Posts written by Chat GPT and other AI

It's fine apparently

what is mumsnet guidelines on people using it ?

This, I don’t really mind when the OP uses it to better articulate themselves, it’s when someone replies having put the OP into ChatGPT and then posts a huge lengthy reply complete with AI style bold heading and emojis. It’s waste of the earth’s resources and the time of everyone scrolling past it. If the OP wanted an AI response they would’ve posted to ChatGPT and not Mumsnet. Even “have you though about asking ChatGPT” would be a meaningful and helpful response.

The copy and paste of dross that we can all generate ourselves infuriates me. Not least because it creates more AI based content online that AI is then scraping to draw from in future responses.

It’s not just mumsnet, it’s every fucking where. It’s destroying the arts and craft spaces I attend, people using it to generate novels and then use amazon print on demand is making finding new books hard. I have one of these people in my family and they have never even attempted to learn to write fiction, they say themselves they don’t have the time and they just say chat gpt is a tool that’s unleashed their creativity.

The amount of ai generated political videos that are being shared and people who think they’re real is worrying,  every forum I use seems to have more and more posts that are very obviously more than someone using it a spell check etc, and as soon as I see “I asked chat gpt for you” I discount the answer that follows.  

People get very defensive if you ever complain about the amount of pure ai generated drivel, I have asd, adhd, dyslexia, dyscalculia along with hand mobility issues, I really can see how ai can be helpful as a tool, I know all to weep what it feels like to spend hours trying to engage in an online forum and get thoughts in order. I’ve had my spelling pounced on before and have been called thick. But it’s still a very valid point that posts that are entirely ai generated are sound the same as each other and lack personality.

One good thing, I’m spending much less time online as a result. The dead internet theory is becoming less of a theory. I’m doing art journaling and reading a lot more instead of mindless scrolling various platforms.

Linkedin is basically chatgpt talking to chatgpt now.
We don't want mn to become that

I’ve noticed a few friends on social media have started using AI for their posts, just normal posts not business ones. They sound so formal and it’s taken their personality away. One has stopped and sounds like herself again thankfully
I’m all for AI in other ways

That's helpful for that specific thread but the issue will keep coming up. It needs a coordinated response.

I read that too, and the op hasn't realised the tell tale long dashes that are clearly chatgpt, and I didn't want to tell her bc she was genuinely touched by the pp responses without recognising the AI. I really didn't know what to do, maybe I should have pointed it out but she has enough going on

In the last week I've seen someone respond to an AI post with an AI post. I'm definitely using MN less as a result of this.
I use AI myself for targeted work purposes but not for information or entertainment. It recently told me that Lemsip was illegal, for example, so you can imagine the harm it could do if a pregnant poster asks whether something needs medical attention and thinks they have been answered by a person when it's an AI post.

I love it for many things in my own life including coaching me around parenting and complex family issues but that's my own use and works for me. I am by no means anti AI. But the proliferation of AI posts on mumsnet will wreck it.

The walls of LLM text, bullet points, unrhythmic emphasis and fawning style of AI is pretty much opposite to the informal and amusing style of discourse on MN, so sticks out like a sore thumb. Sooner or later MNHQ will have to ban it, as most people dislike it and will spend less time here when it proliferates. Those people who love it, love that it is programmed to be sycophantic, but its sycophancy doesn't work second-hand, so reading what someone else has prompted it to say on MN won't scratch their itch to be pandered to.

Yes, true. But this is far less of an issue than people simply using AI to generate (fake) OPs or using it to generate a response to an OP - all you need to do is copy paste or screenshot the OP and ask AI to write a reply with zero actual human input. There is no way to know whether a poster has used AI to write a post from their own genuine input or if it's literally just an AI generated response which nobody needs or wants and will ruin the site if it goes unchecked.

I think some people just need to be more confident. I've seen AI posts where the OP has followed up with posts they've written themselves, and their language is just fine. Really bad English is very rare on Mumsnet.

I agree OP. When I see posts which are obviously written by AI I rarely even bother to read them. It's downright annoying.

That's not what I'm talking about
Mumsnet already took a stand against LLMs using mumsnet for training data (unsuccessfully I assume) but they are allowing people to post AI generated posts as if they are being written by real people. They need to develop a response to this.

Of course it would make sense for MN to allow AI companies to use these forums for training LLMs. Its the perfect source of data and would be a huge source of revenue

Can we keep this discussion open please?
We have a man posting AI written responses on a woman's thread where she is discussing being raped by her husband. It's completely inappropriate, it's a scourge. You could easily employ an algorithm to automatically hide posts that are clearly AI written. You need to take a stand at some point or the site is going to be ruined. One of the USPs of mumsnet is that it's based on genuine, authentic conversations between people, without unnecessary additions like sparkly emojis, profiles and like buttons. If you allow people to post AI generated responses you are going to wreck the ethos of the site. Please get ahead of this now.

AI rearranges their thoughts into something it thinks they want to say, and is removing the decision-making process from the poster.

but if a post is really badly written then I’ll just skip over it. I don’t think I’m alone

do you not think that’s rather judgy and pretty harsh to discard someone’s post who needs advice / wants to chat because they’re depressed / is looking to offload simply because they’re dyslexic or find expressing themselves hard for one reason or another? It’s judgy posters like that IMO that make MN unbearable, as opposed to someone using AI to formulate their thoughts.

As long as the subsequent OP replies are them, then the main post is fine tbh. If the replies are also chat GPT, then that would bother me as it’s just talking to a bot which I can do in the ChatGPT app.

"Women who are able to write well" sounds like you only want to interact with people on here who meet your exacting standards. Anyone who can't express themselves or struggles to find the words ... is out.

FWIW I prefer to live and let live, I don't see a significant number of posts being created by AI, but if it helps people to organise their thoughts (possibly some neurodiversity challenges?), then let's not exclude them.

instead ask yourself why do they use AI? What do they gain? Think beyond just your privileged world. They get to talk to people who are willing to read. They don't get jumped on because of their SPAG - have you not heard of dyslexia ?The alternative is that they are ostracised and isolated, not wanted in here because they don't make the grade. Is that a nice way to be?

Asking ChatGPT to correct your spelling and grammar is fine. Dictating a post to ChatGPT for accessibility reasons is fine

Well... yes and also kind of no, because it usually adjusts the SPAG to the American English version, and without any common English colloquialisms or figures of speech either. That's why so many people find them easy to spot.