[McBainiel]

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I don't like AI and ultimately I think it's because of its tone. I don't know why OpenAI made ChatGPT so wordy and almost unctuous.

I've realised I don't actually care about people using it for programming or brainstorming or whatever. It's just I feel so inslulted when I read something that is in the default AI voice.

So I don't know that I agree entirely with the writer of the piece but I get where he's coming from. AI writing is unpleasant to read. And I hope Medium reverses their decision.

[poszlem]

The reason people "dislike AI because of its tone" is that they only recognize AI-written text when it's poorly composed. It's likely that you're already interacting with AI-generated text without realising it.

[happytoexplain]

I disagree. The "tone" of the vast majority of AI to me has a clear identity, and is not related to poor composition. It is in fact "high quality", technically speaking, and is a separate problem from that of bad/strange genAI writing. In fact, some real people do write in a similar tone, which makes it hard to tell apart sometimes, which is the problem you describe, but that doesn't obscure the fact that it is the "AI tone".

[pxc]

It takes too long to get anything said and it has a very weak sense of topicality that it papers over with repetitious use of literal words and phrases from the things it's asked.

Afaict, it's 'high quality' only in the sense of not containing many grammatical mistakes or spelling errors, which of course is not 'high quality' so much as 'basic literacy'.

I think I know what you mean about other elements of the tone (staid and obsequious) not necessarily being related to style but they don't quite form a clear identity for me. The defects of the writing are still more marked than its personality.

[jprete]

The possibility of well-written AI prose is a big reason why I dislike AI text generation. Writing for an audience refines the ideas being communicated. If the author doesn't do that refinement themselves, then I'm not reading what the author is thinking, I'm reading what the LLM could patch together from their ideas. If I want the LLM's opinion on how to make a concept work, I can ask it directly. If I'm reading something by an author, I want to know what the author is actually thinking!

[zmgsabst]

If you wanted a chair, you could build it yourself. So why do most people buy chairs?

To be direct:

Your post assumes that all users are equally good at producing content with AI/LLMs — but if they’re not, then people who are better providing that to people who are worse will become a market.

Just like with chairs and writing, now.

[zmgsabst]

I enjoy its tone when writing long form content — eg, this start of a book project. Certainly more than many long form blog articles, eg, on Medium.

Tastes vary.

https://zmichaelgehlke.com/misc/in-harmony.html