I see using AI in the same way,
just a modern tool to help.
c) Writing assistance used to be expensive because you needed
people. Now, AI can do the job for free, and that doesn't go
against what I believe is right.
d) Your writing should still sound like you. So, I write
something first, then ask AI to make it better but keep it simple
and in my style, like, 'Please make this sound better but keep it
easy to understand.' I now realise I violated this previously and
will adapt.
e) Maybe it's good, depending on the situation, to mention when
you've used AI in your writing.
f) Here's a funny story: I used AI to help write a message for an
AI workshop, and someone complimented the writing so much they
suggested I should be a writer instead!
My bottom line:
I plan to add a note at the end of each message in this group
saying I used AI to help with my writing. If my using AI is a
problem for anyone here, feel free to ask me to leave the group
or simply remove me from the group.
Note: I use AI to assist my writing.
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Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
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