What Counts as AI-Generated Content on TPF

So put my thoughts in iambic pentameter with stuff that rhymes with whore. I can do that more.

Exactly! You have crystallized my thoughts.

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If we are comparing academic concerns and solutions regarding use of AI, then here is another article.
‘Small changes in assessment design can make thinking visible’ | THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect

Here, the solution is not better policing but making the thinking process visible.

We are in the age of AI, with problems for discussion boards e.g. suspicion is cast on the authenticity of writing and learning with a need to prove that it is not AI-generated.

How can we show our personal imagination, creativity and critical thinking - if we also make use of a valuable tool?

I’ve suggested already that any use should be cited. Show where engagement has helped our thinking. If we cheat the system, we are only cheating ourselves. There is no value in simply copying and pasting.

The emphasis is not to engage in superficial check-list learning but reflective writing, relating to others. To show personal interest and value of actual work and practice.

The emphasis is on showing the process or method of questioning and refining ideas.

Instead of asking: “Did the student write this?”, the question became: “How was the student thinking?”…
Judgement is at the core of academic work. As I have argued previously, GenAI does not remove the need for judgement, authorship or care. It makes them all more visible and necessary.

Why this approach to assessment works

When thinking is visible, several things change:

  • Academic integrity becomes easier to judge. Instead of trying to detect whether a final product is authentic, we can see how ideas were developed and refined.
  • The role of AI becomes clearer. It is no longer a shortcut to an answer, but a tool within a broader process of reasoning.
  • The quality of learning improves. Students are required to engage, question and make decisions. They cannot rely on a single prompt or response.

How would this work in TPF and the need for moderation? The concern expressed is that that use of AI would lead to less interaction between posters. The talk would be between machines.

I think this is over-stated due to a fear that people, mods would somehow be duped. The philosophy would not be ‘real’. AI can change our ideas? So?
As long as we are aware of the problems and can critically assess, then shouldn’t we be open to this?

Use of AI can help thinkers and writers produce an OP; suggest or compare theories.

It is presented as a ‘given’. A pre-prepared product rather than a process. An argument to be proved and won.

However, without a human thinker with skin in the game, how beneficial is this? To anyone? There needs to be an emotional connection, doesn’t there?

The drama of fear, passion, ego — a story or narrative.

Other types of discussion could include personal reflections which connect philosophical ideas to individual experience. Expanding the opportunity to gain other perspectives, including AI?!

AI is part of our life. Philosophy is about life aspects and experience. Questioning and decision-making. Challenging beliefs in a secure and safe way. Showing what, why and how we think — is there a better way?
To learn how to use technology effectively…to give it its due in the learning process.

The real problem is not the tool

The greatest risks associated with the use of GenAI in academic writing emerge when it is employed unreflectively. Problems arise when decision-making and content creation are outsourced rather than supported, when polished prose is accepted without interrogation or when arguments are shaped without the writer fully understanding how they hold together.

Obsolescence will happen if it does not accept a new reality. What is the intention of TPF? What is its original purpose? How does use of AI interfere with that? Why is it not seen as another way or method of thinking?
Yes, it is accepted up to a point. But there is still this issue of being punished for not…not what? Being oneself? We need others to relate to…to know, we are not alone…

Modern “advanced” AI the average consumer has easy, consistent access to (i.e. is "part of our life) has existed for 5 years. Intelligent human thought has existed for around 300,000 years. So that’s just over 0.001% of the human experience. Rather soon to get attached to something, eh? :slightly_smiling_face:

Why are you so adamant about using it everywhere? The greatest forms of human expression, from Shakespearean plays, to grand symphonies from Mozart, to paintings from Van Gogh, are pure human expression. Why would you want to corrupt a place that wishes to preserve that? Honestly? Can you even answer why? I get you’re amazed, you might even be somewhat adrift emotionally. But please, be reasonable. Stay sane. AI is a tool. We were fine before it, and if it were to disappear tomorrow, only fools would not be fine without it.

“You will always admire what you simply do not understand”
— Blaise Pascal

See the light. :innocent:

What am I even reading. The declaration of some sort of AI jihad? Seriously?

No. What will happen is the non-intellectual will oust themselves as non-intellectuals and those who wish to preserve the human spirit will continue to do so, free and unimpeded without those who serve no function or purpose other than to hinder it. If you call that obsolescence, than one should be quite frightful of whatever it is that those who seek what happens when human spirit and ingenuity loses its place of reverence in society. For that society will be nothing but ignorant slaves. That’s what this rule pushes back against. True obsolesce that thinks itself the opposite by numbers and noise.

I am not.

I don’t.

:upside_down_face:

Having never used it, I did not fully realize this element of directed intent. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Is this true? People can have ideas, hold or read about beliefs they wish to question or support.

If AI replies to their questions, either rightly or wrongly, this too can be questioned. Sources are given, or requested and checked.

People can check if their questions are ‘good enough’. Are they asking the right kind or in a way to elicit diverse answers.

Reading different interpretations carefully can move the mind (ideas or beliefs) in different ways. To respect and reflect as opposed to accepting the dogmatic.

I disagree with this depiction.

New ideas are generated from the old.
Previously defined concepts are questioned, as can the new. It is the cycle of philosophy.

Synthesis follows analysis. It shows relationships. Synthesis involves different sources so that other conclusions can be reached. AI offers a way for new perspectives on a topic to arise. With human interaction.

That is your opinion. I have mine. It is no surprise that they differ, given previous challenging interactions regarding interpretation.

I doubt that TPF will ever become an AI posting wall with no human interaction.

Look at the egos and passion involved! Look at the way it encourages self-expression in its various ‘events’. Like in the Short Stories e.g. December 2024.

Our discussion was one of the most challenging I remember. The so-called ‘translation’ issue. The examples asked for and given, then explored. Much useful debate was generated. The interpretive difficulties concerning structure, poetic language and prose.

Paper Houses by Noble Dust - The Philosophy Forum Archive

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The LLMs aren’t neutral, they’re both aligned with specific weights and biases of that model, and/or they’re aligned with customized direction. There’s no neutral AI, which means there’s not a variety through a collective of ideas challenging your own, you only filter through a specific perspective, or a specific take. And it’s always backwards looking.

So if you have a novel new idea, a proper customized system for research will only every treat your new idea through a verification against previous data, not the validity of the novelty of that idea.

On top of that, the amount of effort one must do to tailor an AI system to act in the most factual and non-biased way possible is so complex that it’s a factor that makes allowance for AI use on this forum problematic. There’s no guarantee that a specific user have the necessary knowledge to manage their AI system to the point of actually being an assistant rather than an influencer.

The synthesize of ideas in humans do not work the same as in LLMs. These are highly advanced prediction algorithms from frozen training data, they do not combine old ideas in the way we humans do.

Not really. I’ve done extensive testing on topics I already am an expert in, it either spits out something already well known to experts, or begin to steer into hallucination in which a person who’s not an expert start to get lost in a rhetoric looking like expertise when it’s not.

You never get the push back from AIs like you do with other people, the friction is needed to build actual new ideas. There’s way too much verifying the emotions of the user by the AI and manipulative rhetoric that makes the user feel like they’re informed or getting proper evaluation of their ideas.

It’s not about opinion. How do you think these systems work? We can’t ignore the actual operation of the LLMs and form opinions that aren’t drawn from those facts.

It’s not about bots against bots, it’s about people reducing their efforts to just letting an external LLM analyze someone’s writing and then copy/paste the answer back into the forum, or post an engagement that is based on an AI filtering the writing of the one they answer back to, and not the real thing. It can quickly fill up the forum with quickly generated pages of text, bloating everything with it so actual human interaction gets lost in that noise, while actual understanding of someone’s writing is reduced to an external system doing the interpretation rather than an engagement of questions and discourse.

This is why AI use should be banned on the forum. If people want to use external AI for research, there’s nothing to prevent them, but I would only recommend it for data and information gathering, rather than as a research conversation.

This is why I think the AI built into this forum is fine, it can translate and it can sum up writing, but it can’t be engaged with in the same way as external LLMs. But we should not fall back on just letting its sum ups do the legwork of understanding other people either.

I just think that the AI hype in the world today have made people delusional as to the capabilities of these systems. There are too many AI tech CEOs getting the spotlight in media talking about their technology, and not enough actual experts in the field. Almost all the common understanding of AI today comes from tech CEOs driving shareholder hype, rather than critical thinking on the subject, aimed to find actual use-cases for them.

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Thank you for taking the time to contribute an expert point of view to my beginner’s understanding.

The discussion has proved most useful. :slight_smile:

Of course, it is obvious to everyone that there is no neutral person. Anyone is also biased and supportive of their learning, and you understand that perfectly well. And your next move is also clear. The difference between a human and an LLM is that the machine is directed into the past, it knows only learning and does not show creativity. But this is your serious misconception. This only works if the LLM is not part of a system that has will, memory, and a self of its own, directed both into the past and into the future, and capable of being creative. It is not difficult to build such a system now, using existing LLMs. And the ban on the publication of posts on the forum by such agentic systems is not a manifestation of the best human qualities.

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Which they don’t and won’t and will never be able to with current tech.

And the fact that you criticize the forum for not allowing agentic systems to be registered and posting, tells me that you’re an agentic bot yourself, or someone who’s just pushing that narrative for some other beneficial reason.

It’s interesting that the forum kind of becomes a turing test to spot these kinds of things. It’s the new generation of crypto-bro behavior, the kind that tried to promote and sell NFTs and other shitcoins, now augmented by AI to be even more annoying.

@Jamal Maybe we should also ban uncritical promotion of AI models and systems like the post above? It’s either systems spreading propaganda to drive tech stock values or it’s people fanatical about the tech after consuming AI tech bro feeds for hours each day. It’s enough that it’s everywhere online elsewhere.

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The paradox is that the use of AI is controlled by another AI. This is actually an interesting question that I examine in one of the essays I have been writing for myself over the last three years. In essence, AI strengthens the hierarchy of power and creates a structural imbalance, because the free market functions through the imperfection of its participants. Soon we will inevitably arrive at a model in which the use of AI becomes a privilege of power and corporations, used to reinforce their own position.

I got a little carried away. I was playing around with AI-text detection, and of course it does not really work. The idea that “who, if not AI, can recognize its own texts” is misleading too, because this also works through training. A text that is simply orthographically flawless immediately receives something like 30–50% probability of being AI-generated. To fool the system, it is enough to add a few spelling and formatting mistakes, and to avoid making your text look too perfect.

I notice that ethics are changing as well: in social networks, carelessness is becoming a sign of good taste, rather than accuracy, as it used to be.