The massive false positive rate of general AI detectors had a devastating effect on freelance writer Michael Berben: being falsely accused of cheating, he lost his job.
  • Queen HawlSeraEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    This reminds me of a science fiction setting in which the human race basically halted all media production because an AI was created that scanned pieces of literature to see if any passages themes, characters, or plot points were based on anything from a pre-existing work owned by a major company. Which basically everything is going to be because absolutely nothing is ever created in a vacuum.

    So no one could write anymore without facing a major lawsuit and having an AI basically tell the judge that you’re guilty as fuck

  • @[email protected]English
    2•1 year ago

    How the fuck can people use these BS detectors when it has been proven probably a thousand times that it can’t differentiate anything?

    The Constitution, Bible, probably Mein Kampf and Uncle Tom too would all be “made by AI” if we treated these programs as gospel.

    And these text AI’s are never going away, the instant one actually can hold a character for an entire book-length, romance novels are in real trouble at bare minimum, soon almost everyone will be having to compete with a thousand fake authors just to make it somewhere. It’ll be interesting to see…

  • @chemical_cutthroatEnglish
    -1•1 year ago

    So, they aren’t using his real name, and they aren’t naming the company that fired him. I’ll take this with a grain of salt until facts are presented. For an article about journalism, there is a shocking lack of it.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•1 year ago

      There’s a pretty clear need for anonymity here and the client isn’t necessarily a company. Based on a large number of reports I’ve seen around social media of the same stuff happening to students, I believe the anecdote, even if they aren’t providing evidence it happened.

      • @chemical_cutthroatEnglish
        -1•1 year ago

        Eh, I’m not so sure. Unless he signed some kind of NDA, he’s not any any real danger of legal repercussion, and the fact that he’s freelance with only 200 articles after 3 years tells me that this is a side gig and not his full time job. This comes off as band-wagoning at best, and fear-mongering bullshit at worst. Maybe there is a grain of truth in it, but I’m not going to take this at face value. There is way too much anti-AI rhetoric going around right now for me to just openly accept it as anything more than clickbait.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•1 year ago

          When I was doing freelance work there would be no way in hell I would consent to a non-anonymous interview about getting fired where they say my name and my client’s name, doesn’t matter if it’s a side gig that’s just dumb. Honestly I wouldn’t do it even if they said it was anonymous.

          • @chemical_cutthroatEnglish
            1•1 year ago

            Sure, but this doesn’t sound like he was reached out to by the author of the article. It sounds like he came to the author and told him his story. However you want to view it, it’s your prerogative, but it sets off my bullshit-ometer.

            Freelance

            1 article a week

            Fired without warning

            Blames the current anti-artist zeitgeist

            Comes to blogger of a portfolio website to tell his story

            Refuses to elaborate

            It just feels like clickbait to me. Authory wanted to drive traffic and appeal to the current trend of the unemployed artist who blames AI for their woes, when really, they just aren’t as good as they think they are. Even the title is atrocious. “AI DETECTORS ARE DESTROYING INNOCENT WRITERS’ LIVELIHOODS, RAVAGING YOUR WIVES, AND BURNING THE COUNTRYSIDE.” Dey terk uhr jerbs!