@plexus

Extruded language food product

@plexus LLMs basically generate language pollution.

@plexus any shape you like, as long as it is featureless and smooth — devoid of any nuance, cleverness, or perspicacity.

@plexus LLM create weird crap.

@plexus So true, so on point. Bravo for putting it in such a succinct and easy to understand fashion.

@plexus @akamran This intersects perfectly with the recent study (I wish I had the citation handy—sorry) saying that pop music’s lyrics have become less and less creative and complex since (if memory serves) 2000.

See also, cinema.

@plexus LLMs so we can all write emails that sound exactly like our least favorite middle manager.

@plexus @etherdiver Abso-fucking-lutely.

Several months back a colleague started using an LLM to “improve” their emails, checking for grammar, improving flow, etc. I knew they’d done this within seconds of opening up their first LLM’d email sent to me, and it made me incredibly sad. To be fair, this person was not a good writer, but at least they had a voice that was uniquely theirs. They chose to give that up, and for what?

@plexus beautifully said!

@plexus I think I have an issue--unless someone can convince me otherwise--that these "Large Language Models" aren't really "models" at all. "Model" implies some kind of simplified facsimile, a stripped down or scaled version of something. But the machine learning used to create them basically guarantees that their inner workings can never be interrogated, much less used to understand anything about Language itself. They are just more advanced chat bots.

@plexus LLMs produce - by definition - derivative material. Maybe suitable for instruction manuals and the like, but nothing inspirational.

@plexus I’ve been trying to explain this as well as you have. Language is how we create new ideas, dream new solutions - and share them.

@plexus @RevXenoFact You should check out what painters wrote about photography when it first appeared, or what newspaper journalists said about websites.

@plexus

I agree with this, but it makes me appreciate LLMs.

@plexus I have very similar feelings. Ever since LLMs started to become popular I’ve found myself slowly losing the joy of writing, and even the joy of making computational art. At some level I feel like the wider world has stopped valuing the craft involved in those activities, so… why bother spending time doing it anymore?

@plexus May I suggest you read “Figuring” by Maria Popova.

@plexus I am genuinely conflicted about it. I am generally optimistic about technology making things better for humanity in the medium-to-long term (agricultural technology is why so many of us are alive today), and I reject the facile "luddite" dismissals. And yet much of what you write could have been written by, say, a highly trained cavalry officer decrying the advent of mechanized warfare circa 1918. These new tools will take over because it's what humanity does when better tools appear.

@plexus Reminds me of reading LTI, Lingua Tertii Imperii, by Victor Klemperer, on how the NSDAP changed German language and devalued it for their goals (including constant use of invented buzzwords)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E2%80%93_Lingua_Tertii_Imperii

Not sure how well the book works in English translation

@plexus *boilerplate

@plexus
I hate the AI goo. Not because it's AI, but because it's goo.

I also know that this is what calligraphers said about the typewriter.
And it's true, a beautiful calligraphy looks much better than even the most meticulous type set in Helvetica. It's also much less accessible.

Here's hoping the new tools help us reach further in the end, and that the layers of art stick around for additional enjoyment!

@plexus The widespread availability of the tool merely highlights the DEMAND for such crap in the first place.

@plexus same goes for image generators. Their output is always so over the top. I call it visual sugar flash. Nobody stops even to think about why we create those models and for who we want do drive this forward. There is no ethics and no values in these models. But yet they are aiming at those parts of our creative output that ARE driven by values. It feels utterly wrong.

@plexus AI beat chess in the '90s. No one cared, chess spectators are all still most interested in the human players, even 30 years later. These people weren't interested in well played chess. They were interested in the human choices of the players.

Similarly, people don't value language. They value human expression.

@plexus Thoughts to counter your points:

1. Plenty of posts composed by real people leave the same sad taste of unoriginality. I find it sad to come to Reddit every day and read the same useless threads that repeat in style and meaning. Limited repeated vocabulary of online users hurts sometimes.

2. Try local LLMs which vary in style. They are capable of much more varied content than one might imagine initially. With correct prompt, it's able to replicate your post, for example, word-for-word.

@plexus Hang in there, you are heading in the right direction.

Art is supposed to challenge. And good writing is an art.

The idea that written language that challenges you can be found through LLM's and search machines is the ruse.

Aggregators and large platforms have died intellectually a long time ago.

Ofcourse you should take back control. But that word doesn't begin to cut it. It is about you being you. Create your own connections.

Fediverse for the win.

@plexus
what's LLMs?

@plexus I remember reading a good post (I think by @mekkaokereke ) about how language is used by groups to protect against people trying to infiltrate them without a shared background.

It wouldn't surprise me if the same thing happened to defend against LLMs - you won't accept, say, a job application if there aren't at least a couple of uses of 0-day slang or memes. Language evolves fast, it's one of the amazing things about it.

@plexus Exactly! You say it and you show it.

@plexus Right in the feels. Writing is a way of creative expression for me, be it fiction or non-fiction. Not saying that I'm a great writer, but I do okay. And the great thing about a hobby is that you don't need to be good at it to enjoy it. Seeing what LLMs regurgitate is appalling. Seeing people running en masse to GenAI even more so.

@plexus another thing I was pointed out by a friend is that the generated language has only one emotion - pleasing. If you want to generate content - say neutral - it's very hard to do as it has been trained to be pleasing.

@plexus 'sugary pink language goo' 👏 👌

@plexus AI seems to make it increasingly difficult to distinguish the 'in' of, for instance, in-telligence and in-formation from the 'in' of in-capable, in-competent, in-sane, et cetera.

@plexus

Perfectly said.

Content marketing alone—that it has blanketed the web in every way, shape, and form like mildew—is why I rarely turn on my laptop anymore. This newer tech for goo words, pictures, and sounds… I just try to ignore that it exists, and that it's creating far greater demand for electrical energy.

I do still like the occasional painstaking process of crafting my own clauses and sentences, however slow, and mostly offline.

@plexus ...i feel you but i am optimistic, i think the value of original, written texts will remain high, i even notice that at work when non-original, bland texts are called "chatgpt-generated" while everybody still recognises a truly original human generated text with it's quirks and faults.

@plexus Oh Arne, I agree with you so much. I love the way you express this. 🙏

@plexus
The term for awful AI art gaining traction is "Slop"

https://elblog.pl/2024/06/12/understanding-slop-the-emergence-of-low-quality-ai-content-online/

We need a similar term for the drivel generated as text. Spew?

Why should I bother to read something that nobody could be bothered to write?

@plexus

Just struck me -- you need AI to FAIL.

@plexus Well said!

In a sense I think LLMs bring this full circle with machines now being able to autogenerate content to feed other machines (and, oddly, LLMs) - This all makes both Search engines and also the LLMs themselves so useless that I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the organisation methods we invented at the beginning of the web (Webrings, Human curated Directories) will make a comeback just to find meaningful, human content"

@plexus I have some writers who agree with you on this https://epeus.blogspot.com/2010/09/if-google-predicts-your-future-will-it.html

@plexus Thank you for putting it so well. Spot on.

@plexus Hear, hear!

As a translator I am (almost) used to this: ever since Google Translator appeared, a lot of people decided that was "good enough". It has become even worse with the rise of LLMs.

The worst part is that the more mediocre texts people get to see, the less they will appreciate a really well written text.

@plexus yes - and not just language, but meaning and truthfulness - even the concept of truth. Language is supposed to convey meaning - but what meaning can it have if it is generated by a machine that has no concept of meaning or truth?

@plexus openAI and its ilk are the enemy

and not even a GPL-like open source model will help, because they'll just slurp those weights into their training process if it's good enough - we're way past caring about any kind of licensing

it's giant laundering machines, washing off the creative origin of anything it has touched

Edit: the only good thing about the GPTs is that they're fundamentally a dead-end

@plexus I think they will reveal how much of our "language" is only valueable for the performance as well. Cover letters come to mind.

@plexus Well said.

@plexus there are many things that an autistic person can use to stim

Language is my biggie

I'm not talking about loving the sound of my own voice most of the time I'm thinking 'Oh no I have to breathe a little deeper next time' sort of stuff each time I hear myself phonate..

I'm talking about the origins evolutions precise meanings of and translations of and (anti)manipulations of language... And yeah say that moment's right three words and everyone's life that hears them is forever changed

@plexus I have had similar thoughts, particularly from the perspective that it devalues *learning language*.

@plexus Even typos and mistakes are on some level wonderfully human

@plexus It's the equivalent of pink slime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime

@plexus
Dude, get a grip. Language isn't a commodity. You can't run out of words. Someone using words doesn't change your ability to use words.
If you don't like a software, you can ignore it, not get on social media and complain it exists.
The world is going to do whatever the world wants to do, individual opinions won't change it.
You sound like one of those "I don't own a TV, I only read books people."
LLMs exist because people think it's profitable, when it isn't it will go away.

@plexus What I really hate is when email clients suggest a canned phrase as a response. No, don't do me any favors. I've got this, really.

@plexus I wonder, whether ancient people who valued storytelling, memmorised poems with thousands of verses and worshiped Ogmios or other gods of eloquence, would be as easily fooled by the glitter and effortlessness as we are.

I honestly don't know.

@plexus I feel exactly the same about AI art. I used to swoon over an amazing painting. Now it's instantly tainted because I suspect AI...

@plexus @vaurora https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHQ2756cyD8

@plexus I "sort of" disagree. LLMs are a search tool, much in the same way dictionaries and thesauruses are. While these two tools have rigor applied to their construction, there is always a layer of subjectivity that is attributed to the human being(s) that compiled them. When all that is taken into account, they can still be used to augment a process that is creative and authentic.So - I only "sort of" disagree because your critique nails all the ways this critical concept is most often lost.

@plexus
Indeed. The magic of human thought itself has been devalued.
@sennoma

@plexus someone said to me, they wanted AI to come in to do work so I can spend more time doing art, not do art so I can do more work.