AI generated thread titles

[ActuallyComfortable]

Why is MN nudging posters to use AI generated thread titles? Numerous threads have titles which are misleading once you read the full OP, or which continue to put a different slant on the opening post until the poster explains they "let Mumsnet choose the title" or "went with the AI title".

Why is AI being used in this pointless and misleading way? Surely it's AI for the sake of it.

I agree. And another example of MNHQ believing that the site needs dumbing down.

Yes, they can be on the crap side, can't they?

Hi all,

Thanks for your feedback, we'll look into this.

This feature is designed to help people write thread titles, which was identified as a point of friction when we spoke to users about creating threads. The suggested title is editable once selected and can be completely ignored if you prefer to write your own.

More descriptive titles tend to give threads more traction, so we want to help give people's posts the best chance of being seen on the site and discovered through search.

We definitely do not want to make titles misleading. If you do spot that please report them and we will look into whether we can improve the system further. Or you can share a link to the thread here and we can take a look.

There are a lot of threads where the title says one thing but the OP says something a bit different and everyone replies to the title not the (usually more detailed) OP. I am guessing this is because of the AI. I don’t start many threads but it can’t be that hard to write a title, surely.

Can't we turn it off, so we can choose never to have an AI generated title?

You can choose never to use AI titles on your own threads by ignoring the suggestions. You can't stop other people using them.

Exactly, and on several threads I've been on recently another poster writes something along the lines of "I think you're getting confusing answers because if the title" and the OP has clarified with "I just went with the AI title" or "I let Mumsnet choose the title".

Thanks.

That takes dumbing down to a new level - did Mumsnet honestly get feedback that people were struggling to write their own titles despite being able to write the post itself?

I don't really want to trawl though looking for the posts where this has explicitly been spelled out by the OP but will report next time. However I don't think reporting (as for a troll) is really the answer - this seems a totally superfluous thing to offer, which people use because it's there, to the detriment of the boards, but surely don't benefit from (if they can type a post they can give it a title that actually relates to their own issue).

Creating thread titles is "a point of friction"? Really?

If people can't be bothered to think of a suitable title why on earth should anyone bother to respond?

Hard agree.

I think I meant turn it off by default.
Then people who really can never think of a title can use it and everyone else won't accidentally use a misleading title.

Hard agree. It’s too easy to accidentally tap the AI title and can be difficult to subsequently get rid of it.

AI on all threads is really starting to piss me off.

What happened to the idea that AI uses loads of energy and water? We're in a fucking drought with water shortages and yet MN thinks using AI is great? Why not make a stand, from what I've seen most MN users hate the increased use of AI by posters?

They are everywhere.

I agree that the AI tool is stupid but I can see that it's possibly useful to stupid people. There has been a reduction in the number of really stupid thread titles like "Just wondering?" Or "What should I do?" Or even a simple "AIBU?" Where you have to click on the thread to find out WTF it is about

@AmeliaPMumsnet could you make the AI a bit more sophisticated and give it parameters to be hidden at first and compare the normal human-generated thread title with the body of the OP, and only pop up if someone stupid is trying to start a thread with a stupid title that doesn't give a clue what the thread is about? It would be genuinely useful if it left most of us alone and only popped up when needed to say "your thread title doesn't tell people what your thread is about, how about changing it to this?" Or if (as sometimes happens) someone accidentally leaves out a key negative like "not" so that the title appears to be in complete contradiction to the op, where it coukd say "your thread title doesn't seem to fit with the sense of the whole OP, would this be a better title?"

I hate having a suggestion made when I am perfectly capable of writing my own title. I know I can theoretically ignore it but it's an extra hurdle I could do without. However, I can't make other people think about it properly.