Researcher says simpler writing by AI is easier to read and digest, but this does not mean human authors are obsolete

In a study published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, 1,682 adults were asked to read one of six short stories, three of which were written by humans and three by ChatGPT. Each AI story had a similar theme to one of the human-authored works.

The team told participants whether their story was written by a human or AI, but this information was not always correct. The researchers then asked participants to rate how absorbing and engaging they found the story, and its quality.

Participants who read an AI-generated story rated it as more absorbing and of higher quality than those who read a story written by a human. However, participants gave higher ratings to stories they had been told were written by people.

Dr Deena Skolnick Weisberg, a senior author of the research from Villanova University in Pennsylvania, said: “AI systems can already generate short stories that are seen as being at least as good as – if not better than – human-written stories. We should update our views of AI’s abilities accordingly.”

However, Weisberg, who is herself a creative writer, said that did not mean writing should be left to AI, noting that novels produced by tech were probably going to be different from those written by humans.

“We may need to make room for AI-generated novels, and for AI/human co-written novels, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no longer space for us to appreciate the process of human creativity,” she said.

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
    41·
    2 months ago

    To be honest, this moment was always coming or is yet to come for anti-AI folks.

    The real issue isn’t whether it’s good or bad. The reason it’s such a hot thing is because generally it’s good enough to get people interested. And that’s very unlikely to go away.

    Too interested? Sure.

    But machines that are better than people at something people value about themselves. That’s where we’re heading if we’re not there already.

    Which unlocks a massive question: What kind of world do you want to live in and how much are you willing to do to maintain it? Just about everything else is no longer a given. Not our value or importance, not our position at the top of the food chain, not our democracy or wealth, or the continuous growth of capitalism, or even our continued existence.

    We’re basically at the beginning of an AI apocalypse movie. You can’t presume that you know the ending. You have to figure out how you want it to end. And not just for you, but your children and grandchildren children. Cuz it’s all at stake now.

      • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        What strikes me about the present moment is that it feels like particularly bad timing.

        I’m not so sure that technological developments follow a well defined path and like to think about what alternative timelines would look like, especially with humanity being better prepared for them.

        For instance, I’ve figured for a long time that the internet was a few decades earlier than it should have been for our social and political development. Probably TV too.

        AI just feels 100s of years too early. Like we’re only just getting to grips with post-capitalism and climate change as ideas let alone problems we can solve.

        • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
          2·
          2 months ago

          I think this is actually advantageous to us in a way, because clearly AI is something of a system shock to many people right now, whereas in a hundred years it may have not been nearly as apparent as the danger it is (and I don’t mean LLMs, I mean AI in general, especially for surveillance and weapons).

          • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            Yea I hear. We’ll see I guess.

            Personally, I’m seeing much more falling in line instincts than anything else and fear that any “shock” and reaction is confined to bubbles without any solid culture and infrastructure to break out into any sort of effective movement.

            • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
              4·
              2 months ago

              Luckily, revolutions have never required the majority of a populace to actively participate in to succeed, just a majority going “meh, sure”.

              But yes, I am personally also very worried that we’re reaching a point with technology that state surveillance and violence will both be too easily applied and too pervasive for the revolution to overcome.

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      31·
      2 months ago

      There’s only two choices:

      1. Learn how it works, adapt it to your lifestyle, use it as a weapon against the rich fucks that try to use it against you.
      2. Continue to act like luddites, bury your head in the sand, and pretend that it will go away. Which it won’t.

      That’s it. Those are the choices. Most are sucking in that copeium for the second option.

      • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I don’t entirely disagree. I’d add that whatever other options there are, they involve skills, values and perspectives that are unpracticed and atrophied in modern western culture (and likely globally) to the point that that is its own problem.