I don't have many opinions about how individuals use this tech (although the AI as friend trend is a bummer for many reasons), but have maaaany (negative) opinions about the customer service industrial complex that's already using this in what seems to be an attempt to fool people into thinking they're speaking to a real person. Which is why I now, like a freak I never thought I'd need become, always ask "Am I speaking to a bot or a human?" when dealing with CS. So far, it's worked, and the bot transfers me. But, I fear the bot will eventually be programmed to lie abiht that, as well.
I fully accept that my view may be dated to the point of having inverse consequences (maybe in line with what you're saying). But, there's just no getting around the feeling I get when I see the exact same post, in the exact same context, showing up on every platform I use. There's just no way that can't feel like spam. And when I do it, it feels like I'm spamming people, too. Having come up in the blogging days of 2003 on, I'm just sort of programmed that way now. But, like I said above, I get why people do it.
Side note: It's such a bizarre thing that the platform you're on matters at all. Not without reason (they all have a vibe now, that's basically politically informed). But, back then, you were just on whatever blog platform was the easiest. The platform was more or less invisible (or at least ignored).
I like the take on "undue emphasis on significance." To me, that's such an obvious tell. That's actually an old pre-LLM tell, we just used to call it "pretension." Once we get into long lists of specific words, it feels like we're getting into rules. You can't use this or that word cuz LLMs do. That's crazy problematic. It has to be about the way the emphasis and the overuse of certain words in a single piece reflects inauthenticity. But, eff if I'm gonna stop using "significance" cuz some LLM does.
Impersonal in the sense the article etc isn't being presented for the specific audience. It's just being dumped everywhere with the same contextual text ("Wrote this piece about...."). So, I'm seeing it everywhere in the exact same way. Which feels way spammy (and which I've admittedly had to do myself, as per the times). But, I'm used to feeling like the person I follow is posting stuff to the community in language specific to their readers. I say "used to", but I'm probably thinking back decades now. Back when your audience / reader base was the metric of personal. Not the platform.
I can not stand that I'm expected to adjust my use of em-dashes because LLMs use them (incorrectly, typically). It brings up all these feelings from my younger punk / indie days when normies would get into a band we were into, and then we were expected to not like that band anymore. Since then I've tried to abide by what I call the Farting Billion Principle. People shouldn't have to change their ways everytime a billionaire farts.
As someone on the receiving end of POSSE, who is often on the multiple platforms people post to, this approach ends up feeling impersonal and spammy. I totally get the reasoning people have for doing it. But, to me, it's very "ship it" focused, rather than conversation focused. Maybe I'm just getting old.
I'd love to be able to actually articulate what makes AI writing read like AI writing. A few of the common tells come to mind (contrast construction, hyperbole, overuse / wrongly used em-dashes, etc). The above quote doesn't have any of that, and yet it certainly feels AI. The first sentence (both what it says and where it's placed) suggest AI to me. But, I couldn't quite tell you why.
At the risk of being the person who says, "it's capitalism," (I know I know).... When making profit is the dominant intent of a company, a worker doing something faster doesn't lead to the worker doing less. It leads to the worker producing more in the same time. If doing more yields too much of the thing produced for the market to handle, the company either A. creates more need for the more produced (fabricate necessity), or B. creates a new need for a new thing, and a new thing for you to produce. There's no getting off the wheel for the worker in capitalism.
We've thrown some parties on the prop, and have often thought, "Maybe it'd be cool to let people try some of this stuff out," at which point we remember how incredibly dangerous something like an excavator is, even when closely monitored and in a safe environment, and then have nightmares about worst case scenarios. So, it's been a no-go thus far. What we have actually considered, though, is seeing about renting it out to a known-to-be safe / mature user to use on projects when we aren't. But, haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.
My wife and I have an excavator on our property that we use for making trails, trenching, digging up stumps, etc. All of it is exhilarating. But, nothing beats simply digging. Something about breaking through the top layer and getting a big scoop of earth that just feels real good.
Been using shift+option+hyphen to make and use em-dashes (sans spaces) since at least 2005, when I got my first publishing job and also started blogging (so writing a ton more). I also use option+hyphen (en-dash) for date and number ranges. In my experience, ChatGPT consistently adds spaces around both.
Nice piece. You and I (and I know many others) have come to the same conclusion: (an old video of mine on breaking down tasks into tiny bites https://youtu.be/b3blsuTqN9s?si=W373y92JzDfHIDvS). No doubt informed by our good friend David Allen.
Ps, I linked to your article in my newsletter this week. Hope it sends some visits!
As someone who's very much on the outside of the Apple / Android debate (though I've never owned an iPhone, I do use a Mac and an iPad), and as someone who's relatively tech illiterate, how does this announcement read in light of Apple's latest liquid glass stuff, and the pushback I'm seeing from almost every angle. Is this Google announcement at all in response to the negative reaction Apple is getting? Does what Google is saying here get anyone excited? Maybe even excited enough to switch over?
Took four years hanging with the zettelkasten community, looking at the system from every angle, in the hopes of answering as many questions and clearing up as many confusions as I could. This book is the result of that work. In the end, I tried to write a book people would feel confident recommending. Hope you enjoy.
TW: Look up any pics online of people actually on the brink of starvation, and you will immediately see how inaccurate a description this is for a way of life that was dominant for the vast majority of time modern humans have been wandering the planet.
- Agriculture: 10,000 years ago
- Hunter-gatherers: 200,000 years ago