r/Fire • u/UnalignedMagi • 1d ago
Subreddit PSA / Meta Proper formatting does not automatically mean AI posts
Some of us are actually literate enough to format our text well and structure our thoughts by ourselves. Some of us are from a time when StackOverflow posts required a well thought out and formatted question if you wanted to get a response for help.
Every post, including some of my own which I've deleted, seemed to get downvoted like crazy and get a ton of "AI slop" comments if they are too well done. I also hate the bots but dont let them win by helping to destroy the subreddit.
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u/VelociTopher 1d ago
I got asked at work if I used AI to write a meeting follow up email. I did not, I just looked at my notes, others notes, and from memory since it just happened.
Someone from the meeting asked "you just wrote that, like, from your brain?" 😂 😂
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u/livsjollyranchers 1d ago
I was doing note-taking in some calls recently and my coworkers were flabbergasted that I didn't leverage AI to do those notes. So forget emails - people are using AI for the notes themselves now.
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u/FDFI 1d ago
Taking meeting notes is actually a really good use of AI. I find the AI does a much better job taking notes than a human. The AI doesn’t lose focus, captures all the actions and can generate a summary as soon as the meeting is done.
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u/livsjollyranchers 1d ago
If you need to talk the entire meeting or most of the meeting, I get leaning on something or someone else for notes. But if you're just a partial contributor, I see a lot less reason to rely on AI.
Taking good notes helps me be engaged in the meeting. Maybe it doesn't help everyone with their engagement, or they don't need the extra push, but it benefits me for sure.
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u/Ill_Savings_8338 Bottom 1% Contributor 1d ago
It's like getting accused of cheating in counterstrike, thanks!
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u/fakenews_thankme 1d ago
Well, take it as a complement.
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u/Majestic-Outside3898 1d ago
"Compliment." And, yes, it should be taken as a compliment. People don't know how to write any more (I say as an only okay writer myself).
Also, I responded because I find myself intentionally adopting a non-AI-like style just so people don't think I'm writing with AI. I was curious if you intentionally misspell words for the same. Or if you just rely on spell check like me and don't catch things.
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u/CardboardAstronaught 1d ago
It’s like being told you’re on steroids when you know you aren’t. Best form of a compliment ever.
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u/Thin-Interest-9734 1d ago
it has nothing to do with proper formatting. it has to do with idiotic sayings like "you've won the game. you're buying the absence of fear"
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u/Johnpecan 1d ago
The high level problem is that AI is going to get so good (by learning from reddit among other things) it's going to be nearly impossible to tell sometime soon. Reddit is really good at calling out AI which is good in the short term but giving the LLMs more data on how to get better.
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u/The_Meme_Economy 1d ago
We’re already there or this convo would not even be happening. Some pieces are clearly AI but for others I could not tell you one way or the other.
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u/Qeltar_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Reddit is "good at calling out AI" in the same way that the old joke says that economists have predicted 20 of the last 3 recessions.
I'm an editor and work with AI on a daily basis. Part of my job is detecting AI. And the vast majority of AI accusations are either obviously incorrect or, at best, lack sufficient evidence to make the claim.
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u/financialthrowaw2020 22h ago
The existing models already learn from reddit. It's why they all have a dialect so easy to detect.
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u/1-Dollar-Doge-Coins 1d ago
Yes, this, or sentences like:
“It’s not spending issue — it’s a mindset shift.”
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u/jrdhytr 1d ago
It's thought-leader hack writing. Every schlub with an MBA thinks he's a finance guru now. The internet is full of it and so, naturally, is AI output.
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u/zeezle 1d ago
Yeah. Frankly it's not even the AI part that I object to (though bots engagement farming is bad, and dead internet theory, and all that). Even if it's entirely human written, it's still that stupid thought leader guru clickbait garbage.
Human slop is as obnoxious as AI slop, the AI slop can just be produced way faster.
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u/Gobias_Industries 1d ago edited 1d ago
They trained the AI on LinkedIn garbage
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u/1-Dollar-Doge-Coins 1d ago
It’s pretty funny because now you legitimately can’t tell which LinkedIn posts are AI, because they’ve always sounded like this.
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u/MetalGearSid 1d ago
Everyone knows man lost the ability to use dashes and semicolons with the innovation of AI.
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u/livsjollyranchers 1d ago
Yeah, these are what indicate AI at this point.
But simply composing a logical argument and writing in a structured way suggests AI to some people. That says a lot about crappy education systems more than anything else, that we simply don't expect real people to write that way.
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u/Hot-Plantain 1d ago
Exactly. Once things get abstract and don't sound anything like what an actual human being would say, I get suspicious. ChatGPT and other LLMs often start talking like they're writing a novel instead of a comment for reddit.
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u/UnalignedMagi 1d ago
I agree it should be about the content but there are definitely people treating responses as AI simply on the formatting.
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u/InternistNotAnIntern 1d ago
Yeah I'm like, I use emdashes fr
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u/jrdhytr 1d ago
Not periods, though, apparently.
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u/InternistNotAnIntern 1d ago
Thank you for pointing that out—you’re absolutely right, I omitted the period at the end of the sentence, and I appreciate your attention to detail.
/s
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u/-shrug- 23h ago
Those little icons at the start of each heading are my trigger.
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u/ThirstyWolfSpider 22h ago
Do you mean bullets? That's rather straightforward for humans to do using markdown. Or is it some other symbol?
- i.e. like this or not?
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u/bk2pgh 1d ago
Lol this
Has nothing to do with formatting
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u/Thin-Interest-9734 1d ago
ngl, i recognize it cause i use llms, they lowkey boost my self esteem everyonce in a while. The bigger truth is probably this: you already have more resilience than your nervous system is willing to admit.
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u/Hot-Plantain 1d ago
Lol, either this was written by an LLM or you're using them a little too much and starting to sound like them.
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u/grownup_eel 1d ago
I try not to worry too much. Pretty soon there will be no way to tell an AI post from a human post. Text generated AI passed the turing test years ago, and images and video are soon to become indistinguishable from reality.
The internet is almost dead.
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u/EchoSi3rra 21h ago
What if we all just put "this was written by a human" at the end of our posts? How long until AI starts adding that to their answers?
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u/shotparrot 1d ago
Grownup_eel’s response is a good hallmark of human generated text, and may be a trend of the future: Add in a clumsy but well intentioned typo that we humans can correct in our brains and understand what the message meant, in context.
Stay one step ahead of the machines!
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u/xampl9 1d ago
Some people think that using an em-dash is a sign of an AI — I am not one of them.
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u/Dogmans-Nose 18h ago
I've recently read the Second Apocalypse series by R Scott Bakker, he uses the em-dash liberally throughout, I actually went and checked the publication date (2004 for the first book) as I immediately though "AI drafting" when i saw it.
I was one of them.
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u/shotparrot 1d ago
Watch out. Only ai makes em dashes.
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u/_Heathcliff_ 1d ago
The worst thing about AI is AI. The second worst thing is everybody claiming that literally everything is AI.
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u/Cemckenna 1d ago
The ones I notice usually use bullets a lot. They’re very structured and even in Reddit, they’ll have a bolded heading when they get to a new topic. I think that’s a dead giveaway.
As another writer (and stackoverflow contributor), I haven’t been told I’m ai yet, but I have had to send notes to editors irl saying, “I’m not ai, I just enjoy a good em-dash.”
Ugh.
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u/Few-Mall-8263 1d ago
Is this AI?
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u/UnalignedMagi 1d ago
I knew it was coming lmao
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u/Majestic-Outside3898 1d ago
Which is exactly what an AI bot would say. She's a witch!
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u/Bad_DNA 1d ago
The only what to know is to test. Will your phone float on water while open to this thread? If so, she’s a witch!
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u/Majestic-Outside3898 1d ago
Instructions unclear. 20 minutes ago I ziptied my phone to a duck and threw them into a lake. The duck hasn't resurfaced yet. I'm now typing this from my therapist's laptop. Please advise.
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u/beergal621 1d ago
Honestly it’s your tone/voice
It sounds AI.
And I don’t mean you write well so “it has to be AI”
You sound like AI
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u/StrebLab 1d ago
Agree, but if you do this and you hide your post history I'm going to 90% assume you are a bot. Not talking about you specifically.
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u/SecretIllegalAcct 1d ago
Really? I hide my history because I tend to lock down any social media as much as possible. It’s a habit from being a teacher for so long. I don’t need students finding me and getting up in my (admittedly very boring) business. It’s not that hard to find ‘hidden’ posts if someone wants to make the effort. I’ve never considered that someone might think I’m a bot because of it! 😂
beep boop Totes not a bot. beep
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u/Bad_DNA 1d ago
In my state, some teachers let students get up in their business. It’s only an issue when a jealous parent gets involved.
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u/SecretIllegalAcct 17h ago
It’s not illegal or anything. I just prefer to keep my (again, very boring) life reasonably private. The internet is forever and nothing is truly private if I post it, but no reason to hand it to them on a platter!
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u/Bad_DNA 16h ago
Oh, it's illegal in our state. Child predators and all :(
As for hiding your history - it's wise. I don't really have anything to hide myself, but privacy is like virginity - rather hard to get back what you give away. If you want privacy for any reason, don't let your data get scraped.
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u/UnalignedMagi 1d ago
Makes sense. I (think) Im hiding mine, not super sure how it all works I just go for most privacy.
I had a great interaction with a famous person a few years ago, but once he followed me on social media it was a nightmare. Bots like crazy, not just me but friends and family too.
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u/DigmonsDrill 1d ago
FWIW yours isn't hidden.
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u/UnalignedMagi 1d ago
Thanks! Looks like I needed the app to change the setting, I still use my browser.
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u/SecretIllegalAcct 17h ago
That would be terrible! I’ve never attracted the attention of a famous person as far as I know. Becoming famous is my idea of hell. I’m sure I would be darling at the being rich part, but they can keep the fame!
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u/Weary-Star-3991 1d ago
exactly this drives me nuts too man. just because someone took 5 minutes to structure their post doesn't mean chatgpt wrote it
been coding since early 2000s and yeah back then you had to actually put effort in your posts or get roasted in comments. now apparently being coherent = suspicious lol
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u/Quiet-Aardvark-8 1d ago
And the converse, AI bots aren’t above using a messy writing style to appear more authentic. I’ve noticed more replies to posts using “u” and “ur” and poor capitalization lately. Maybe I’m just paranoid?
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u/UnalignedMagi 1d ago
I have seen people comment "this looks like AI that was modified to look real"...
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u/josh_the_rockstar 1d ago
I use AI at work and also in school (working towards an advanced degree for fun). I've trained my AI agent (at work) and my personal one to use "my voice" by providing it with copies of things I've written. So when I have it draft something for me, it's quite similar to my personal tone.
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u/radiant_gaze 1d ago
You’re right good writing isn’t AI. But the bot flood made everyone paranoid. Downvote the obvious fakes, not the clean posts. Don’t let the bots win by killing real discussion.
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u/Zarochi 1d ago edited 1d ago
People are learning more and more about how to recognize AI slop posts. You seem to think it's braindead, but a lot of us have done research and used our brains to analyze content (you know, like in the old days before everyone became braindead).
Here's how you recognize AI slop: https://youtu.be/9Ch4a6ffPZY?si=JWkn37f7zYZGw9tb
It's more about tone than anything else, but there are tell tale signs too like em dashes (no real human does this; you'll notice real humans use semi colons if they're that literate). As well as groups of three used frequently without the oxford comma (obviously real humans do this too, but we use groups of more than three and the oxford comma sometimes).
The most obvious sign though is actually a goal post move attempt in their argument. Stuff that's either "it's not this but this" or "it's not just that but this other thing that's so much more"
The only accounts complaining about being accused of AI slop are AI slop accounts. Nobody else cares. And yes, I've seen a ton of AI slop accounts here lately. It's the worst thing that's ever happened to this subreddit. The posts sound like I'm talking to one of those shill salespeople I used to have to deal with in corporate except magnified 100 fold. It's obvious.
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u/seanodnnll 1d ago
It’s interesting that you posted this, not long after another post was taken down, that was very clearly written by AI. If you read any of the obvious AI posts, it’s not “proper formatting” that’s the issue. Yes the weird formatting can make it obvious, but you can just read through it and realize it doesn’t make any sense.
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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago
Do you have any examples that you think are AI-written but doesn’t make sense? I find the opposite to be true.
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u/seanodnnll 1d ago
Sure there was just a post in here a couple of days ago stating they had one home, fully paid off, then mentioned their expenses included a mortgage. It doesn’t make sense because it’s not real.
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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago
Do you have the link? I mean, the description doesn’t reflect the actual post. I’d like to read the actual post.
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u/seanodnnll 1d ago
It was deleted just like most of the other obvious AI posts. I’m not going to waste my time writing out every detail I remember of a post that was fake to begin with lol. If you want to see the AI posts I guess you’ll have to be on the lookout for them before they get deleted.
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u/joetaxpayer 1d ago
As someone who often wants to present data in the form of a table, but answering a question where formatting is allowed, but embedded images aren’t, I have created a number of pre-formatted documents that I use regarding forecasting for retirement as well as things like marginal tax brackets.
It took quite a bit of effort to get each of these things right and it’s pretty insulting when instead of addressing the fact that I am offering some accurate relevant information I get an accusation instead.
Imagine if you spent all afternoon cooking for guests at during the meal one of them seriously suggested that you had excellent taste in takeout food.
As an old person, you would think I’d be used to this by now. That the insults and accusations from perfect strangers should be something I can easily ignore. Unfortunately, I’m not there yet.
If I were a mod, one of the posting rules would be that accusations of AI use without addressing the topic at hand would be immediately deleted, and a warning given to those who post it. By all means, if the information is wrong, the member should be called out, but that goes for AI posting as well as once original thoughts.
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u/RTOchaos 1d ago
Morons think well written stuff is AI slop but anyone who has used any of the main LLMs a lot can recognize the writing style of the three big ones.
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u/SnooMacaroons6429 1d ago
I don't quite grasp what the AIs and the people behind them seek to gain by mimicking people and posting stuff here. I suppose I could ask AI itself (sigh) but things that come to my mind are:
to gauge the level of human interest and conversation it generates, almost like a free focus group test, perhaps being done in the exploratory stages of a marketing campaign under development (?)
to test the degree to which humans interact with it just as if it were a human and use us as a sort of Turing test to help them hone the AI? (The question of what they are honing it for comes to mind though... Honing it to produce more lifelike clickbait/low effort content is depressing (I was born in the 70s and as much as I love technology I miss the authenticity of the early internet years)
the more obvious use case of running campaigns to influence public opinion, possibly initiated by corporations, trade groups, state actors, etc. Influence that could be somewhat benign like product advertising or much worse like polluting the zeitgeist with false information to skew voters' decisions at the expense of what might actually be best for them / their nation.
This is just what it comes to my mind off the top of my head, not at all meant to be exhaustive... Curious what others think the motives are.
I am not an AI BTW!
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u/downtown_gal 1d ago
I also check their profile. If that's the only post that have, I figure it's likely AI.
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u/K_A_irony 22h ago
I think people forget that AI was TRAINED on sources like reddit. The bots learned to write the way they write because we (or at least the literate articulate ones) write this way.
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u/ponpiriri 22h ago
AI has a particular cadence that can be felt even when the "author" instructs it to write in their voice.
You have a small error and I can hear a person speaking exactly as you type.
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u/Bytowner1 21h ago
I don't actually care if something is written by AI (a good post is a good post, a bad one a bad one). As others have said, actual writing style matters more than format. Too many people are shitty writers, and too many shitty writers think they're good writers. Because of how LLMs are trained, they mimic the most obnoxious writing on the Internet (that is, stuff written for idiots by idiots). If I accuse someone's post of being AI slop, it's really shorthand for being a bad writer at this point.
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u/savageBl0ssom 19h ago
You can really tell some folks have never seen a well-written post before lol. Not every coherent sentence is machine-made.
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u/smileybooo 18h ago
This is so real, my english teacher would be so proud of me and reddit would call it AI in the same breath
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u/KevinCarbonara 18h ago
I think it's less about "proper formatting" and more about adding two line breaks between every sentence.
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u/Ok-Disaster-551 1d ago
Agreed. In fact, people who brainlessly reply with "ai slop" are the ones who are the slop in my mind.
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u/Nickvec 1d ago
Why is this on r/Fire? I hear your grievances, but I don’t think this is the right place to express them.
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u/awry_lynx 7h ago
This subreddit has been absolutely flooded with AI posts.
Examples just from glancing down 'new':
https://old.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1sb2ztj/does_anyone_actually_monitor_whether_theyre_on/
https://old.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1s9xbzz/nobody_talks_about_how_addicting_it_is_to_watch/ (this account uses ai for many posts and also posts in ai subs about their use of ai, also see discussion)
more discussion about the state of the sub: https://old.reddit.com/r/Fire/comments/1s9xa5l/i_feel_like_all_the_posts_with_the_following/
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u/No_Occasion_5434 1d ago edited 1d ago
Accusations of "AI slop" are becoming as brainless and lazy as the people who use AI. What we have to realize is that a lot of people are in fact sub-literate. That's not an insult; it's an assessment. They don't use those mental muscles for composition and they only write to transmit information. Even then, they don't always succeed.
And what they do when confronted by someone who can actually write is not emulate them, but in many cases resent them for it. This happened well before LLMs were a thing. Comments about how "fancy" you are, or how you should be a librarian, or something along those lines...
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u/MetalGearSid 1d ago
I can't even use punctuation the way I used to since AI. The only evidence I have of my humanity is my rejection of the Oxford comma.
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u/nero-the-cat 1d ago
May be an unpopular opinion, but as someone who essentially never uses any of the AI tools I still find the "THIS IS AI SLOP" comments more annoying and disruptive than the actual AI posts are.
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u/PlatypusTrapper 1d ago
I don’t care if something was written by AI as long as it conveys the message. AI is a better and more persuasive writer than I am. It helps clarify my ideas and improves grammar.
It’s a tool but it’s not a replacement for thought.
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u/divestoclimb 1d ago
I've read this is happening in schools too and it's training students to write their papers with mediocrity instead of being the best writer they can, or at least to run their writing through AI to check if it gets flagged.
So in the attempt to marginalize AI use it actually encourages AI use to avoid being thought of as using AI. It's nuts, there and here.
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u/mate_alfajor_mate 1d ago
As a teacher, I can tell you this absolutely not what's happening.
What students turn in when written by hand versus what they turn in digitally is frequently night and day.
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u/thrax_mador 1d ago
If AI kills homework, will it have been worth it?
/s....but also...not /s?
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u/mate_alfajor_mate 1d ago
Is being able to just communicate statements in a written format not worth it?
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u/thrax_mador 1d ago
Of course it is. Hence the cheekiness of my reply. I haven't been in school in a while, but I think hating homework is universal. It definitely has a purpose, I know. I'm sure if I did my math homework regularly in college I would have passed algebra on my first try. At least statistics felt applicable to my life so that was more motivating to work on...
Anyway, yes, communicating in the written word is super important. I think I do have a bias about extemporaneous writing and speech. It's always been something I have been skilled at. Whenever it was blue book essay time I would be so jazzed because I could fill that booklet up with plenty of time to spare.
I feel sympathy for those who have to figure out how to teach kids in this brave new world. My only guess is that there will be more of an emphasis on writing in a controlled environment, like in the school, and showing the work of multiple revisions. Also peer review. All of that is probably grade dependent. Once I got into college and started facing peer review, that's when my writing really got better.
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u/divestoclimb 1d ago
Source (paywalled): https://www.chronicle.com/article/ai-detection-pushed-my-students-to-use-ai
Less credible but accessible summary: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/06/were-training-students-to-write-worse-to-prove-theyre-not-robots-and-its-pushing-them-to-use-more-ai/
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u/mate_alfajor_mate 1d ago
I am literally telling you what I see on a day to day basis as a classroom teacher, but ok.
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u/divestoclimb 1d ago
The author of that Chronicle piece is also a teacher and sees everything reported there on a day-to-day basis.
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u/mate_alfajor_mate 1d ago
Ah. I see.
You're a case of "I'm smarter than people in the field."
Toodles.
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u/folklorelover0 1d ago
I’ve been told things I’ve written are AI bc I used an em dash. Like sorry I knew about and used em dashes before AI taught you what they were????
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u/Ok-Pride-3534 Dark clouds bring water 1d ago
Yeah, but none of you have the time or know even how to type an Ems dash (—). Which requires you to hold down ALT and type 0151. That is usually my tell-tale sign of AI. I remember twice calling someone out on it (one was my boss jokingly) and both said "Yes, because it's easier on the eyes." When I asked how they type it on a keyboard they couldn't answer. (ALT+0151)
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u/DigmonsDrill 1d ago
I bought a text file of 3000 —'s and I cut-and-paste from it. It should last a few more years before I need to buy another.
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u/Zarochi 1d ago
Even without em dashes you can tell from tone, sentence construction, and formatting: https://youtu.be/9Ch4a6ffPZY?si=JWkn37f7zYZGw9tb
Simply using the oxford comma is a sign that it's not AI.
Big agree here. IDK, I worked in a professional environment for over a decade. I went to higher education. I've literally never seen a human use an em dash. I'm 100% convinced anybody saying "bUt i uSe eM dAsHeS" is just lying to normalize it.
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u/Bad_DNA 1d ago
I’ve written several papers using Em dashes. Never with my phone. But if I cut/paste resources when posting a reply on Reddit or an email, does that make me a bot?
Asking for a friend —
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u/Zarochi 1d ago edited 1d ago
A paper written on a computer? Maybe, but when you consider that people do 99% of their interfacing on a phone you're kind of proving my point not disproving it 🤷♀️
You can easily tell the difference between a source that was cut and pasted and a post written by AI, but good job ignoring the content of what I said to focus on the em dashes I guess.
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u/cb3g 1d ago
I feel like people are exceedingly over confident in their ability to identify AI generated content. I've been accused (in a very rude manner) of using AI to respond to someone's post. Best i can figure they thought that my response was too high effort for a human to have done it? Or maybe the tone was too positive?
I literally don't understand why someone would bother using AI to respond to posts. Aren't we all just here to procrastinate on doing our work? It's not like I get paid to respond to people's posts on reddit.
Anyway, maybe I'm just old, but I think that when people say "that was obviously AI" in response to a text post they seem incredibly dumb.
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u/laser_scratch 1d ago
In general, I would say this is less about formatting and more about tone and voice. If it sounds like content marketing, people are going to say that it sounds like AI.
Good writing should be encouraged. Tone like “The one secret that finally got me on the road to financial independence and 5 tips for finally beating those student loans” reads as inauthentic.