I can understand AI helps people out with their research for their post (it being one step of multiple). However, letting AI basically generate the entire post I keep finding appalling behavior. When I get some AI response to one of my posts, I feel disrespected.
I went through all the trouble to make a point, actually use my brain, and here some clown comes along which dumps the entire thread in ChatGPT and copies the result verbatim.
Those people don’t learn.
It shows total disregard for the other participants in the thread.
It shows the poster doesn’t want to put any effort in their post, but still wants to participate in the discussion.
AI lacks personality, which shows in the “work”.
At least, that’s how I feel about it. Again: I can understand that AI is part of how people come to their arguments or information, but letting it basically write entire posts is, I think, appalling.
If I want AI content, I’ll consult an AI myself, thank you.
OK, we will not do it to you.
but
you must understand that there is an art in composing an AI query… or a Google query for that matter.
Some people are more skilled at composing queries than others, and they help others by making results of their query available.
So it is not lacking in intellectual input , it is just that the brainy bit is hidden in the query composition if they simply post the result. Quite often the result is posted with comments, and I think that is better.
Strange.
My understanding of quotes is that it suppresses searching on individual words within the sentence, so there has to be an exact match on the whole sentence.
but
what quotes do to the AI Summary is a mystery. It may be that they simply give the AI engine less links to summarize.
Yes, I particularly liked the point about bring careful to identify sources it in scientific discussions
I consulted Google’s Gemini. This is what it had to say (query at the top):
I did some underlining with things I thought relevant for our discussion and the point I’m trying to make.
This is a position I agree with. Using AI as part of your process is fine with me. Blindly letting AI generate the answer for you is not OK in my opinion.
I dont thing we differ on that. Perhaps I misunderstood.There might be the odd occasion where a blind AI response could be used like giving a link without comment.
The quality of the Google Gemini answer really tops.
Dont confuse it with the Google Overview that I obtained by querying Google.
That’s it right there - I don’t think there’s any “art” involved whatsoever - I agree with the OP - it’s lazy…
I’ve seen stuff recently where there’s petitions to stop principled organisations from banning AI content - i.e. “we content creators want to do stuff with AI” (in a nutshell) - my argument being - YOU’RE NOT CONTENT CREATORS - you’re parasites…
My main issue with AI “content” is in the creative fields - I don’t have a major problem with it helping solve scientific or technical things…
There are actually people who call themselves “content creators” in their CV’s but they just using AI - there’s ZERO creativity in that…
Also - don’t get me started on the vast power suction of AI (never mind crypto) how much power they suck off the grid - its parasitic - there needs to be an active body of ethics governing the use of AI…
i think you and I mean something different by “art” in this context.
What I meant is “skill”… not necessarily creative skill, but technical skill.
Composing a google query requires some technical knowhow… eg knowing that words are "anded " together.
AI used directly? I am not sure
Agree. Content creation with AI is nonsense or worse.
What motivates people to do that. ?
In general, I assume, content creators who use AI for generating their work, are either pressured (by a boss, for example) or lazy. Sometimes it’s a combination of both.
One thing is standing out, I think: those who use AI to do their homework gain less to no experience, other than learning how to ask an AI.
Sadly, there are some misguided individuals who proudly claim that as a skill they possess… Even plonk it on their CVs! As if there’s some talent involved.
What we are seeing in this post is people reacting to the idea that anything could or should replace the activity of our brains.
That sort of reaction occurs with most technical advances… people in the past reacted to the motor car, calculators, typewriters, wireless ( ie radio) , computers, atm’s, … anything that replaces human activity with a machine.
AI at present is not quite a perfect performer… so we are rightly hearing lots of reservations about its use, and its misuse.
My attitude is ‘wait and see’. If I live long enough I may see a rather different world, with much of the drudgery done by AI driven robotics and people free to be creative.
We have come a long way from the Roman Empire based on slavery, but we have not freed everyone yet. Give AI a go.
The only difference is that AI allows people to stop thinking.
Yes, calculators and computers are nice advancements, but it cannot be argued they made us stop thinking.
On top of that AI is pretty open to abuse. In education, for example, where students let AI write their paper for them; cheating.
AI makes people dumber, not smarter. Not just by a little bit, but by a lot. AI should only be accessible to people who actually need it; scientists, where AI can do in a few minutes what would have otherwise taken days, weeks, or even months.
Things become especially interesting when stacks of forms with responses to open questions needs to be analyzed. AI would excel at this.
Change that to
cannot be argued they made us stop thinking creatively.
There is a big mental effort difference between a shop assistant calculating someone’s change in their head versus doing it on a calculator.
All technology does that. It takes more brains to drive a horse and cart , than a motor car. There is more skill in doing carpentry with hand tools, than with power tools.
There is more skill in using log tables to multiply, than in using a calculator.
and
there is more brainwork in researching a problem, than in using AI.
This says it all…
“We don’t want to outsource what makes us human to computers or to robots. We want to hang on to that and elevate that.”
About a few hours ago, an “AI engineer” (vibe coder) made a post about his project. Unfortunately, the project was entirely generated by AI, the website was entirely generated by AI, and (yes) even the post here was entirely generated by AI, even the name of the project was generated by AI.
The problem with vibe coding is that the developer often does not understand what the AI is outputting and probably has no understanding whatsoever of the language they’re coding in or programming principles, not even basic ones.
When such a project gets posted here, with a request to invest time in it, it feels quite insulting when I discover it’s all been generated by AI. The vibe coder didn’t invest any time whatsoever in his project, but expects us to invest time in it. In what universe can this be called fair?
I understand that AI can be helpful to legitimate developers and can help speed up the menial task of typing. That being said, there is a huge difference between a vibe coder and someone who actually understands what is going on in the project.
Hence I feel that vibe coded projects should immediately be deleted from these forums without questions. It’s simply an irresponsible way to create software, especially given that AI is known to introduce hallucinated code, libraries, or create insecure code.
Now, I’m not a moderator or an admin here. But the most recent AI slop project posted (the forum post has been deleted already) here had me all riled up. I’m wondering whether the policy of itsfoss regarding AI slop should be altered to net people an instant ban.
The problem Paul and I and the Admin have is that it is not always easy to determine the extent of AI use in code or in writing a post.
We tend to err on the side of caution, and to act. slowly, to try and avoid the horrible mistake of axing some genuine person.
The biggest issue with the post @xahodo referred to is that the author used AI without declaring it, plus put his own name to the work. That is plagiarism.
A person can not own work that was produced either by another person or by a machine.
Can I ask everyone to not be shy about flagging a suspicious post. It helps the moderators. It does not matter if you wrongly flag something … a flag is harmless … someone still has to make a judgement and act.
I wholeheartedly disagree. If I try to help someone with a problem and perform a search with google, find an answer and post it. That’s isn’t lazy.
If I ask AI (have it do the search) for help on a problem and post the solution. I am lazy.
Are you saying a person should response to a post only if they have first hand knowledge of the problem?
Could you or someone else please explain the different on finding a solution to a problem on the web (a search) or finding a solution on AI?
I do agree AI generated text should not be allowed or be very limited. That would take the personal interaction away form the forum.
I asked Copilot to reword my reply and make it a friendly response. Posting this type of AI generated should not be allowed. It is better written, but it is not me!
I see this differently. If I look something up on Google, find a solid
explanation, and share it, nobody calls that lazy. If I ask AI to look
up the same information and I post the answer, suddenly that is lazy?
That feels like an odd double standard.
Are we really saying people should only reply if they have first‑hand
experience with the problem? Forums work because people help each other
however they can — sometimes from personal knowledge, sometimes from
research, sometimes with tools.
I’d honestly appreciate it if someone could explain the practical
difference between finding a solution through a normal web search
and finding one through AI.
I do agree that forums shouldn’t be flooded with long, generic
AI‑generated text. That would take away the personal interaction that
makes these communities enjoyable. But using AI as a research tool —
the same way we use search engines — seems perfectly reasonable to me.
AI is not always correct. Don’t take a answer from AI or any other source at face value. Does it sound correct? Maybe I should verify or check the answer?
Like @nevj said, AI is a huge encyclopedia type of information. The web is also a huge source of information.
Perform a search on the web and get 100’s of sites you could visit. Does every site have the information you were looking for? Is the information correct on every site?
Same with AI. If in doubt, verify and even test before accepting the answer. The same as you would do with an answer form the web.
Update I just saw this topic is old so I am posting replies to an old thread.
I personally just best guess, quite often Neville and i exchange about questions or entries, i often worry I get it wrong, we had one about a week ago with a shaky screen but in the end the screen was no where near the fault and we were both ready to ditch it. Also when english is not the first language the strange wording throws up problems which can be seen as a AI thing but not always
@xahodo rejuvenated this old thread with a new reply, reacting specifically to a recent topic that has been deleted.
There is hardly any difference.
As long as we include some personal comments and an acknowleďgement of the source, using AI to help someone is fine.
Yesterday I had to deal with a new topic that was abusing AI in the extreme… but it was so real looking it was difficult for me to decide. @xahodo helped … he is clever at detecting these AI fakes.
So dont woŕry about using AI in a help reply … worry about people abusing the forum with totally inhuman material. This guy apparently generated an entire new Linux distro in about 2 weeks, including documentation, then generated his posted topic … and had the hide to put his name on it as the author.
