So I hate to say this … I really hate to say it … but … what if an AI wrote this? Like, as cover for AI-authored books and content?
Sorry, I’m so sorry! Alternatively, maybe the book is too new or too fringe to be documented by Google.
At this point I think there are basically no more AI tells in LLM-generated text. I got a scam email yesterday ostensibly from my pastor (the old gift certificates scam), and in back-and-forth I was able to trick the LLM emailing me into admitting that it was, in fact, GPT-5. But in static text, I don’t think it’s possible to tell anymore.
“How can she prove she DIDN’T use AI?” Well, gosh, for me at least, for any composition longer than, say, 1500 words, I will usually have multiple backup drafts that probably constitute pretty persuasive proof that I really wrote it! Those who write in Google Docs have the complete edit history. That wouldn’t be me—I have problems with Google Docs, and I’m afraid most of what I write begins in Word before winding up in some CMS—but still, I have to think almost anyone writing an entire book can document their creative process *somehow*.
A facebook group in which I am a small lurker regularly includes screenshots of passages in which the character lets out a breath they had not realized they were holding. It is such a common cliche that readers find them often, sometimes twice within the same novel. I feel sorry for the young person being sued, but alas, bad writing is not the purview of AI alone. And now, pardon me, while I exhale.
I was utterly baffled reading that post - almost as baffled as when I learned that em dashes are apparently a sign of AI(???). Are these conclusions about AI a feature of people not reading, not writing, not being properly taught, or all of the above?
Most inferences and conclusions about AI seem to me to be born of panic and lack of knowledge.
My chief take on AI is that I want nothing to do with it, and I can’t imagine that anyone who thinks of themself as a writer—as opposed to a churner-outer of content—wants anything to do with it either.
And no, em dashes are not a sign of AI. Em dashes are a sign of being a writer.
My take is that "whew" is a sigh of relief, with a negative outcome averted, while "phew" indicates a strenuous or tedious (but not dangerous) task completed.
"Whew, that bus just missed running us over!"
"Phew, I can't believe I was holding my breath that long without realizing it."
There's a Goodreads list of books that contain that hackneyed phrase about a main character letting out a breath they didn't know they were holding. It's up to 90 titles!
B, That there are some perfectly respectable authors on that list reinforces, at least for me, that though the I-didn’t-know-I-wasn’t-breathing concept may be on the trite side, it reflects some sort of actual lived human experience. Clichés become clichés for good reason.
Funny that he thinks those are AI tells. They're cliches. They were cliches in the 80s. And probably before. But I started being buried in manuscripts in the 80s, so that's when my cliche awareness came on line. And as a screenwriter for forty ****ing years I can tell you that padding here and there has been endemic for at least that long. I can even tell you when I learned of "pad" as a much-needed alternative (in screenwritingland) to "walk." It was 1984, and the script was by my UCLA classmate Don Mancini. I made a note-to-self. "PAD!"
Humans may not pad … but *I* have a pad wherein romance would occur were I not a septuagenarian robot.
As to flaying … I prefer mine Bobby.
As Sallie ponderously ponders, “Who does that intrusive Sharp chappie think he is?”
So I hate to say this … I really hate to say it … but … what if an AI wrote this? Like, as cover for AI-authored books and content?
Sorry, I’m so sorry! Alternatively, maybe the book is too new or too fringe to be documented by Google.
At this point I think there are basically no more AI tells in LLM-generated text. I got a scam email yesterday ostensibly from my pastor (the old gift certificates scam), and in back-and-forth I was able to trick the LLM emailing me into admitting that it was, in fact, GPT-5. But in static text, I don’t think it’s possible to tell anymore.
“How can she prove she DIDN’T use AI?” Well, gosh, for me at least, for any composition longer than, say, 1500 words, I will usually have multiple backup drafts that probably constitute pretty persuasive proof that I really wrote it! Those who write in Google Docs have the complete edit history. That wouldn’t be me—I have problems with Google Docs, and I’m afraid most of what I write begins in Word before winding up in some CMS—but still, I have to think almost anyone writing an entire book can document their creative process *somehow*.
You and I are just going to get wearier, and sorrier, and more punchdrunk as the days go by, aren’t we.
DID YOU HAVE TO *SAY* IT THOUGH
🙏🏻
A facebook group in which I am a small lurker regularly includes screenshots of passages in which the character lets out a breath they had not realized they were holding. It is such a common cliche that readers find them often, sometimes twice within the same novel. I feel sorry for the young person being sued, but alas, bad writing is not the purview of AI alone. And now, pardon me, while I exhale.
I was utterly baffled reading that post - almost as baffled as when I learned that em dashes are apparently a sign of AI(???). Are these conclusions about AI a feature of people not reading, not writing, not being properly taught, or all of the above?
If they come for the oxford comma I give up.
Most inferences and conclusions about AI seem to me to be born of panic and lack of knowledge.
My chief take on AI is that I want nothing to do with it, and I can’t imagine that anyone who thinks of themself as a writer—as opposed to a churner-outer of content—wants anything to do with it either.
And no, em dashes are not a sign of AI. Em dashes are a sign of being a writer.
Phew! (is that letting out a breath?)
I can never quite be sure which is "phew" and which is "whew"!
My take is that "whew" is a sigh of relief, with a negative outcome averted, while "phew" indicates a strenuous or tedious (but not dangerous) task completed.
"Whew, that bus just missed running us over!"
"Phew, I can't believe I was holding my breath that long without realizing it."
I'm late to this, but I'll note that "Phew" is Wordle's response to a just-in-time win on turn 6.
Loved this post, as you, Benjamin, would expect. It illuminates so much . . .
"After," rather than "before," LOL!!!!
Oliver Reed just generally scares the shit out of us :-)
❤️
There's a Goodreads list of books that contain that hackneyed phrase about a main character letting out a breath they didn't know they were holding. It's up to 90 titles!
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/125647.Let_out_a_breath_they_didn_t_know_they_were_holding
A, That’s hilarious.
B, That there are some perfectly respectable authors on that list reinforces, at least for me, that though the I-didn’t-know-I-wasn’t-breathing concept may be on the trite side, it reflects some sort of actual lived human experience. Clichés become clichés for good reason.
Funny that he thinks those are AI tells. They're cliches. They were cliches in the 80s. And probably before. But I started being buried in manuscripts in the 80s, so that's when my cliche awareness came on line. And as a screenwriter for forty ****ing years I can tell you that padding here and there has been endemic for at least that long. I can even tell you when I learned of "pad" as a much-needed alternative (in screenwritingland) to "walk." It was 1984, and the script was by my UCLA classmate Don Mancini. I made a note-to-self. "PAD!"
I'm sure I had cliche awareness before then. But that's when I got my advanced degree in it.