I think it might well be the case that non-native English speakers gained a benefit from LLMs that native-speakers didn’t, but I don’t think the fact there’s uneven impact means it’s wrong to disallow LLM assistance.
- At worst, we’re back in the pre-LLM situation, I guess facing the general unfairness that some peoplew grew up as native English speakers and others didn’t. - Practically, LLMs, whether they’re generated the idea or just wording, produce writing that’s often enough a bad experience that I and others struggle to read it at all, we just bounce off, and you will likely get downvoted. By and large, “could write good prose with LLM help” is a very good filter for quality. - Allowing LLM use for non-English speakers but disallowing it for other usage would be wholly impractical as a policy. Where would the line be? How long would moderators have to spend on essays trying to judge? (but in any case, the result text might be gramatically correct but still painful to read) - already the moderation burden of vetting the massive uptick in (overwhelmingly low quality AI-assisted essays) is too high and we’re going to have to automate more of it.
It’s sad to me that that with where LLMs are currently at, non-native speakers don’t get to use a tool that helps them communicate more easily, but I don’t think there’s an alternative here that’s at all viable as policy for LessWrong.
(Well, one alternative is moderator’s don’t pre-filter and then (1) the posts we’re currently filtering out would just get downvoted very hard, (2) we’d lose a lot of readers.)
I think it might well be the case that non-native English speakers gained a benefit from LLMs that native-speakers didn’t, but I don’t think the fact there’s uneven impact means it’s wrong to disallow LLM assistance.
- At worst, we’re back in the pre-LLM situation, I guess facing the general unfairness that some peoplew grew up as native English speakers and others didn’t.
- Practically, LLMs, whether they’re generated the idea or just wording, produce writing that’s often enough a bad experience that I and others struggle to read it at all, we just bounce off, and you will likely get downvoted. By and large, “could write good prose with LLM help” is a very good filter for quality.
- Allowing LLM use for non-English speakers but disallowing it for other usage would be wholly impractical as a policy. Where would the line be? How long would moderators have to spend on essays trying to judge? (but in any case, the result text might be gramatically correct but still painful to read)
- already the moderation burden of vetting the massive uptick in (overwhelmingly low quality AI-assisted essays) is too high and we’re going to have to automate more of it.
It’s sad to me that that with where LLMs are currently at, non-native speakers don’t get to use a tool that helps them communicate more easily, but I don’t think there’s an alternative here that’s at all viable as policy for LessWrong.
(Well, one alternative is moderator’s don’t pre-filter and then (1) the posts we’re currently filtering out would just get downvoted very hard, (2) we’d lose a lot of readers.)