How do folks feel about Chat GPT texts on the forum?

[doug748]

....... Then it evolved into something that could write essays for students so they could cheat at homework, but again it wasn’t anything profound...just drivel mixed with keywords or phrases. Now it’s morphing into something that will either save mankind or destroy it. So I am wary....although I can’t till Elon perfects it for my car

We can sleep easy, there is now Bullshitdetection Software available to root out the little scamps:

AI Writing | AI Tools | Turnitin

.....I don’t enjoy AI postings here, but I have no objection if they are accompanied by an appropriate disclaimer.

Just unproductive drivel, for me. No pint whatever in posting them. Like the person who responds with: "Have you thought of: "contacting the manufacturer, reading the manual, looking on the internet" You ask a question on a forum because you want first person responses from like minded people with experience.
If we wanted a questionable overview of what has already been said we all have the kit to call that up.

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[RivalRedwing]

When I was at Uni, the Internet was an identical debate. Eventually academia caught up and clever people are no longer punished for using this amazing resource. When I wrote my dissertation I was marked down for including URLs in the bibliography even though the subject matter was too new for books to have been written.
Give it five years and the old fuddy duddy lecturers will start to catch up with the world. Thankfully, in the real world we just get the job done using the best tools for the job.

for students the challenge has always been producing material that has their original thought contained within it, the challenge academics have is in setting assignments which require the inclusion of original thought / critique as opposed to assignments which invite the student to just regurgitate material previously written by others (some academics are better at this that others) On the face of it you may have had a rough deal. And yes, the amount and level of independent thought will vary depending on the academic level of the student

 

[lustyd]

for students the challenge has always been producing material that has their original thought contained within it, the challenge academics have is in setting assignments which require the inclusion of original thought / critique as opposed to assignments which invite the student to just regurgitate material previously written by others (some academics are better at this that others) On the face of it you may have had a rough deal. And yes, the amount and level of independent thought will vary depending on the academic level of the student

None of this changes with AI though. It may appear to to people who don't understand the tool, but that's on them for not putting in the effort to learn just as it was with the Internet 20+ years ago. Both the Internet and AI are useless to people who have nothing to contribute. It's just as impossible to get AI to write an essay on a subject you don't understand as it is searching the Internet. Both can help you find information which will inform your thought process, but neither can do the work for you. Once you have a good idea and some information though, LLMs can write the words for you in a manner acceptable to those marking it. That doesn't mean that the LLM wrote the essay, it just filled in the words in a way that is acceptable to academia. For non-native speakers this is a god send, as it is for dyslexia and ASD among others. Unfortunately there are always people in the system trying to keep others down however they are able, and that's especially so in the UK from my experience.

 

[Bouba]

None of this changes with AI though. It may appear to to people who don't understand the tool, but that's on them for not putting in the effort to learn just as it was with the Internet 20+ years ago. Both the Internet and AI are useless to people who have nothing to contribute. It's just as impossible to get AI to write an essay on a subject you don't understand as it is searching the Internet. Both can help you find information which will inform your thought process, but neither can do the work for you. Once you have a good idea and some information though, LLMs can write the words for you in a manner acceptable to those marking it. That doesn't mean that the LLM wrote the essay, it just filled in the words in a way that is acceptable to academia. For non-native speakers this is a god send, as it is for dyslexia and ASD among others. Unfortunately there are always people in the system trying to keep others down however they are able, and that's especially so in the UK from my experience.

I understand......spellchecking is a g*dsend for someone like me (probably an undiagnosed dyslectic)....but on the flip side it changes words to something I hadn’t intended and it can often make me repeatedly type the same word over and over as we wrestle.

 

[RivalRedwing]

None of this changes with AI though. It may appear to to people who don't understand the tool, but that's on them for not putting in the effort to learn just as it was with the Internet 20+ years ago. Both the Internet and AI are useless to people who have nothing to contribute. It's just as impossible to get AI to write an essay on a subject you don't understand as it is searching the Internet. Both can help you find information which will inform your thought process, but neither can do the work for you. Once you have a good idea and some information though, LLMs can write the words for you in a manner acceptable to those marking it. That doesn't mean that the LLM wrote the essay, it just filled in the words in a way that is acceptable to academia. For non-native speakers this is a god send, as it is for dyslexia and ASD among others. Unfortunately there are always people in the system trying to keep others down however they are able, and that's especially so in the UK from my experience.

.. the challenge is the 'good idea' and the originality of it... I always try to look beyond issues on the surface that may be an intial hiderance

 

[KevinV]

Once you have a good idea and some information though, LLMs can write the words for you in a manner acceptable to those marking it. That doesn't mean that the LLM wrote the essay, it just filled in the words in a way that is acceptable to academia.

And then those given the task of reading it use AI to remove all the padding that AI added - and hopefully we (finally) get to a situation where output is measured by quality of thought, rather than word count.

I'm sure we've all read entire books that could have been summarised accurately in two or three bullet points. Now words are becoming so cheap maybe being concise will become valuable.

 

[RAI]

I tried starting a thread way back based on a text Chat GPT gave me on the best anchor. It's response was so vanilla flavour that none of the usual protagonists bothered to rise to the bait.

 

[KevinV]

I tried starting a thread way back based on a text Chat GPT gave me on the best anchor. It's response was so vanilla flavour that none of the usual protagonists bothered to rise to the bait.

I guess you didn't bait the hook...

 

[lustyd]

.. the challenge is the 'good idea' and the originality of it... I always try to look beyond issues on the surface that may be an intial hiderance

LLMs don’t produce ideas, they return statistically likely strings of words. If you ask for ideas you’ll get the most common existing words back as found on the Internet.

 

[lustyd]

Now words are becoming so cheap maybe being concise will become valuable

I really hope so, although being wordy is almost a fetish in academia so they’ll be the last holdouts alongside politicians.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

... If we wanted a questionable overview of what has already been said we all have the kit to call that up. ...

That happens on just about every thread on YBW. At least with AI it doesn't argue the toss.

 

[PaulRainbow]

AI will only be as good as the material it gathers. With the amount of garbage that gets posted on the internet that might not be great. We often see posts on here from "experts" who have just read stuff on the internet and misunderstood it, or simply taken it as gospel, because they "read it somewhere".

There was an excellent example of this on here a while back. During a discussion about Galvanic isolators someone proclaimed there was an alternative way of connecting them (despite every manufacturer, standard etc all saying different). To back his suggestion up he posted a drawing he'd got from somewhere on the internet. Another member replied to say that the "alternative" method was something he'd pondered a couple of years back, which turned out to be incorrect, but it had propagated across the internet and taken on a life of its own

 

[johnalison]

When I was at Uni, the Internet was an identical debate. Eventually academia caught up and clever people are no longer punished for using this amazing resource. When I wrote my dissertation I was marked down for including URLs in the bibliography even though the subject matter was too new for books to have been written.
Give it five years and the old fuddy duddy lecturers will start to catch up with the world. Thankfully, in the real world we just get the job done using the best tools for the job.

No, I’m sorry, but passing off other people’s or other machines’ work as your own is just plain cheating and not just making use of a resource. There is a world of difference between a student who has researched the required project in the library, journals and appropriate on-line sources, digested the content and produced an abstraction in their own words, and another who has printed off an AI summary without giving any indication that they have learned or understood anything.

 

[Refueler]

I'm sorry - but I read posts and I wonder about the educational standards of the person. Especially when they clam to be Academia ...

I'm no saint when it comes to grammar or spelling .... but I cannot believe Microsoft Spell Checker and its usual default to USA grammar / spelling is the reason.

Sorry but if a Uni Teacher / expert etc makes a post - then I expect to see a grammatically and spelt correct post .. if not - then I discount it.

Sorry ... but that's my position on it.

 

[lustyd]

No, I’m sorry, but passing off other people’s or other machines’ work as your own is just plain cheating and not just making use of a resource. There is a world of difference between a student who has researched the required project in the library, journals and appropriate on-line sources, digested the content and produced an abstraction in their own words, and another who has printed off an AI summary without giving any indication that they have learned or understood anything.

There's a certain irony to this post. You're upset that people are writing about things they don't understand while having no understanding of LLMs or AI yourself.

 

[fredrussell]

I'm sorry - but I read posts and I wonder about the educational standards of the person. Especially when they clam to be Academia ...

I'm no saint when it comes to grammar or spelling .... but I cannot believe Microsoft Spell Checker and its usual default to USA grammar / spelling is the reason.

Sorry but if a Uni Teacher / expert etc makes a post - then I expect to see a grammatically and spelt correct post .. if not - then I discount it.

Sorry ... but that's my position on it.

It’s a well known feature of forums, social media and texting that the normal grammatical rules, spelling and what have you are ‘relaxed’ a bit. This is a sailing forum thread, not Anna Karenina!

Talking of which, I’ve just sold a signed copy of Anna Karenina, by Fred Russell, to Lustyd for £500. Result!

 

[dansaskip]

In my opinion just say NO to AI
Now I am not a luddite and I worked with computer systems for a number of years so pretty knowledgeable about tech stuff but all AI does is suck up what is out there on the internet and spew it out in a different way. So it is stealing intellectual property and breaking copyright. It is not really clever, you can see that from some of the garbage it comes out with- no differentiation between what is correct and what is wrong information.
As others have said too it needs vast computing power, vast energy usage.
Let us keep things real and rely on the amazing brainpower of humans. I don't think that AI would have come up with Newtons laws or the laws of thermodynamics, or the periodic table or the theory of Relativity. nay not even the Beaufort scale for wind speed
So I will say it again just say NO to AI

 

[Alicatt]

We had a guest staying over the Xmas period and they used an AI to translate written and spoken texts into their own language, mind you the person is fluent in quite a few languages, and is now in senior management of an international software company.
They use it to check contracts etc.
Still I would rather not have anything to do with AI

 

[lustyd]

As others have said too it needs vast computing power, vast energy usage.

I don’t disagree with what you say about copyright, this is the biggest theft of all time no doubt about it.
The energy usage is already being addressed though with new models and training techniques being orders of magnitude more efficient. Hyperscalers use renewables mostly too, Microsoft invested heavily in wind power and grid upgrades in Ireland for example. In theory AI will have a net positive effect due to accelerated research programs in climate change, renewables and power generation as well as more efficient designs for everything from chips to cars and cargo ships.

Let us keep things real and rely on the amazing brainpower of humans

We are using human brainpower. AI lets the humans achieve more in less time and with less effort while reducing unnecessary activities. Even just summarising text allows a single human to consume more information in less time and get to the important stuff.

 

[Wansworth]

Or

In my opinion just say NO to AI
Now I am not a luddite and I worked with computer systems for a number of years so pretty knowledgeable about tech stuff but all AI does is suck up what is out there on the internet and spew it out in a different way. So it is stealing intellectual property and breaking copyright. It is not really clever, you can see that from some of the garbage it comes out with- no differentiation between what is correct and what is wrong information.
As others have said too it needs vast computing power, vast energy usage.
Let us keep things real and rely on the amazing brainpower of humans. I don't think that AI would have come up with Newtons laws or the laws of thermodynamics, or the periodic table or the theory of Relativity. nay not even the Beaufort scale for wind speed
So I will say it again just say NO to AI

when Smacks make for shelter!