If you’ve never seen Jim Carrey’s 2007 psychological thriller The Number 23, then congratulations. It is a film about a man who sees the number 23 so many times that he ends up going bonkers. I used to think this film was stupid. However, now I appear to be living it.
My own personal number 23 is a rhetorical device: “It’s not X, it’s Y.” Everywhere I look, there it is. Whenever I hate myself enough to scroll through Facebook’s wilderness of algorithmically suggested posts, I find myself being smacked in the face with sentences such as: “Self-improvement isn’t a trend, it’s a lifestyle shift,” and “The small wins aren’t just moments, they’re the majority of your life.” Once you notice it, it becomes impossible to ignore. This weekend during a Peloton class (I know, shut up), I heard an instructor bark a variation of “this isn’t X, it’s Y”. Yesterday, a character did the same during a TV show I was reviewing, and I dropped a star from its score in retaliation.
You know where this is coming from, don’t you? “It’s not X, it’s Y” is an AI mainstay. It’s one of ChatGPT’s most insidious tells. No matter how innocuous a prompt you enter, AI will always find a way to sneak it into its response. Ask it if you should put more ham in your pasta, and it will tell you: “Ham doesn’t just taste good – it makes everything else taste better.” Ask it if you should chase a bee around your garden and it will say: “Bees aren’t stupid – they’re hyper-specialised”.
It’s beyond irritating to me that because LLMs were trained on writing that uses such constructions, being competent at writing now makes me get accusations of using one to create a post or comment.
This isn’t really the case on Beehaw, but head over to Reddit, post a cogent, well-reasoned comment, and the knives are out.
I think the most infuriating part is that instead of engaging with the content (I’m there mostly for debate, anyway), they attack the structure and lob accusations. That’s not a conversation.
uh, I’ve been writing like that for years and I am not about to stop just because the slop machines decided to copy me!
It’s not just a writing style – it’s an expression of individuality.
This is so silly. The way to explain a concept is to explain it in both the positive and the negative. Its the first steps to understanding, knowing not just what a thing is, but what it isnt.
I am not defending AI, but this writer is a loon. It isnt a stylistic choice, it is the most basic form of critical thinking. AI is not doing critical thinking, it is copping the style of an effective pedagogy.
Nailed it.
“Power isn’t given, it’s taken.” - Malcolm xAI
This is something I see my partner’s high school students having to deal with now: the suspicion that competence or intelligence must indicate AI use. It feels like when dumb film writers or directors make non-MC character unbelievably dumb to make the MC look smart (cough BBC Sherlock cough), but applied to real life.
I submitted some things I wrote years ago to AI and asked if it was written by AI and it said yes.
If you write intelligently and using proper sentence structure, the default now is to believe AI. It’s sad.
I’ll never give up em dashes.
Agreed—me neither.
It’s not X, it’s Y” is an AI mainstay.
You should have seen my h.school essays…
When I’m tired this is my shortcut. I usually edit them out in drafts but miss a few in my substack posts. I am more machine now than man I guess.
I think the main thing that annoys me is trying to pick apart if something is Ai or not.
It’s not AI, it’s LLMs.
I’m actually using more those resources (em dashes, three points lists, “it’s worth noting that”, “it’s not X, it’s Y”, etc.) after AI popped up. They’re a damn good way to detect assumptive people, eager to conclude based on little to no info or reasoning; the same ones OP is complaining about. They don’t want a conversation at all, they want to whine, so if you give them a low-hanging fruit you can detect them early and block them as noise and dead weight.
That’s in my “casual” writing style, though. Professionally (as a translator) I mostly play by the tune, trying to preserve the style of the original. (Plus I barely translate things into English, it’s usually into Portuguese, very rarely Italian.)
That might not necessarily be the case – there is a possibility every example is completely organic – but it’s a sign of the times that we can’t just relax and assume the things we see and hear were made by people.
Guys, I found em dashes! The author is a bot! Bring me my pitchfork! /jk (those are en dashes, by the way.)
Understanding the length of dashes aside, I think a big part of this backlash is a lot of people are terrible writers, and as such, the idea that another user can actually write is offensive to them. They have no way to fight back with words, so LLMs provide a tidy way to dismiss the whole piece as a hallucination.
I, too, have a couple of different writing styles, which stems from having been an opinion editor in college. What Beeple generally see on here is my columnist voice, but I am capable of the editorial Voice of God when it’s called for (it is rarely called for).
That makes sense; it would be a mix of “if you can do it and I can’t, you must be cheating” and “your a bot than you’re arguement is invalid” ad hominem.
I think unnecessary combativeness might be also a factor. I’ve noticed on the internet people who want to fight against “something”, it doesn’t matter what; so they pick any low-hanging fruit they can find to fight you.
a lot of people are terrible writers, and as such, the idea that another user can actually write is offensive to them.
I worry you’re right, here; but only in brief episodes. I mostly want to assume otherwise.
I LOVE great writing: proper punctuation, good delineation, awareness of mass nouns, etc. I love when I see great writing and wish I could be as good.
I feel for people who don’t.
It’s the old joke about how you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.
I wasn’t a great writer to start, but with editors guiding me, I came to be a nationally recognized writer. It’s a skill one develops. Maybe a few people spring forth from the womb ready to write, but must don’t. Additionally, I was told in high school to avoid writing; my voice wasn’t suited to regurgitating a teacher’s interpretation of literature. It took getting really pissed off at a national policy to find my voice.
And finding your voice is all well and good, but that doesn’t mean you’ve yet learned anything about the craft of writing. That first year was a crucible.
This happens in analog communications.
Every seminar intro ends with " without further ado…" and everyone “switches gears” halfway through the deck to “pull the trigger” on a decision.
This bugs me too and I’m glad I’m not the only one. You DO see it everywhere after getting annoyed at ChatGTP doing it.
