Dear Linux enthusiasts,
In these unpredictable times (and perhaps because of them), I feel compelled to send you warm Christmas wishes. May this season bring you moments of peace and an opportunity to find positivity amidst the chaos.
Let’s celebrate the spirit of open-source collaboration and creativity that binds us together, not just as developers or users, but as a community. Whether you’re compiling kernels, tinkering with scripts, or simply enjoying the freedom of choice Linux offers, take this time to unwind and appreciate all that we share.
Here’s to a joyful, calm, and inspiring holiday season. Stay free, stay open, stay strong!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Your fellow penguin at heart.
AI structure can be pretty obvious if you know which English weapons it loves to spam. Let’s walk it through (sorry for the wall of text lmfao):
So yeah this is at least 90% OpenAI. Too fuckin’ bad.
Saved, thanks
I will have to stop manually typing ascending tricons. LOL. I have used them often in correspondence and documents. It was a technique taught in English class.
The inconsistent 2 spaces after “LOL.” shows this comment was from a human.
Only if there’s too many is it a worry. I use it now and then bc I LOVE things in threes (I’m not Ben Affleck I swear), but…
in the above, the tricolon bonanza is insane – how can you fit that many in such a short text?
You probably don’t need to cut down :)
That was really helpful. Do you have any more tips on spotting ai generated text?
Sorry for the wall of text again c:
(CLICK HERE FOR BIG WALL)
AI text as a whole is usually structured, neutral-positive to positive shallowness. It’s called slop because it’s easy to make a lot of substanceless, nutrientless goo. One common structure is
What do we spot? Sets of three, zero grammar mistakes (but useless grammar structures are allowed, but these are harder to spot), uncreative colon titles, SEO-style intros and conclusions, an odd corporate-style ethics hangup, em-dashes (the long —), and some of the stuff in that reddit link I mentioned are often giveaways.
Here’s some examples in the wild:
Playing Dumb: How Arthur Schopenhauer Explains the Benefits of Feigned Ignorance. PeopleAndMedia. has useless headings and the colon structure I mentioned. There’s also phrases like “Let’s delve” and “unexpected advantage” – ChatGPT likes pretending to be unconventional and has specific diction tics like “Here’s to a bright future!” One interesting thing is that the article uses some block quotes and links – this is rare for AI.
Why is PHP Used. robots.net. This is from a “slop site”, one that is being overrun by AI articles. Don’t read the whole thing, it’s too long. Skim first. See how many paragraphs start with words like “additionally”, “moreover”, “furthermore”, like a grade school English lit student? Furthermore (lol), look at the reasonings used:
ChatGPT-esque vocabulary is used (this is something you unfortunately get a feel for), and the reasoning isn’t very committal. Instead of evaluating some specific event deeper, the article just lists technologies and says stuff like “PHP has comprehensive and well-maintained documentation, providing in-depth explanations, examples, and guides.” So what if there’s docs? Everyone has documentation. Name something PHP docs do better or worse. Look at this paragraph (SKIM IT, don’t read deeply):
It doesn’t actually SAY ANYTHING despite its length. The paragraph can be compressed to: “CodeIgniter has a light footprint”. It doesn’t even say whether we’re talking about comparative speed, memory usage, or startup time. It’s like they paid someone (openAI) to pad word count on the ensmallening I mentioned.
Before reading something, check the date. If it’s after 2020, skims to be too long and not very deep, and has too many GPT tics (tricolons, vocab like “tapestry/delve”, the SEO shit structure), then it’s AI slop. Some readers actively avoid post-2020 articles but I can’t relate.
the term “riskless grammar” perfectly puts into words how i felt about chatgpt’s texts, every human-written text has something “wrong” with it grammar-wise, except maybe example essays by english teachers.
As an example, my previous paragraph has a lowercase I, too many commas, sentences compressed by using hyphens where they probably shouldnt go and probably some other stuff i missed.
But it still read well, at least i hope.
Most authors write their sentences their own way, and in my opinion, that’s what makes reading their books interesting. Perfect grammar is boring and no fun to read.
as a fun experiment, i asked chatgpt to rewrite my first paragraph:
“The phrase “riskless grammar” accurately captures my impression of ChatGPT’s texts. Unlike human-written content, which often contains grammatical imperfections—except perhaps for example essays by English teachers—ChatGPT’s writing maintains a level of precision and correctness.”
Kind of changed the meaning to be self-complimenting, which is funny.
edit: Normally I would have rewritten parts of this comment to make my point more clearly and be better to read, but i wanted to keep my first draft to make my point a bit better.
Errors can give away that a human typed something, but knowing proper grammar, spelling, and syntax of English is totally neutral—if not to be somewhat expected from a native speaker/typer with a lifetime to learn the language they speak (especially if we consider how many Anglophones are monolingual + educated + have access to technology like spell check meaning there is little excuse for not having English mastery).
In my education, I got a public apology from a teacher letting the class know they tried to dig up proof of plagiarism in my persuasive papers, but for the first time proved themself incorrect on a plagiarism hunch. Humans are capable of writing well.
edit: updated accordingly for clarity
Ah, I mean proper grammar as in formal, largely riskless grammar. For example, AI wouldn’t connect
with pluses, like a human would.
Not sure how I’d phrase that though. Maybe “perfect, risklessly formal grammar” as I just tried to call it? (i.e. if AI trainers consider using +‘es a “risk”, as opposed to staying formal and spick n’ span clean).
Perfect grammar is humanly possible but there is some scrutiny that can be applied to GPT-style grammar, especially in the context of the casually-toned web (where 100%ed grammar isn’t strictly necessary!).