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cjet79  1mo ago (text post)   Edited 1mo ago   1442 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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I haven't gone out of my way to consume gen-AI content, for whatever that's worth, but my idea of good use of LLMs for public discourse is appellate litigator Adam Unikowsky incorportating analysis of Claude-authored hypothetical legal briefs and opinions in his explanations off legal controversies/theories. I don't see a constructive role for gen-AI content in a human forum like this one. From the CWT description:

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

Asking an LLM to steelman your outgroup or your own opinion and posting the output would be counter to the stated goals of The Motte. If anything, using an LLM for your comments just makes it easier to be "egregiously obnoxious."

From that link:

Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 524 (1838). After the Postmaster General refused to pay a contractor for delivering mail, the contractor persuaded Congress to pass a bill requiring the Postmaster General to pay him. The Postmaster General refused, so the contractor sued. Held: the Postmaster General was required to pay.

Damn. I guess Congress was either really bored and underworked at the time, or they thought acting as a small-claims court was a cushy gig.

How is this not a bill of attainder? Because he's working for the government?

The Constitution Annotated:

A bill of attainder is legislation that imposes punishment on a specific person or group of people without a judicial trial.

A law that imposes a benefit, rather than a punishment, on a specific person is perfectly permissible.

I don't think "you have to pay someone" is a benefit.

It seems that, in the court case, bills of attainder were not discussed at all. Rather, after the private law was passed and the postmaster general still refused to pay, a district court issued a writ of mandamus ordering the postmaster general to pay. The entire discussion is centered on whether the district court was empowered to issue that writ of mandamus.

When an act of Congress imposes on an officer of the executive department, for the benefit of a private party, a duty purely ministerial, the performance of that duty may be coerced by mandamus, by any court to which the necessary jurisdiction shall have been given.

"Private laws" that affect only a specific person are pretty rare nowadays, but they do sometimes get passed. The most recent example, from year 2022: "Notwithstanding other laws, these three people shall be eligible for immigrant visas."

I'm guessing it's a matter of scale - if USPS contracted out major services and refused to pay on delivery (no pun intended) in today's world, any firm large enough to have performed the contracted major service would be large enough to lobby for Congressional intervention (even if Congressional intervention no longer takes the form of passing legislation, increasing the apparent difference). The same was presumably true when both government and government services were smaller.

(Edit: And, of course, Congress had an interest in keeping potential contractors confident in the government as potential customer.)

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