ziddoap 2 days ago

Using "likely" is indicative of AI now...?

Absurd.

The only thing as annoying as people using AI and passing it off as their own writing is the people who claim everything written not exactly how they are used to is AI.

  • cyral 2 days ago

    > This task, which likely required a great deal of manual labor and technical knowledge, was key to making the system work effectively and sustainably.

    This is obviously AI. The writer should know that it either required manual labor or it did not, not maybe (AI loves to not "commit" to an answer and rather say maybe/likely). It also loves to loop in some vague claim about X being effective, sustainable, ethical, etc without providing any information as to WHY it is.

    That and it being published on some blog spam website called techoreon.

    Edit: For fun, I had o1-mini produce an article from the original source (Techspot it looks like), and it produced a similar line:

    > This ingenious approach likely required significant manual effort and technical expertise, but the results speak for themselves, as evidenced by the system's eight-year flawless operation.

    What these sites are doing is rewriting articles from legitimate sources, and then selling SEO backlinks to their "news" website full of generated content (and worthless backlinks). It's how all those scammy fiverr link services work

    • ziddoap 2 days ago

      At least this is a better effort at explaining why you would believe it is AI than the other poster who just says it's AI because they used the word "likely".

      I still find it very annoying that in every thread about a blog post there's someone shouting "AI!" because there's an em dash, bullet points, or some common word/saying (e.g. "likely", "crucially", "in conclusion"). It's been more intrusive on my life than actual AI writing has been.

      I've been accused of using AI for writing because I have used parenthesis, ellipses, various common words, because I structured a post with bullet points and a conclusion section, etc. It's wildly frustrating.

      • cyral 2 days ago

        > because I structured a post with bullet points and a conclusion section

        I do understand that this is frustrating, because in the last few months I see posts with these features everywhere. It's especially a problem on reddit, where there are numerous low effort posts in niche subreddits that are overdone with emojis, bolded sections/titles, and em dashes. Not all of these are AI but an overwhelming majority are to the point where if the quality of the content is low (lots of vague sayings), and it exhibits these traits, I can almost say for certain it's AI.

        What is also less talked about is now AI models are beginning to write without exhibiting these issues. I've been playing around with GPT 4o and it's deep research feature writes articles that are extremely well written, not exhibiting the traits above or classic telltale AI signs. I also had a friend ask it to write a fictional passage on a character description and the writing was impeccable (which is depressing because it was better than what she wrote). Soon we are not going to have any clue what is real and what isn't.

      • zahlman 2 days ago

        As someone who "detects" AI frequently: it's often difficult or impossible to explain where the sense comes from. It can be very much a matter of intuition, but of course it's awkward to admit that publicly. I don't fault others for coming up with an overly simple explanation.

      • numpad0 2 days ago

        Exposure to AI output itself triggers and trains rage response in lots of people. Blame AI for it, regular people have no control over.

        Asking for cause or thought processes is just asking them to hallucinate. They don't know why, they just know that they saw it and that it deserves hate.

    • ToValueFunfetti 2 days ago

      Techspot:

      >However, in this ingenious setup, Glubux took those individual cells and assembled them into their own customized racks – a process that likely required a fair bit of elbow grease and technical know-how, but one that has ultimately paid off in spades.

      Either this is also AI, or saying that it likely required a lot of manual labor is not indicative

      • cyral 2 days ago

        I wasn't going to get into that but I got the same feeling about the techspot article ironically

    • soulofmischief 2 days ago

      I've been approached to build a few of these sites now. No thanks.

    • yellowapple 2 days ago

      > (AI loves to not "commit" to an answer and rather say maybe/likely)

      Well fuck, I might very well be an AI, then ;)

      • mrguyorama 2 days ago

        LLMs had way more "average internet commenter" training material than it had "good journalism" training material.

        Keep that in mind when people make them write journalism. It's like at an 8th grade level, maybe.

  • hn_throwaway_99 2 days ago

    But using "likely" is obviously AI in this context, or at least it's really, really shitty reporting.

    This is supposed to be a news article, not someone who's hypothesizing about something that could have been. I mean, it either required a great deal of manual labor and technical knowledge or it didn't - no guessing should be required. If the author doesn't know, they can do proper research or simply ask the subject.

    FWIW this article didn't immediately scream AI to me either, until the commenter pointed out the use of "likely". When you think about it, it absolutely becomes a fingerprint of AI in this context - it's not just that "likely" anywhere means it's AI.

  • ajkjk 2 days ago

    Your inability to tell when things are AI doesn't mean other people can't.

    Same phenomenon happens all the time with food or wine. One person thinks everyone is making up the subtle flavor profile comments and sneers at them. Everyone who can tell rolls their eyes. You can't convince someone that there's something they can't perceive besides just telling them.

    I've had this experience with records: as a kid I rolled my eyes at people wanting to listen to music on vinyl cause obviously it was the same; as my hearing has improved I have found I can clearly tell the difference and definitely prefer it.

    • ziddoap 2 days ago

      >Your inability to tell when things are AI doesn't mean other people can't.

      I didn't even comment on whether this article is AI or not. My point is that it is absurd to point at a single word as proof of something being written by AI.

      • ajkjk 2 days ago

        well it's that phrase, not just the word, although the word is a tell. And it's not absurd. It is absurd to think it's absurd. You are being ignorant.