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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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There's actually also affect as a noun. I come across all of them every so often.

All the uses:

  • Affect (verb): Influence, have any sort of impact upon. Pollution affects your health.
  • Affect (verb)(second meaning): assume a behavior as a display. He spoke with an affected British accent.
  • Affect (noun): emotional state. Mostly used in psychology-ish settings. Unlike all the others, the accent is on the first syllable: /ˈæ.fɛkt/. I couldn't think up a natural example, so from an online dictionary:

Evidence from several clinical groups indicates that reduced accuracy in decoding facial affect is associated with impaired social competence.

  • Effect (noun): The result of some action or occurence. The effects of rent control have been studied quite well enough, thank you.
  • Effect (verb): Bring to accomplishment, cause. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation did not at once effect freedom for all the slaves, seeing as the local authorities were not exactly inclined to listen.

I skipped it because it's from an entirely different area, and not to muddle the mnemonic which already was faltering.

Hmm. Estimated order of importance to know:

  1. Effect (noun)
  2. Affect (verb)(1)
  3. Affect (verb)(2)
  4. Effect (verb)
  5. Affect (noun)

All of these are common enough that I'd expect most people who are very literate to know each of them, but the first two are far more common than the last three, and the last least of all.

But, also, affect as a noun sounds totally different from all the rest, so it's hard to confuse.

Not sure what mnemonics are good. When you affect something, you effect effects.