Forum: Author Hangout

Then I asked ChatGPT if it agreed. This is the AI's answer:

Partly — but not as dramatically as the original passage suggests.

It's true that AI systems are trained to produce high-probability, broadly acceptable language. That does create a pull toward clarity, convention, and smoother phrasing. If someone asks for "polishing" without guidance, the model may simplify, standardize tone, and reduce unusual phrasing. In that sense, yes: distinctive edges can get softened.

But I don't agree that this is an unavoidable "destruction of unique signal."

A few important nuances:

1. It's not inherently erosive.
The model doesn't have to remove complexity or voice. If prompted to preserve tone, eccentricity, or technical precision, it can do so. The "averaging" effect often happens when the goal is vague (e.g., "make this better").

2. Refinement and erasure aren't the same.
Sometimes clarity really is improvement. Removing ambiguity, redundancy, or accidental obscurity can strengthen a piece without harming its originality.

3. User intent matters a lot.
If someone hands over a draft and asks for generic smoothing, they're effectively instructing the system to optimize for conventional readability. If they instead say, "Keep the strange metaphors and sharp tone; just fix grammar," the outcome is very different.

4. Creative loss is possible — but not guaranteed.
AI does have a bias toward coherence and common patterns. If the writer doesn't actively guard their voice, the output can feel blander. But that's a tooling issue, not an inevitable structural amputation.

So I'd say:
There is a real tendency toward standardization, but calling it "semantic ablation" overstates the case. AI can flatten writing — but it can also sharpen it — depending on how it's used.

I asked Grok…

Analysis of Conclusions

The core conclusions are:

• AI writing is boring: Strongly supported. LLMs are statistical compressors of internet-scale data, so outputs regress to the mean. Human writing thrives on deviation—idiosyncrasy, friction, surprise. Ablation strips that, yielding "safe but soulless" prose. This isn't new (critics noted it in 2023), but the article crystallizes why.

• AI writing is dangerous: More provocative, with merit but nuance needed.

• Cultural risk: A "race to the middle" could homogenize discourse. If AI polishes everything, original voices erode, echoing concerns about social media echo chambers but at the thought level. In academia, journalism, or creative fields, this amplifies "entropy decay" in collective knowledge.

• Cognitive atrophy: Over-reliance dulls skills. Writing is thinking; outsourcing it risks what the article calls "intellectually void output." Parallels to calculators weakening mental math, but scaled to ideas.

• Hyperbole check: "Dangerous" implies existential threat, like misinformation or job loss. Here, it's subtler: insidious cultural flattening. Not apocalyptic, but worth heeding—especially as AI agents automate more "writing" tasks.

Looks like Grok believes the author is on target with regard to AI writing being boring.

I also asked Gemini. Highlights…

• The "JPEG of Thought" Analogy: This is arguably the article's strongest point. Just as a JPEG image looks "fine" but has lost 90% of its original data density through lossy compression, AI-refined text looks "clean" but has lost the "blood" and "friction" of the original thought.

• Framing a Subtle Problem: The article successfully names a phenomenon many users feel—the "uncanny valley" of AI writing—and provides a technical framework (entropy decay) to measure it.

• Challenging "Optimization": It correctly identifies that "optimizing for helpfulness" often means "optimizing for the least common denominator."

Final Verdict

Nastruzzi's article is a timely warning. It suggests that while we were worried about AI lying to us (hallucinations), we missed the fact that AI is quietly lobotomizing us (semantic ablation). The conclusion is clear: If we use AI to "polish" our thoughts, we must be aware that the polish is actually an abrasive that may be removing the most valuable parts of our message.

Nastruzzi's article is a timely warning. It suggests that while we were worried about AI lying to us (hallucinations), we missed the fact that AI is quietly lobotomizing us (semantic ablation). The conclusion is clear: If we use AI to "polish" our thoughts, we must be aware that the polish is actually an abrasive that may be removing the most valuable parts of our message.

Nastruzzi's article is

I didn't give the article to ChatGPT to review. I gave it the part you posted here.

I actually asked for a simpler explanation. And then I asked if it agreed.

Just like AI, to give you two mutual, self-contradictory quotes about its own ability to do anything of value. Now, if that isn't telling, then you haven't been doing nearly enough reading. ;)

I find it darkly humorous, that an AI explanation (as provided by SB) was needed by me, to explain WTF the original post was saying.

I find it darkly humorous, that an AI explanation (as provided by SB) was needed by me, to explain WTF the original post was saying.

It was overly technical, but I'm steeped in that kind of language. Whether that's good or bad is left as an exercise for the reader. 😜

To my knowledge I have not read any AI stories yet.

I have them filtered on the homepage and avoid them like the plague.

I've read some, but only as a result of feeding my work into an AI and asking it to create scenes and chapters as an experiment. The results are unsurprisingly disappointing.

Ditto for asking it to refine/polish my work. It loses ALL my style and loves to replace diverse words with 'common' ones. It's horrid, to say the least.

Of course, I'm certain some people think that of my original writing, but to each their own!