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cjet79  21d ago (text post)   Edited 21d ago   1398 thread views

Rule Change Discussion: AI produced content

There has been some recent usage of AI that has garnered a lot of controversy

There were multiple different highlighted moderator responses where we weighed in with different opinions

The mods have been discussing this in our internal chat. We've landed on some shared ideas, but there are also some differences left to iron out. We'd like to open up the discussion to everyone to make sure we are in line with general sentiments. Please keep this discussion civil.

Some shared thoughts among the mods:

  1. No retroactive punishments. The users linked above that used AI will not have any form of mod sanctions. We didn't have a rule, so they didn't break it. And I thought in all cases it was good that they were honest and up front about the AI usage. Do not personally attack them, follow the normal rules of courtesy.
  2. AI generated content should be labelled as such.
  3. The user posting AI generated content is responsible for that content.
  4. AI generated content seems ripe for different types of abuse and we are likely to be overly sensitive to such abuses.

The areas of disagreement among the mods:

  1. How AI generated content can be displayed. (off site links only, or quoted just like any other speaker)
  2. What AI usage implies for the conversation.
  3. Whether a specific rule change is needed to make our new understanding clear.

Edit 1 Another point of general agreement among the mods was that talking about AI is fine. There would be no sort of topic ban of any kind. This rule discussion is more about how AI is used on themotte.

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As a pretty non-prolific contributor, I'm not sure my opinion means very much. But, here is my take. Use or discard it as you will.

AI-generated content being used by a contributor to make an argument, should not be allowed. "I think X position is correct, so I asked AI to come up with reasons to support my statement" is pointless. People don't come here to argue with AI, or to find out how AI will support an argument you ask it to; they can just go to the AI and ask it themselves. If you want to use AI to make a case for a position you hold, you should at the very least be willing to rewrite what it spits out in your own words, and own them as your own. Using AI as a tool as research to help you write your own post is fine, using it as the substance of the post itself is wrong.

AI-generated content being used by a contributor to make a critique or demonstration of AI in general (AI-meta, I suppose you could call it), in which the content of the AI is used not as a way to strengthen the poster's argument but as a topic of discussion itself, should be allowed. "I asked [specific AI] about [particular issue], it said X. I think it said this because Y" is a potentially interesting and valid discussion topic, as is the development of AI in general; these are things that can be done better with snippets that AI produces. These should be snippets, not long blocks, and should not be used to advance the argument of the post in-and-of-themselves.

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