When we say “no AI,” is that including research? Editing? I only generate content from my furry little brain, but I do use it as mentioned. For example, I just asked for updated status of the Salton Sea but would never copy and paste.
I’m not on the no AI train. I use it for repetitive tasks and tech rescues. It saved my life in surgery a while back. I just think if you’re putting all your eggs in that basket you need to tell us.
Definitely not writing with AI. To clarify, only research and some edits. But it is a good idea to clarify whatever role AI plays in each piece at this point. Too much confusion. For example, how much virginity do you lose before you've lost it? Thx.
As I said in the post, I did some Googling to see if he had a footprint online—everyone does. Social media, photos, job history, anything! He has nothing but Substack. Not even an email address. It’s partly intuition, partly detective work and asking other people. There is no way to tell for sure. I hesitate to be proactive in calling out AI issues—it would be awful to be wrong and it is not easy to ever say for sure.
I didn't want to say anything before, but every time I commented on his articles, his responses were very...effusive -- exactly in the way AI is if you don't request that it tone down that kind of...obsequiousness?
Anyway, I did my own digging and asked AI incognito mode about him: his writing, his footprint, his background. Nothing.
John Donne would have had a field day. Jason Bourne would have sought him out for lessons. This person didn't exist until a few months ago...
Now, he's in the wind. Gone to ground. Poof.
If this is the future of Substack, there's going to be a vetting process we need to put in place!
Nobody's that perfect...right? 😅
But he wrote like a sparkleberry, and it did make me think. If he is real, then that book he was working on about women should appear sometime soon...
I'll get off the soapbox. Just wanted to add my two cents.
I love the observation about Jason Bourne! This was an interesting experience. If he’s a real writer, I’ll feel guilty about my judgment. If he’s an AI or AI-reliant poser, we will not have really impacted him, he’ll just get a new name.
Did you see "his" (his/its) comment yesterday defending himself? That's gone, now, too! I think. I do have vision troubles still so I might not be seeing it.
But if you didn't see it, I sure wish I had copy/pasted it for you.
I didn't read that. I hadn't heard about him before I saw your article; I'm probably just small potatoes (what an odd idiom). In any case, I'll post later today about the availability of the No-AI Badge. At Katharine Writes.
Or, I ignored it after a few lines. I wasn't as impressed as you, and that's no knock on you. Everything is subjective in this biz.
The post to me is similar to lots of stuff I've seen elsewhere, especially on Medium. But I would not have pegged it as AI, either, so AI seems to be "getting better," at least in not self-identifying.
What I hope writers can begin trying is something like a badge system, where they post a badge identifying a post as I or not.
If you truly believe that AI is a legit process, then you shouldn't be ashamed to say so with a bad saying "AI" was used to help create the post.
And if you want to say, "NO AI," warts and all, you should be able to say so and earn the trust of others when you make that claim.
Readers deserve to know one way or the other so they can make their own choices.
I broached that idea to Coach Tony over at Medium (in a comment to one of his articles). He seemed open to that kind of idea and said they were already looking into possible solutions in that regard.
Now, obviously, anyone can include a badge that says, "NO AI." Doesn't make it so.
But it's a start.
If the content world is divided by AI and human writers, giving readers a choice between the two, can that be a bad thing? I think not.
Excellent point! I don’t think AI is a demon, but I prefer human writing with its rough edges and backstory, so I’d like to know what I’m reading. I like your statement about AI users being willing to own up. With the guy in question in my post, I was offended more by his inauthentic interactions, comments, and engagement. I really think he is all bot, not a person using bot tools.
I kind of do think it's a demon (partly because of the environmental costs). My sister, who is awesome, loves it for her work, though. She uses Claude to help her write grant proposals. She's a good writer, but no need to demonstrate great writing prowess in a grant proposal -- you mostly want to get people to fund the group you're writing the grant for.
So stuff like that, I get. She gets Claude responses, then cleans it up.
There's lots of other uses, and I see it helping in areas like medicine someday when it stops hallucinating.
But there's no need to have it write fiction or even essays. I want/need the human element like you. I want soul. So I want to know ahead of time if it's written in AI.
We can say, then, "That's okay, I'll read it anyway," or, "No, I won't."
I think you mentioned that in another post. That’s very cool. There are definitely uses for it. My main beef with it is they’re exploiting resources to put it everywhere. That is costing the environment dearly and driving up everyone’s electricity cost. But I do think the AI bubble will take care of the problem organically.
This is interesting and concerning and funny - everything I love from you, Maryan.
But you gave me a bizarre idea. The ghost thing ... since we can teach AI assistants to talk and react in certain ways, I wonder if I could make it sound like my mother. Feeding it enough of her sayings and personality and bio might make it come close. She could give me advice and tell me when to shut up and remind me that I should wash my dishes before bed.
Thank God I deleted my Chat GPT account. That would be a rabbit hole I would not be able to climb out of.
I went hook, line, and sinker for "Mo's" work Maryan. It seems to me now that this is someone who is using AI at a skillful level to mimic a human, but the tells are there if I start to look. I am both sad and mad at the time I invested in my conversations with this account, and hope that I can learn to spot the differences between an authentic person and AI content earlier in the process and exercise better discretion, while at the same time not becoming too jaded or guarded or skeptical of those I'm engaging with. The AI turn of events in the writing world is a sad sad affair, though ultimately I believe the goodness of humans and real writers will somehow prevail. Those of us who want to will always find a way to connect honestly and authentically.
I saw a comment on here last night from him - saying it was a pen name, and then it was gone this morning. Like you, I too am holding open a space for that to occur.
"I’ve realized that if Mo is human, he has successfully mimicked a machine. If he is a machine, he has successfully mimicked a very boring, verbose human."
Writers are doomed!
Does writing have to pass a litmus test every time from now on?
Wife: Have you finished reading that post yet?
Me: Not yet. I'm still running it pass the CIA, FBI, CSI, automated AI checking thingy..
Ouch! I hear your concern—however, somewhere between running a litmus test every time and being aware of the proliferation of bots in our writing world is a middle, trusting ground. I just read an article that said another popular writing platform may seriously have 50% AI-involved accounts.
When we say “no AI,” is that including research? Editing? I only generate content from my furry little brain, but I do use it as mentioned. For example, I just asked for updated status of the Salton Sea but would never copy and paste.
I’m not on the no AI train. I use it for repetitive tasks and tech rescues. It saved my life in surgery a while back. I just think if you’re putting all your eggs in that basket you need to tell us.
Definitely not writing with AI. To clarify, only research and some edits. But it is a good idea to clarify whatever role AI plays in each piece at this point. Too much confusion. For example, how much virginity do you lose before you've lost it? Thx.
hahahahahahahaha! Or can you be VERY pregnant or a little pregnant. Hmmm, in retrospect, I guess you can be…
I just posted a No AI Badge at "No AI Badge Now Available For Substack Writers to Add to Posts." See it at https://katharinewrites.substack.com/p/no-ai-badge-now-available-for-substack
How do you reveal the ghosts? I’ve got a couple of fans of my book series who are so perfect in their praise they must be ghosts!! How can I find out?
As I said in the post, I did some Googling to see if he had a footprint online—everyone does. Social media, photos, job history, anything! He has nothing but Substack. Not even an email address. It’s partly intuition, partly detective work and asking other people. There is no way to tell for sure. I hesitate to be proactive in calling out AI issues—it would be awful to be wrong and it is not easy to ever say for sure.
I have a "No AI" badge available at https://katharinewrites.substack.com/p/no-ai-badge-now-available-for-substack (won't prevent the use of an AI text generator, but may help).
With the reported percentages of AI involvement over there, I’d say the notice may be ineffective. But we can keep trying.
OK. I'm going to copy the article introducing it, along with it, and paste into Katharine Writes at https://katharinewrites.substack.com.
Cool! Did you read that Mo Rivers's account disappeared today here on Substack? I suppose he'll get a new name.
I saw that as well...
I didn't want to say anything before, but every time I commented on his articles, his responses were very...effusive -- exactly in the way AI is if you don't request that it tone down that kind of...obsequiousness?
Anyway, I did my own digging and asked AI incognito mode about him: his writing, his footprint, his background. Nothing.
John Donne would have had a field day. Jason Bourne would have sought him out for lessons. This person didn't exist until a few months ago...
Now, he's in the wind. Gone to ground. Poof.
If this is the future of Substack, there's going to be a vetting process we need to put in place!
Nobody's that perfect...right? 😅
But he wrote like a sparkleberry, and it did make me think. If he is real, then that book he was working on about women should appear sometime soon...
I'll get off the soapbox. Just wanted to add my two cents.
I love the observation about Jason Bourne! This was an interesting experience. If he’s a real writer, I’ll feel guilty about my judgment. If he’s an AI or AI-reliant poser, we will not have really impacted him, he’ll just get a new name.
Wait. The account disappeared???????
Did you see "his" (his/its) comment yesterday defending himself? That's gone, now, too! I think. I do have vision troubles still so I might not be seeing it.
But if you didn't see it, I sure wish I had copy/pasted it for you.
I didn’t see it—-wish I had!
It was quite convincing. I wish I had preserved it somehow.
I didn't read that. I hadn't heard about him before I saw your article; I'm probably just small potatoes (what an odd idiom). In any case, I'll post later today about the availability of the No-AI Badge. At Katharine Writes.
I gotta read this!
I missed the post when it posted.
Or, I ignored it after a few lines. I wasn't as impressed as you, and that's no knock on you. Everything is subjective in this biz.
The post to me is similar to lots of stuff I've seen elsewhere, especially on Medium. But I would not have pegged it as AI, either, so AI seems to be "getting better," at least in not self-identifying.
What I hope writers can begin trying is something like a badge system, where they post a badge identifying a post as I or not.
If you truly believe that AI is a legit process, then you shouldn't be ashamed to say so with a bad saying "AI" was used to help create the post.
And if you want to say, "NO AI," warts and all, you should be able to say so and earn the trust of others when you make that claim.
Readers deserve to know one way or the other so they can make their own choices.
I broached that idea to Coach Tony over at Medium (in a comment to one of his articles). He seemed open to that kind of idea and said they were already looking into possible solutions in that regard.
Now, obviously, anyone can include a badge that says, "NO AI." Doesn't make it so.
But it's a start.
If the content world is divided by AI and human writers, giving readers a choice between the two, can that be a bad thing? I think not.
Excellent point! I don’t think AI is a demon, but I prefer human writing with its rough edges and backstory, so I’d like to know what I’m reading. I like your statement about AI users being willing to own up. With the guy in question in my post, I was offended more by his inauthentic interactions, comments, and engagement. I really think he is all bot, not a person using bot tools.
I kind of do think it's a demon (partly because of the environmental costs). My sister, who is awesome, loves it for her work, though. She uses Claude to help her write grant proposals. She's a good writer, but no need to demonstrate great writing prowess in a grant proposal -- you mostly want to get people to fund the group you're writing the grant for.
So stuff like that, I get. She gets Claude responses, then cleans it up.
There's lots of other uses, and I see it helping in areas like medicine someday when it stops hallucinating.
But there's no need to have it write fiction or even essays. I want/need the human element like you. I want soul. So I want to know ahead of time if it's written in AI.
We can say, then, "That's okay, I'll read it anyway," or, "No, I won't."
Footnote—AI saved my life in a serious surgery two years ago. I have no beef with DR. AI
I think you mentioned that in another post. That’s very cool. There are definitely uses for it. My main beef with it is they’re exploiting resources to put it everywhere. That is costing the environment dearly and driving up everyone’s electricity cost. But I do think the AI bubble will take care of the problem organically.
True that.
This is interesting and concerning and funny - everything I love from you, Maryan.
But you gave me a bizarre idea. The ghost thing ... since we can teach AI assistants to talk and react in certain ways, I wonder if I could make it sound like my mother. Feeding it enough of her sayings and personality and bio might make it come close. She could give me advice and tell me when to shut up and remind me that I should wash my dishes before bed.
Thank God I deleted my Chat GPT account. That would be a rabbit hole I would not be able to climb out of.
I went hook, line, and sinker for "Mo's" work Maryan. It seems to me now that this is someone who is using AI at a skillful level to mimic a human, but the tells are there if I start to look. I am both sad and mad at the time I invested in my conversations with this account, and hope that I can learn to spot the differences between an authentic person and AI content earlier in the process and exercise better discretion, while at the same time not becoming too jaded or guarded or skeptical of those I'm engaging with. The AI turn of events in the writing world is a sad sad affair, though ultimately I believe the goodness of humans and real writers will somehow prevail. Those of us who want to will always find a way to connect honestly and authentically.
I empathize—this was an unsettling experience. But I still won’t look at the writing world with a jaundiced eye. I need to trust.
Wow, me too. And yet I have him to thank for connecting me to you Maryan. 😊
Well, silver lining! I’m hoping I’m wrong and he speaks up and calls me out—that would make me really happy.
I saw a comment on here last night from him - saying it was a pen name, and then it was gone this morning. Like you, I too am holding open a space for that to occur.
If you search Mo Rivers on Substack this morning, you find that his page and account are gone. Seems like Mo Rivers was an odd experiment.
Entertaining... and a little concerning.
"I’ve realized that if Mo is human, he has successfully mimicked a machine. If he is a machine, he has successfully mimicked a very boring, verbose human."
Writers are doomed!
Does writing have to pass a litmus test every time from now on?
Wife: Have you finished reading that post yet?
Me: Not yet. I'm still running it pass the CIA, FBI, CSI, automated AI checking thingy..
Wife: FFS! Just read the thing!
Ouch! I hear your concern—however, somewhere between running a litmus test every time and being aware of the proliferation of bots in our writing world is a middle, trusting ground. I just read an article that said another popular writing platform may seriously have 50% AI-involved accounts.
Are you recommending we relax and lower our guard Mike? Not clear from your note what part of Maryan's post you found concerning.
My comment is there to make of it what you will, Rick.