LLMs and the dwindling number of people who appreciate and value language

[Mary Anna]

That's a good point. It seems like the companies who are wringing their hands over this could figure that out.

[Mary Anna]

If I run across the article, I'll post it here. It was just a day or two ago.

[Mary Anna]

I still haven't had time to look for the article, but your point triggered a question I can't answer. I'm told that the algorithms don't have the kind of memory that we use for writing, They predict the next word, but they don't plan the whole piece and they don't recall what's already been written when they get further into the piece. This means that a fully LLM-written novel will not and cannot have the kind of coherent throughline that a (competently) human-written novel would. (It also calls into question whether it's actually a novel, since a novel has narrative constraints that differentiate it from a book-shaped pile of pages. I have not done a lot of reading in narratology and I haven't read a fully LLM-written novel, so I can't say much more than that.)

Anyway, when I think through how I'd go about writing, say, an email when I've been told to keep it under 200 words, it's a multi-step process. I plan what I'm going to say, I say it, I check the word-count constraint, I check to see if I said what I'd intended, and I edit accordingly. I'm not sure current models do that kind of thing very well. It may be that it's a sufficiently recursive process that such a process would multiply time and energy demands to an extent that would make writing succinctly difficult.

[jon-nyc]

I don’t mean the companies I mean the users like you or me. You can write a prompt asking to compose an email, a letter, a story, whatever and simply append ‘make it 1 page maximum’ or ‘300 words or fewer’ or whatever you want.

[Mary Anna]

Have you tried that? I don't use LLMs, so I don't know how well it would work.

[jon-nyc]

I’ve asked it for one paragraph answers before. I don’t use it for writing, I use it for learning. It’s fantastic as a subject matter expert for learning new things.

But it would certainly understand and follow such instructions like ‘keep it under 350 words’ or ‘no more than 2 pages’.

[Mary Anna]

It would seem like a simple enough instruction.

[Daniel]

I'm reading this thread carefully when I have time to concentrate.

I will say that oral communication among humans, later recorded by symbols, is at the root of all of human society and culture.

The fact that the educational system is being destroyed- by design- should make any rational person pause, IMO.

[jon-nyc]

@Mary-Anna said:

@Bernard I agree with everything you wrote, Bernard.

They have indeed swiped a good chunk of human effort. I think the Anthropic settlement which, although it was a billion-and-a-half dollars, feels like they're throwing us a bone. When it came through, I thought that perhaps all the AI companies were going to at least have to throw us a bone, but I see no sign of it.

Did the other big AI models train on pirated copies too?

[Mary Anna]

I believe they all trained on pirated work, because there's no other way to get enough material (other than obeying the law and paying for it), but I can't say I'm absolutely certain about that. It's hard to be sure of your sources these days.

I do know there are other lawsuits, but they seem to turn on different fine points of copyright law, so winning the Anthropic one doesn't mean that they will all go the same way. There was a big news story a few months ago saying that Meta didn't just train on pirated databases, but it was revealed in discovery that they had discussed it by email (or text, but anyway, it was in writing), and went so far as to talk about destroying the databases, thus confirming that they did it and knew it was illegal. But then the news cycle moved on and I've heard nothing else. And, of course, I have to trust the reporting that this was true, which is a problem these days.

We've been told that the Anthropic payout is coming in installments and the first checks will go out in November. I don't even know yet how much mine is supposed to be, but I guess I'll know a little more then.

[jon-nyc]

This post is deleted!

[jon-nyc]

@Mary-Anna said:

We've been told that the Anthropic payout is coming in installments and the first checks will go out in November. I don't even know yet how much mine is supposed to be, but I guess I'll know a little more then.

From what I’ve read it’s 3k per in-scope book but split with the publisher. So 1500? I don’t remember if the 3k number is net of attorney fees or if that has to get taken out of the 3k before splitting it.

[Mary Anna]

The presumption in the writing community is that attorney's fees will be taken out of the $3000, but I haven't seen that confirmed. I also have not seen anything confirming how much the attorney's fees will be.

Splitting the payout with the publisher 50/50 seems to be the default. I looked over my contracts to see whether this was true for me. My subsidiary rights clauses specify a 50/50 split for most rights sales, but I didn't see anything on the list of specified rights that I thought definitely applied in this case. My agent, however, said that the 50/50 split applied in my case, so that's what I put on my claim, since she negotiated the contracts and presumably knows. (Interestingly, I know of no route for agents to be paid. My agent has gotten her 15% for things like audiobook sales, but I don't think this is the case with the Anthropic settlement.)

Some publishers, including big ones like Wiley, are trying to take 100%, which is unconscionable. Those writers' claims, and those of writers who didn't go with the 50/50 default, are finding that their claims are being disputed by their publishers. Will this result in lawyers' fees eating the claims up? Nobody knows, but it will certainly delay their checks. My 50/50 claims were not disputed, so I am supposed to receive my first payment in December, but I will believe it when the checks are in my hand.