I recently read a book, by a very high level public figure, and noticed the prose would go on and on about the same vague concept and not come to a firmly made point. I have since wondered if AI was used - the entire book wasn't vague like that, only those sections which were most theoretical, as if AI was being used to try to project the future. It made for a very uneven quality read.
Thank you for the Pangram tip. I'll have hours of fun with that.
Also, some of the things you and others have written about AI and how to tell when it's being used are things that I have used in my own writing simply because that's how I write. I used up my free credits running big chunks of my own work through Pangram and was surprised that it came back 100% human written. It must really work! :-)
My training is in poetry, and the em-dash is one of poetry's power tools. I'll not give it up! But one has to learn how to use that power tool properly, discerningly, and in my opinion, it's a power tool you graduate to when you've first learned how to use a hammer really well. AI-writing frustrates me for so many ethical and stylistic reasons, but most of all, when I read it, I think, "This writing doesn't deserve the em-dash!" 😂
I especially was struck by the concern over deskilling.
This is a bigger problem than with AI generated text. It is a big problem with any use of technology to remove drudgery from a task. As a retired accountant, I had an "Aha!" moment with that, recalling my deskilling across my career as calculators and computers have degraded my mental arithmetic capacities.
I began my working life when a desktop calculator meant spending serious money, not something which came with your box of breakfast cereal. Nowadays I seem to struggle with two digit arithmetic - and no, it is not a function of my age.
All week I’ve been frustrated about this very issue, and I have wanted to say something. I’m sure you saw the situation that happened at Inkwell? I read one of the author’s other recent articles, and I said, “If this isn’t AI-writing, then this author needs some serious help learning to write.” I think you’re spot on with what the real issue is. I didn’t need a detector to tell me that her writing isn’t up to snuff. So now you need to write an article about how the general public’s idea of what passes as good writing allows these kinds of works to make it to publication. The young woman in question has over 1000 subscribers—not bad for someone I’ve never heard of. I have less than 200. But why was Inkwell initially fine with publishing writing of that caliber? Why is Hachette okay with MFA slop? Because people will buy it. Why will people buy it? I think this is a more important question.
As a professional, semi-retired dash man, I find just about everything Joel Miller says about AI and punctuation to be not only reasonable, but true. If dashes are ever declared illegal, and there is no statute of limitations, I will be in journalism jail for a long, long time. As far as I’m concerned, AI is a wonderful tool — a super spell check? — that could have saved me tens of thousands of hours of rewriting horrible press releases, police blotter material and useless filler material in the daily newspapers I worked for. If I hadn’t had to waste so much time on filling white space with ink and electrons or going to the public library to find out the name of Jimmy Stewart’s third movie for MGM, I might have won that elusive/illusive Pulitzer. (full disclosure –: – I used the voice feature on my smarter-than-me phone to “write” this.)
"If I ever write a novel, it’ll be because I finally figured out how to do it on my own. But the next question is, why would I want it to write for me in the first place?" really resounded with me. Jane Friedman (do you follow her?) in her most recent newsletter talked about how mid-life and after are often the most productive and creative times of life. But as I struggle, struggle with crafting a novel I've been working on for years, I keep asking myself, "If I am truly trying to purify my motives (not seeking praise from others) by writing 'for me,' as you put it, how can I justify these multiplied thousands of hours?" Sometimes I feel like I should just keep calling the elderly and shut-ins of my life and just listening to them. Perhaps that would be a greater service to humanity on my part.
Thank you Joel! I love this: "I’m ready to yell: Paragraphs are free! Available to everyone! Use them!"
"Murder By Death"- this Neil Simon fan approves...
I recently read a book, by a very high level public figure, and noticed the prose would go on and on about the same vague concept and not come to a firmly made point. I have since wondered if AI was used - the entire book wasn't vague like that, only those sections which were most theoretical, as if AI was being used to try to project the future. It made for a very uneven quality read.
Thank you for the Pangram tip. I'll have hours of fun with that.
Also, some of the things you and others have written about AI and how to tell when it's being used are things that I have used in my own writing simply because that's how I write. I used up my free credits running big chunks of my own work through Pangram and was surprised that it came back 100% human written. It must really work! :-)
My training is in poetry, and the em-dash is one of poetry's power tools. I'll not give it up! But one has to learn how to use that power tool properly, discerningly, and in my opinion, it's a power tool you graduate to when you've first learned how to use a hammer really well. AI-writing frustrates me for so many ethical and stylistic reasons, but most of all, when I read it, I think, "This writing doesn't deserve the em-dash!" 😂
I especially was struck by the concern over deskilling.
This is a bigger problem than with AI generated text. It is a big problem with any use of technology to remove drudgery from a task. As a retired accountant, I had an "Aha!" moment with that, recalling my deskilling across my career as calculators and computers have degraded my mental arithmetic capacities.
I began my working life when a desktop calculator meant spending serious money, not something which came with your box of breakfast cereal. Nowadays I seem to struggle with two digit arithmetic - and no, it is not a function of my age.
All week I’ve been frustrated about this very issue, and I have wanted to say something. I’m sure you saw the situation that happened at Inkwell? I read one of the author’s other recent articles, and I said, “If this isn’t AI-writing, then this author needs some serious help learning to write.” I think you’re spot on with what the real issue is. I didn’t need a detector to tell me that her writing isn’t up to snuff. So now you need to write an article about how the general public’s idea of what passes as good writing allows these kinds of works to make it to publication. The young woman in question has over 1000 subscribers—not bad for someone I’ve never heard of. I have less than 200. But why was Inkwell initially fine with publishing writing of that caliber? Why is Hachette okay with MFA slop? Because people will buy it. Why will people buy it? I think this is a more important question.
I love that question and think I’ll take you up on the idea.
As a professional, semi-retired dash man, I find just about everything Joel Miller says about AI and punctuation to be not only reasonable, but true. If dashes are ever declared illegal, and there is no statute of limitations, I will be in journalism jail for a long, long time. As far as I’m concerned, AI is a wonderful tool — a super spell check? — that could have saved me tens of thousands of hours of rewriting horrible press releases, police blotter material and useless filler material in the daily newspapers I worked for. If I hadn’t had to waste so much time on filling white space with ink and electrons or going to the public library to find out the name of Jimmy Stewart’s third movie for MGM, I might have won that elusive/illusive Pulitzer. (full disclosure –: – I used the voice feature on my smarter-than-me phone to “write” this.)
"If I ever write a novel, it’ll be because I finally figured out how to do it on my own. But the next question is, why would I want it to write for me in the first place?" really resounded with me. Jane Friedman (do you follow her?) in her most recent newsletter talked about how mid-life and after are often the most productive and creative times of life. But as I struggle, struggle with crafting a novel I've been working on for years, I keep asking myself, "If I am truly trying to purify my motives (not seeking praise from others) by writing 'for me,' as you put it, how can I justify these multiplied thousands of hours?" Sometimes I feel like I should just keep calling the elderly and shut-ins of my life and just listening to them. Perhaps that would be a greater service to humanity on my part.