Comment by clcaev

4 hours ago

Perhaps more people are using AI as part of an editorial process that is largely driven by what they wish to convey but where they have stopped fighting the AI on its preferred style. It’s supremely annoying when AI updates your prose with its own formulation despite plenty of instructions otherwise. Too often AIs mangle meaning which can be especially worrisome as it’s not easy to catch subtle word/grammar changes that dramatically shift meaning. Overall though, defects aside, for me, and only very recently, it’s been more helpful than not. I think AIs will continue to improve in this regard and be better editorial partners. For competent writings, it won’t replace human authorship or expert review.

Specifically, I’ve recently used ChatGPT for legal/administrative writing where the AI seems to be trained on a large corpus and seems to know the conventions and vocabulary well; a lawyer who reviewed the work had important corrections. Before AI, I would have sought model filings and have had less success at emulating the genre. So it’s lowered time/cost somewhat but it takes lots of diligence. By default, current AI outputs seems intelligible but are still really far off the mark. I’ve found a structured interview is a good way to start rather than jumping into draft generation.