@julka
Yes? Creating digital art in photoshop is absolutely a different activity from painting?
The point here is:
My concern (in the analogy) is 'creating art.'
Your concern is 'painting.'
It doesn't matter how good the art is; you want 'painting.' I don't care if it's painting or something else; I care how good the art is.
I think I've been quite clear that I'm concerned with how they go about telling it
It's an analogy. You care about 'the teller.' I care about 'the tale.' 'How they go about telling it' is still part of 'the teller,' not 'the tale.' 'The tale' is a black box, a series of words, handed to you without information on who or what produced that black box. Relying on insight into what produced the black box is not judging 'the tale.'
Why is blaming somebody for a choice they make prejudicial?
Because you're making character judgments about them ('uncaring', 'lacking effort') based on the choice of a tool. You've even conceded that it's possible to put effort and caring into the use of said tool, yet the underlying judgment keeps shining through.
When have I ever said I judge somebody for writing poor prose and editing it until it gets better?
Right here:
That's a very different thing and I'm not interested in reading a story on the basis of "somebody really gave a shit when they edited the hell out of this"
That statement applies equally to 'iffy' LLM-generated prose and 'iffy' human-generated prose. If you didn't mean that, you shouldn't have written it that way. Perhaps what you meant is, 'Editing THIS prose results in an "uninteresting" story, but editing THAT prose is just fine and the story might be "interesting."' If so, you should have said that. As written, it says anyone who writes poor prose and 'edits the hell out of it' produces stories you are uninterested in reading.
Yes, I see you wrote 'on the basis of.' But that's a red herring, in context (unless it's not, but that would contradict many of your other statements). Yes, the editing isn't the 'basis' of why you want to read it. But, if you read it for some other reason, and find it worthy, that opens the whole can of worms. By analogy, you might say you wouldn't want to read a story 'on the basis of' it being written by an LLM and then a human 'editing the hell out of it', but might read said story anyway and find it worthy. Since your entire point seems to be that all LLM-written stories are not worthy, regardless of editing and other human effort in the process of creating the eventual work, one must assume 'on the basis of' isn't really doing any work here.
See below for a tangent on 'writing' and 'authorship' (which might not actually be a tangent, but it feels like one).
I'm not convinced you understand my position enough to try and sum it up because your rebuttals seem to wobble between wild agreement with me and complete misunderstanding of everything I've said.
Your position seems to shift around considerably, so I agree. It's nearly impossible not to sometimes agree with you and sometimes misunderstand what you've said, given the shifts and contradictions (see 'editing' above; however you resolve that, you still have a fundamental contradiction already out there, and that's one amongst many).
From the rest of your comments:
Use of LLMs shows a lack of caring and effort. Except that you agree it can show caring and effort. Except that it doesn't.
Effort in 'editing the hell out of something' doesn't matter. Except that it does. Except, of course, that it still doesn't. Unless it does? I suppose we'll see.
Use of tools is just fine. Except that it's not. Except, sometimes, it is. But only if the 'right' tools are used.
If I had to summarize your position, it would be "Using an LLM to generate any prose (some or all) irrevocably taints the work, making it not worth reading, and renders the author 'uncaring' and 'lacking effort', no matter how good the resulting work is or how much work the author put into it." I can find quotes from you that contradict multiple parts of that, but I can also find quotes from you that support the entirety of it, so I'm doing the best I can. If your position is more nuanced (and it might well be), just state it.
If it's not accurate, you could have ended this many messages ago by saying, 'I overstated my case. Yes, it's possible to use an LLM in a way that demonstrates caring and effort and produce worthwhile works, even if I personally wouldn't want to read those works because of the LLM's involvement.' That would have settled the matter fairly conclusively. On the other hand, we would have lost a lot of fairly interesting philosophical wrangling.
My point, by comparison, is, "The quality of the work is what one should use to evaluate its worth, not how that work was produced. It's possible for a person to care about the quality of their work, and put effort into producing the best possible work, whatever tools they use, including LLMs. Making character judgments about the author based solely on their choice of tool is simple prejudice. Judging the quality of the work based solely on which tools were used, rather than the work's merit itself, is the genetic fallacy."
I'll amend that to say, yes, sometimes it matters. If 'the tool' is flat-out plagiarism, then while the work is brilliant, the authorship is lacking. If the intent is to judge the author rather than the work (e.g. an essay submitted for a class), the 'authorship' of it clearly matters, and some tools may be banned.
But we're talking about creative fiction being published for entertainment purposes. I feel the work itself is the thing to be judged, not the tools used to produce the work. Plagiarism can be judged from the 'black box' of the word itself without insight into how it came to be. An author who is trying to put out good work 'cares' and uses 'effort', regardless of their choice of tools.
We're not going to agree, clearly, but that doesn't mean it's not an interesting discussion. Nor does it mean either point of view is 'wrong.' These are personal preference ifs.
I shifted the following to the end because they seem tangential (but may not be):
-- Tangent 1
Prompts aren't prose, if you're typing prose into chatgpt and having it raw edit that, then what you've done is used chatgpt as an editor and that's equally stupid but these are two different things
Agreed: prompts aren't prose. However, the second part of that is entirely analogous to how many grammar and style checkers work. Unless you think there's something particularly 'wrong' with ChatGPT that's not 'wrong' with Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Copilot, and so forth, why is that 'equally stupid?' LLMs are not bad at textual analysis. Certainly, a good human editor is much better, but not everyone has access to good human editors.
This, again, strikes me as the tool 'tainting' the work. If one uses tool X, Y, Z, P, D, or Q, the work is fine. But, if that tool is an LLM, the work is 'tainted', even if the author is just reading ChatGPT's output, going 'Hmm, you have a point - that comma shouldn't be there, and I overuse adverbs,' and making adjustments. Not only that, though - the author is also 'stupid' for having used ChatGPT to review their work.
Now, you might not have meant that, but - as with the above point - that's what a plain-language reading of what you wrote says.
-- Tangent 2
Maybe this one matters. It is, again, a focus on 'the teller,' but that seems to be a core part of this.
nor am I interested in giving them credit as a writer when what they did was fundamentally not writing.
Defining 'writing' is interesting, just as 'painting' contrasts with 'creation of a visual artwork using various tools'.
Starting with the dictionary definition, 'writer' is 'one who writes'. 'Writes' is big:
1a: to form (characters, symbols, etc.) by or as if by marking on a surface
1b: to form (words) by or as if by marking characters or symbols on a surface
1c: to spell in writing
1d : to cover, fill, or fill in by writing
2 : to set down in writing: such as
a: draw up, draft
b(1): to be the author of : compose
b(2): to compose in musical form
c: to express in literary form
d: to communicate by letter
writes that they are coming
e: to use or exhibit (a specific script, language, or literary form or style) in writing
It goes on from there, with progressively less useful meanings.
I'm also going to reference Wikipedia's definition, because I think it's useful and perhaps better:
A writer is a person who uses written words to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain
You seem to be defining 'writing' as analogous to 1b. It's the act of setting down the words by pressing keys (or, perhaps, dictating, etc). Perhaps that's wrong, but that seems to be the standard. The human does 100% of the creation of the words.
My definition is more along the lines of 2b1 or (better) the Wikipedia definition. If we assume (for the purpose of argument, perhaps) that the LLM is not 'creative' - does not 'author' anything itself - than the person using the LLM is using it to communicate ideas, inspire feelings and emotions, and entertain. They may be doing so very poorly, mind you, but that's what they're doing.
Thus, a person using an LLM cannot be 'a writer' in your view (I think). They're not tapping the keys or dictating, after all, and 'editing' doesn't change that.
For me, the criteria is the goal, not the process. Are they using written words to communicate, express ideas, and entertain? If so, they're writing, and they are a writer. Editing is just a part of the writing process.
Picking another analogy: suppose one has one of those refrigerator-magnet phrase kits. Someone arranging those words to produce a work is 'authoring' something, in my opinion, even though that's literally 100% 'editing.' I would have to assume you would not define what they're doing as 'authorship' (otherwise, your entire 'editing' point is contradicted, after all). If you would define it as 'authorship', then someone taking LLM output and changing and rearranging the words must be 'authoring', since they have unlimited options to remove words from the pool and add new words, unlike the person with the magnets. 'Authoring' and 'writing' are synonyms in this context, by definition; if you're not seeing them as synonyms, that's another clue to where we're disconnecting.
But that seems to be the silent center of the argument, maybe - who and what is 'a writer', and is the resulting work dismissable if the 'writer' does not meet one's criteria for being a 'writer?'
Jumping back to a previous point: assume the infinite monkeys. Can one declare their 'Romeo and Juliet' to be slop and toss it into the trash because they are clearly and unquestionably only 'writers' by pure happenstance at best? I would hardly argue them to be 'writers' at all, certainly, and I'm far more permissive of different types of 'writers.'
Suppose the monkeys have a single human companion. They produce 95% of the literal text of 'Romeo and Juliet'. All of the ideas and meanings are there, but the grammar sucks, some word choices are poor, and there are spelling errors everywhere. Their human companion edits their work and produces word-for-word Shakespeare's text. Is there a 'writer?' Who? The human has only 'edited,' yet the output is a major literary work.
As with much of the rest, there is no right or wrong answer here. This is an entirely debatable philosophical point. But it seems really central to the discussion. If one makes 'a story' contingent on being the product of 'a writer', and what 'a writer' means is constrained by their choice of tools and activities ('editing the hell out of something' being excluded, for instance, even if the prose is 100% human-generated), that will result in excluding many things from being 'a story.' If one simply defines 'a story' as 'a collection of words intending to communicate ideas, express feelings and emotions, or entertain', the pool of things that are 'a story' is much wider.
'Teller' vs 'tale', again. 'A tale' can exist without 'a teller', in my view. In yours (as it appears to me), 'a tale' can only exist with 'a teller,' and only tellers who follow certain steps and do not follow other ones are judged capable of telling interesting tales.
Repeating myself: I may be wrong, because your statements sometimes are partially retracted, then reiterated, and sometimes contradictory (again, see 'editing' - you may not have intended it, certainly, but that's what came out). I'm simply trying to understand the meaning as best as I can, because without that, there's no understanding at all.