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Comment by raw_anon_1111

5 months ago

I consider myself to be an above average writer and a great editor. I will just throw my random thoughts about something that happened at work, ask ChatGPT to keep digging deeper in my question, I will give it my opinion of what I should do. Ask it to give me the “devil’s advocate” and the “steel man opinion” and then ask it to write a blog post [1].

I then edit it for tone, get rid of some of the obvious AI tells. Make some edits for voice, etc.

Then I throw it into another season of ChatGPT and ask it does it sound “AI written”. It will usually call out some things and give me “advice”. I take the edits that sound like me.

Then I put the text through Grok, Gemini and ask it the same thing. I make more edits and keep going around until I am happy with it. By the time I’m done, it sounds like I something I would write.

You can make AI generated prose have a “voice” with careful prompting and I give it some of my writing.

Why don’t I just write it myself if I’m going through all that? It helps me get over writers block and helps me clarify my thoughts. My editing skills are better than my writing skills.

As I do it more and give it more writing samples, it is a faster process to go from bland AI to my “voice”

[1] my blog is really not for marketing. I don’t link to it anywhere and I don’t even have my name attached to it. It’s more like a public journal.

14 comments

raw_anon_1111

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baubino  5 months ago

> By the time I’m done, it sounds like I something I would write.

As a writer myself, this sounds incredibly depressing to me. The way I get to something sounding like something I would write is to write it, which in turn is what makes me a writer.

What you’re doing sounds very productive for producing a text but it’s not something you’ve actually written.

  • malcolmxxx  5 months ago

    Maybe he just want to summarize things. I'm writing in Spanish. Of course I won't let AI to write this very post ---even in my bad E. But there are things in my Obsidian written in Spanish, by AI. They're sounds like nothing, sometimes you need something to sound that way: informative, aseptical. But it is good to hear about you anyway, when some people thinks, or fake they think, AI can write, let's say, fiction.

    • raw_anon_1111  5 months ago

      I am torn, as someone who is learning Spanish and should be at a strong A1 [1] by the end of the year, I would be horrified to think about posting something in a public forum based on my Spanish speaking ability.

      On the other hand, I’ve had enough conversations with Spanish speakers in Florida like at my barbershop and a local bar in a tourist area who speak limited English and I would much rather have real conversations between my broken Spanish and their broken English than listen to or read AI Slop.

      [1] according to this scale, I’m past A1 into A2.1 category now. But I still feel like I’m A1

      https://berlitz-istanbul.com/en/spanish-levels/

  • raw_anon_1111  5 months ago

    I write to communicate with myself or other people. Just like I use AI to go from I need to do $X based on my ideas and designs to I did $x. It’s not about “art” or “passion”. It’s about a paycheck

    • baubino  5 months ago

      I don’t think it needs to be about art or passion. I just don’t think someone who relies entirely on AI generated text can accurately call themselves “a writer.”

      1 reply →

kqr  5 months ago

If you're a great editor, why do you let multiple LLMs edit for you?

  • raw_anon_1111  5 months ago

    When I’m writing something for work where I know the end goal - I don’t. When I’m streaming random thoughts without any coherent end goal for my blog or my internal notes on something that happened at work as a retrospective I will use it.

    Just to be repeat myself, my blog isn’t for marketing, I don’t have any advertising on them, I don’t post a link to it anywhere and I have no idea if anyone besides me has ever read it since I don’t have any analytics. I don’t have my name or contact information on it

rustystump  5 months ago

I dont buy it can tell if something sounds ai. Multiple times i have given it direct ai slop writing and it could not tell it was ai written. As a matter of fact, it would insist it wasnt.

This flow sounds like what an intern did in pr reviews and it made me want to throw something out a window. Please just use your own words. They are good words and much better words than you may think.