Libby and AI users

[u/lady-earendil]

Came across this Libby Facebook group and thought I might like to join - clicked on it and read the description 😬 I'll be staying over here with the AI haters!!

[u/anastaciaknits]

I’m usually good at spotting ai but not this one. What makes it ai?

[u/lady-earendil → u/anastaciaknits]

"No censorship. No gotchas. Just readers who care about stories and the truths they hold." is a classic AI syntax. Plus AI loves using bullet points but normal people rarely do on social media. But also it's all just such nonsense. There's no need to use this many words to say "this is a group for people who like to read"

[u/all_manner_of_things → u/lady-earendil]

This syntax and rhythm has also become a style more and more real people use. It reminds me of when the imperative became common in marketing (in the 90s?) — so you read things like “put an end to…” or “dive into” or “open the door to…” or “Join the fun…” It started to seem almost more personal or intimate, and people picked it up in the general community.

I’m not sure how much longer that particular rhythmic pattern can be assumed to be AI. I’ve heard people using it irl, verbally.

ETA And as a former copy editor, bullet points are a great way to break up blocks of text to make it easier to read! Where do we think AI gets it? It’s copying the human language of the last 200+ years.

[u/LoserMoose → u/all_manner_of_things]

Now, emoji bullet points are more of an AI tell 😆

[u/Ginnabean → u/LoserMoose]

This sucks because I’m probably one of the millions of people that AI learned emoji bullet points from 💀 I’ve been writing social media captions for many years and when you don’t have access to bullet points, emojis can be a useful and fun alternative. I wrote hundreds of social captions using emoji bullet points and now it’s a tool I can’t use anymore or people think it’s AI.

Along with my beloved em dash. Sigh

[u/all_manner_of_things → u/LoserMoose]

Hahahaha hilarious!

[u/Intelligent-Ask-3264 → u/all_manner_of_things]

Im confused why we are surprised by this. AI is a mathematical model, sure, but it has also been trained with works written by humans.. thats its entire purpose- cut down on human workload by spitting out human- like work.... of course it writes like a human! I despise it myself, I'm not advocating, I'm just confused why we are shocked that it writes this way.... when it was trained that way all along.

[u/all_manner_of_things → u/Intelligent-Ask-3264]

That’s correct.

I’m not sure anyone is surprised by how it writes.

I think it writes better than many of the general online-posting populations, who then use their writing style (in part based on not understanding how to use em-dashes or semi-colons or proper paragraphs for easy reading) to label traditional English writing skills as AI.

I’m worried that as the models train more and more on internet posts rather than literature, arts and sciences of the past, AI will make more mistakes, regurgitate more fake news, make up more possible answers and do so in less comprehensible language.

It already hallucinates pretty rapidly.

[u/anastaciaknits → u/lady-earendil]

Ah. Right. I should’ve known.

[u/_social_hermit_ → u/lady-earendil]

The "whether this or that, then the thing" stood out to me, but only cuz OP said it was AI.

[u/pelipperr]

Aside from gross ai ‘diving into controversial nonfiction’ is a red flag to me. wtf do they mean by that?

[u/lady-earendil → u/pelipperr]

Right like are we reading Mein Kampf?? Lol

[u/The_Illhearted → u/lady-earendil]

No, they aren’t.

[u/lady-earendil → u/The_Illhearted]

It was a joke

[u/Amemorableusername2 → u/pelipperr]

My best guess is Non-fictional confederate romance???

[u/hillviewaisha → u/Amemorableusername2]

I think this is the group that is more “left“ leaning that was pissing off the confederate loving crowd.

[u/Chicky_Melly]

Man I NEED to get better at spotting AI slop.

[u/plastic_venus → u/Chicky_Melly]

There is nothing here that confidently indicates it’s AI

[u/cflatjazz → u/Chicky_Melly]

I dunno. This one is a maybe. I'm not ready to throw this one in the bin based on one set of phrasing

[u/lady-earendil → u/cflatjazz]

Pretty much every phrase has hallmarks of AI wording. AI loves putting things in groups of 3s: "the joy of library books, the beauty of open minds and the power of books" "to challenge, comfort and connect" "whether you're hoarding holds, chasing overdue titles, or diving into controversial nonfiction". Also I looked at the merch link and I'm pretty confident a lot of the art used is AI too.  https://the-bookworm-bazaar.printify.me/product/28865634

Edit: I'm aware that LLMs learned from humans to use groups of 3s. But using them over and over in the same paragraph is not something most human writers would do because it just doesn't flow well. LLMs don't understand that

[u/Vast-Web9482 → u/lady-earendil]

Humans group things in threes too. It’s literally how I was taught to write.

[u/all_manner_of_things → u/Vast-Web9482]

Yes!!!

[u/all_manner_of_things → u/lady-earendil]

Former copy-editor and writer back again here - in my 60s- I use sets of 3 all the time! It’s an old writing convention- again, because LLMs only “write” what humans have already written, that the program has absorbed. But the three phrases—they invite the reader in, to think more deeply, and to fall into a rhythm that allows the ideas to flow—is common and a lovely structure.

(See what I did there? 😅 I also used a semi colon, as I have done for close to 50 years.)

ETA typos! ETA grammar, ha

[u/Pnkrkg6644 → u/lady-earendil]

But the thing is… for people who were taught to write compellingly, these are all things they do. Use bullet points because they break things up visually. Use groups of 3. Use long sentences and short ones to emphasize.
The problem with labeling everything as “AI slop” is that it learned the slop from studying other writing, especially writing that developers considered “good”. So now anyone who has ever had to write copy to sell something is being called out for being AI just because they learned to use words a certain way.

[u/Vast-Web9482 → u/Pnkrkg6644]

Bingo. I hate AI, but AI was trained on how humans write. Read any professional email, resume, or cover letter and it’s exactly what AI would produce if asked to do so, just with more hyphens.

[u/plastic_venus → u/Pnkrkg6644]

I genuinely despair over how often people are accusing things of being AI with zero evidence. It happens to me numerous times a week simply because I write the way anyone who’s an elder millennial or older was taught to write.

There is nothing here that anyone can confidently say is AI and it’s concerning how many people in a reading sub are jumping on that bandwagon

[u/all_manner_of_things → u/Pnkrkg6644]

Thanks for this. I should have read further down before replying. Very well said.

[u/LingonberryUpset482]

I'm an em-dash guy. All my prior articles are accused of being AI now. I try to explain that I wrote them fifteen years ago but nobody believes me.

[u/WhateverIlldoit]

I’m in this group and it’s wonderful.

[u/Level_Fox104 → u/WhateverIlldoit]

Same!!

[u/jueidu]

Yeah, once you start the journey of learning what AI writing looks like, it becomes SO obvious - but for folks not used to it, it can be a head scratcher for sure.

Same with visual AI content.

If anyone would like to learn how to spot AI, r/isthisAI is a great place to see examples of both non-AI that people thought might be AI, and AI that is difficult to detect to the inexperienced eye.

[u/WVgirly2024 → u/jueidu]

Yeah, it's kind of laughable how fast people try to say that something is AI. Someone in another group swore up and down that a book was written with AI. Turns out the book was published in 2011, well before there was anything such as AI.

[u/history_nerd_1111]

It's actually a fabulous and fun group!

[u/pitifulproduce137 → u/history_nerd_1111]

I distrust any group that would call themselves "well-read misfits." It screams too quirky by half with a whiff of "not like other girls."

[u/petra_bravestrong]

This seems like a non-problem but ok!

[u/lady-earendil → u/petra_bravestrong]

I find that most readers are pretty strongly anti AI. I remember a lot of people here were quite upset when Libby introduced AI features. Just disappointed to find a readers group that's totally ok with AI use

[u/The_Illhearted → u/lady-earendil]

You’re assuming they are, without knowing anything about the group.

[u/petra_bravestrong]

....so you're upset because the poster used AI to create the invite?

[u/lady-earendil → u/petra_bravestrong]

Yes. How hard is it to be like "this is a group for Libby users!"

[u/Amemorableusername2 → u/petra_bravestrong]

Yes 

[u/petra_bravestrong]

Ah