Comment by px1999
6 months ago
Following this logic, why write anything at all? Shakespeare's sonnets are arrangements of existing words that were possible before he wrote them. Every mathematical proof, novel, piece of journalism is simply a configuration of symbols that existed in the space of all possible configurations. The fact that something could be generated doesn't negate its value when it is generated for a specific purpose, context, and audience.
> William Shakespeare is credited with the invention or introduction of over 1,700 words that are still used in English today
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakesped...
He invented ‘undress’? Like he invented ‘undo’ or ‘unwell’? Come on, that’s silly.
Invented might be a bit strong, but he is certainly the first written record of the word. Dress existed as a verb already, as did the generic reversing “un”, but before Shakespeare there is no evidence that they were used this way. Prior to that other words/phrases, which probably still exist in use today, were used instead. Perhaps “disrobe” though the OED lists the first reference to that as only a decade before Taming Of The Shrew (the first written use of undress) was published, so there are presumably other options that were in common use before both.
It is definitely valid to say he popularised the use of the word, which may have been being used informally in small pockets for some time before.
Following that logic, we should publish all unique random orderings of words. I think there is a book about a library like that, but it is a great read and is not a regression to the mean of ideas.
Writing worth reading as a non-child surprises, challenges, teaches, and inspires. LLM writing tends towards the least surprising, worn out tropes that challenge only the patience and attention of the reader. The eager learner, however will tolerate that , so I suppose that I’ll give them teaching. They are great at children’s stories, where the goal is to rehearse and introduce tropes and moral lessons with archetypes, effectively teaching the listener the language of story.
FWIW I am not particularly a critic of AI and am engaged in AI related projects. I am quite sure that the breakthrough with transformer architecture will lead to the third industrial revolution, for better or for worse.
But there are some things we shouldn’t be using LLMs for.