this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
47 points (74.2% liked)

Technology

87469 readers
3446 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
47
Anthropic’s ‘Watermark’ Text Adulteration in Claude Is a Perversion of Writing (daringfireball.net)
submitted 1 week ago by JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] snooggums@piefed.world 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Weisberg suggested that the preference for stories labelled as being written by humans was linked to a desire for authenticity, but that people actually preferred AI-generated stories because they were easier to read and digest.

Yes, people in general prefer bland and easy to follow stories. I would bet the majority of participants in the study don't normally read short stories since moat people don't read for enjoyment. Blockbusters and the vast majority of popular movies follow predictable story beats in a clear and accessible way. Same is true for books.

AI is the McDonald's of writing and that isn't a point in its favor unless all we care about is mass consumption of regurgitated and reworded stories humans wrote originally.

[–] joe@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yes, people in general prefer bland and easy to follow stories. I would bet the majority of participants in the study don't normally read short stories since moat people don't read for enjoyment.

When confronted with data that people preferred AI writing to human writing, your reaction is to make something up about the participants? Wild.

Even if I accept that people just want to read garbage and they wouldn't know "good" writing if they saw it, so what? How does that affect anything we're discussing?

[–] XLE@piefed.social 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

When confronted with data that people preferred AI writing to human writing, your reaction is to make something up about the participants?

There is nothing wrong with their guess. The paper you linked says nearly the same thing:

One possibility (explored in more detail in Porter and Machery) is that AI-generated work is seen as easier to interpret—people generally like these works better because they feel as though they are easier to read or understand.

[–] joe@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago

Being easier to read and understand is a sign of good writing, and being easy to follow and read does not mean something is "bland".

The fact of the matter is that we have evidence that AI can write in such a way that the writing is judged better than human writing, as judged by humans. Dismissing the study by "betting" that the study participants didn't like to read is unscientific nonsense, in no way comparable to what you quoted. That's a person being confronted with facts that contradict their current beliefs and rejecting facts to maintain those beliefs.

Personally, I don't even understand the point in refusing to believe that AI can be better at humans at some tasks. What is gained by maintaining that belief?