Did a Human Write It?
November 21, 2020 1:41 PM Subscribe
A popular Obama book was published this week – no, not that one, but Barack Obama Book: The Biography, a 61-page title probably composed by an A.I. “I don’t think [it] was written by a human being, but I do think the A.I. that excreted it made some decent points about Barack Obama.”
I'm not saying it definitely wasn't written by an AI—they've gotten quite good these days. I'm just going to say that as an editor, I see a LOT of human-generated raw copy, and nothing in the sample text would have struck me as suspicious. At some point, AIs are going to write better than the majority of people; if this book was written by an AI, that point is now.
posted by babelfish at 3:45 PM on November 21, 2020 [14 favorites]
posted by babelfish at 3:45 PM on November 21, 2020 [14 favorites]
Having messed around with AIDungeon and Sudowrite I can firmly say that AI can already write better and more coherently than over half the people I've played PBP or chat RPGs with. I met a real single guy online during this pandemic but I ghosted him because AI Dungeon was more fun to correspond with.
posted by The otter lady at 4:38 PM on November 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by The otter lady at 4:38 PM on November 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
If you handed me that text and told me it was a college student's Barack Obama term paper, I'd absolutely believe you. The excerpts in the article read exactly like an unimaginative writer dutifully regurgitating every Barack Obama fact they could find so they can get this damn gen ed class out of the way and focus on their Sports Medicine major.
I honestly doubt this is actually an AI-generated text, as far as I know current machine learning language models are pretty fantastic at writing things line by line, but they have a hard time staying focused on a specific topic for multiple paragraphs, or organizing thoughts in a specific order. It's certainly possible this was written by AI, but like all the most impressive AI output it has been curated and edited by human eyes before it's released to the world.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:04 PM on November 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
I honestly doubt this is actually an AI-generated text, as far as I know current machine learning language models are pretty fantastic at writing things line by line, but they have a hard time staying focused on a specific topic for multiple paragraphs, or organizing thoughts in a specific order. It's certainly possible this was written by AI, but like all the most impressive AI output it has been curated and edited by human eyes before it's released to the world.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:04 PM on November 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
"one of the things he was most proud of from his second term was the Defense of Marriage Act" yeah that is some prime "stringing terms together, without having an understanding of them" right there.
Yeah, since when is that not an extremely human thing to do? That's exactly the kind of thing I fix for people all the time.
Maybe they used AI. Maybe they paid random people $5 an hour. I kind of admire the optimism of immediately thinking it was the former.
posted by trig at 2:08 AM on November 22, 2020 [5 favorites]
Yeah, since when is that not an extremely human thing to do? That's exactly the kind of thing I fix for people all the time.
Maybe they used AI. Maybe they paid random people $5 an hour. I kind of admire the optimism of immediately thinking it was the former.
posted by trig at 2:08 AM on November 22, 2020 [5 favorites]
Our real problem is symbolised by the car wash. A car wash used to mean a machine. Now it means five guys with rags. There are now 20,000 hand car washes in Britain, only a thousand of them regulated. By contrast, in the space of 10 years, the number of rollover car-wash machines has halved – from 9,000 to 4,200. The free-market economic model, combined with a globalised labour market, has produced a kind of reverse industrialisation.
posted by Grangousier at 2:52 AM on November 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Grangousier at 2:52 AM on November 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
MetaFilter: that is some prime "stringing terms together, without having an understanding of them" right there.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:25 AM on November 22, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:25 AM on November 22, 2020 [5 favorites]
“actual working dudes’ hustle benefits instead of the gas station owner”
In the UK at least, hand car washes are generally involved in modern slavery. You are enriching people traffickers and gang masters, not the illegal immigrant working 14 hrs a day in the car wash.
posted by tinkletown at 1:47 AM on November 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
In the UK at least, hand car washes are generally involved in modern slavery. You are enriching people traffickers and gang masters, not the illegal immigrant working 14 hrs a day in the car wash.
posted by tinkletown at 1:47 AM on November 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
The best part of this story is that it is titled "Barack Obama Book" in order for it to appear at the top of searches for "Barack Obama Book." It's both incredibly simple and kind of genius.
I'm imagining discussions at book clubs:
"I read 'Barack Obama Book.'"
"Oh, you read Barack Obama's book?"
"No, I read 'Barack Obama Book.'"
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:43 AM on November 23, 2020
I'm imagining discussions at book clubs:
"I read 'Barack Obama Book.'"
"Oh, you read Barack Obama's book?"
"No, I read 'Barack Obama Book.'"
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:43 AM on November 23, 2020
I for one welcome our new robot ghostwriter overlords
posted by thelonius at 8:45 AM on November 23, 2020
posted by thelonius at 8:45 AM on November 23, 2020
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posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 1:57 PM on November 21, 2020 [1 favorite]