8 Comments
User's avatar
chukwu. dike.'s avatar

read this post a few weeks ago and now i see the telltale signs of slop... everywhere

Yinon's avatar

For me, a specific part of Option 3 immediately jumped out on first skim, and this part alone. Once I saw this I barely even read option 4, I skipped ahead to see the answer. I didn’t even realize the things you did point out bc I was skimming so cursorily, but this part so clearly gave the game away.

The part was “learning to love your body, your spirit, and your own quiet path is a revolutionary act.”

It was such an unnecessary rule-of-three… it wasn’t wrong necessarily but it sounded like an AP English high school student from 2010 trying to sound like Obama. It ties into what you said about incoherence - it’s just saying nothing but thinks this technique will make it smooth enough to not matter. The polish is the substance and to me the machine hasn’t shown a great capability of distinguishing between the two when it writes.

notadampaul's avatar

Beautiful observation. Exactly right. I believe at some point in this piece I mentioned the machine's obsession with tripartite expressions, but in linking this to incoherence you've elucidated yet another of these seeming intangibles (no longer!) that make its writing so alien.

Drew Proud's avatar

I enjoyed this, thank you

Lisa Majeska's avatar

So so true. I had refused to interact with LLMs for a long time but then realized that in doing so, I was unable to recognize tells. Now I try to do a few searches here and there to stay up on the latest word weightings to avoid them in my own work

notadampaul's avatar

At this point we have no choice if we're going to remain online. Only other option imo is the nuclear option: join the Amish

Lisa Majeska's avatar

Joining the Amish feels more appealing by the day!

Avijit Ghosh's avatar

I used to think this as a child -- v cool that someone else had the same thought