Re "How AI changes how we communicate": I was taught that a very high priority element of good writing was choosing an audience. Who is this writing for? It was supposedly even higher priority than "What" it's for.
As such, I think I can formulate my objection to using GPT to help you formulate posts to an informal mailing list in this way: Who is going to read your post? 1. If you don't know anything about the people who will read your post, why post? Why not use another tool like a [micro]blog (e.g. bsky.app or substack)? But 2. if you do know something about these people/bots, then part of your prompt (and iterative refinement of it) should prolly contain some of that information. If your prompt doesn't contain any knowledge about the audience, then GoTo (1). As I mentioned awhile back in response to one of Pieter's posts, *if* both the prompt(s) *and* the generated text are present in the post, I'll prolly read it. But if I see only the generated text and no prompt, then I'm unlikely to read it. That is, assuming I can tell before I've read it that it was LLM-generated. If I accidentally read something LLM-generated without having seen the prompt, then I feel tricked. My attention has been stolen. (It's hard to tell a good story when it's interrupted every 12 minutes by 12 dancing rabbits selling toilet paper - paraphrased) I'm not saying this because I expect anyone to cater to me. I'm saying it in the spirit of the old saying "the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask". I feel like others may (now or soon) respond to LLM-generated text in the same way. Don't be surprised if your sanitized content isn't consumed because people don't find it interesting. It can be useful to remember that if something is free, *you* are the product. On 1/24/25 8:48 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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