I have various thoughts on the actual topic here that I might post later, but for now I wanted to quickly ask: did you write this collaboratively with an LLM chatbot? And if so, what was the division of labor between you and the LLM? (I’m not trying to “catch” you posting AI writing, here, I’m just curious whether my gut sense is right or not.)
The first section about the boarding school feels especially LLM-esque to me, with its repeated use of the “not X but Y” construction (“it wasn’t justice—it was logistics,” “isn’t her rebellion, but her sadness”), the way it’s crammed with striking details that feel made-to-order for the story’s themes (“She never fed her horse,” “She cried while decorating planners and making gingerbread houses”), its very rapid pace that never stops to dwell on any given topic for long, its use of the name “Aria”[1], etc.
(There are some other features of the first section that are weighting heavily in my judgment here but are harder to describe in words… there’s something about the cadence, I guess? And also the… oddly detached perspective of the narrator? And the use of a somewhat precious/cutesy tone in spite of the heavy subject matter? And some other stuff too.)
I apologize for butting in to ask something totally unrelated to the substance of the essay—I just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to get feedback about how well my inner “AI writing detector” is functioning.
Like “Elara” and “Voss,” this is one of those names that recent chatbot LLMs very often use for fictional characters, even though they’re relatively rare in real life and in non-LLM-written fiction.
If I instead search for both “Jessica” and “Elara,” I get hardly any results -- and even fewer AI-generated results—despite the fact that Jessica is ~400x more common than Aria in the U.S. Which shows that these results are not just determined by strong AI-Elara link on its own.
Hi! Very quickly, yes, I use LLMs quite a bit to iterate on my writing. That said, sections 2 and 3 were more AI-assisted than section 1. The details in section 1 come from a particular experience of girlhood. I appreciate the curiosity!
I think Aria is a very pretty name—it reminds me of pretty music. I say we keep Aria for ourselves. The AIs can have Elara and Voss.
I would love to hear your other thoughts if you feel like sharing them!
Like “Elara” and “Voss,” this is one of those names that recent chatbot LLMs very often use for fictional characters, even though they’re relatively rare in real life and in non-LLM-written fiction.
… “Voss”, really? Do you happen to know why that is? (This guy come to mind immediately; is there some other fictional “Voss” who could be the culprit?)
I have various thoughts on the actual topic here that I might post later, but for now I wanted to quickly ask: did you write this collaboratively with an LLM chatbot? And if so, what was the division of labor between you and the LLM? (I’m not trying to “catch” you posting AI writing, here, I’m just curious whether my gut sense is right or not.)
The first section about the boarding school feels especially LLM-esque to me, with its repeated use of the “not X but Y” construction (“it wasn’t justice—it was logistics,” “isn’t her rebellion, but her sadness”), the way it’s crammed with striking details that feel made-to-order for the story’s themes (“She never fed her horse,” “She cried while decorating planners and making gingerbread houses”), its very rapid pace that never stops to dwell on any given topic for long, its use of the name “Aria”[1], etc.
(There are some other features of the first section that are weighting heavily in my judgment here but are harder to describe in words… there’s something about the cadence, I guess? And also the… oddly detached perspective of the narrator? And the use of a somewhat precious/cutesy tone in spite of the heavy subject matter? And some other stuff too.)
I apologize for butting in to ask something totally unrelated to the substance of the essay—I just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to get feedback about how well my inner “AI writing detector” is functioning.
Like “Elara” and “Voss,” this is one of those names that recent chatbot LLMs very often use for fictional characters, even though they’re relatively rare in real life and in non-LLM-written fiction.
As a quick demonstration, try searching for tweets that contain both “Aria” and “Elara.” When I did that just now, it turned up a ton of obviously AI-generated content, including several posts from the Grok account.
If I instead search for both “Jessica” and “Elara,” I get hardly any results -- and even fewer AI-generated results—despite the fact that Jessica is ~400x more common than Aria in the U.S. Which shows that these results are not just determined by strong AI-Elara link on its own.
Hi! Very quickly, yes, I use LLMs quite a bit to iterate on my writing. That said, sections 2 and 3 were more AI-assisted than section 1. The details in section 1 come from a particular experience of girlhood. I appreciate the curiosity!
I think Aria is a very pretty name—it reminds me of pretty music. I say we keep Aria for ourselves. The AIs can have Elara and Voss.
I would love to hear your other thoughts if you feel like sharing them!
… “Voss”, really? Do you happen to know why that is? (This guy come to mind immediately; is there some other fictional “Voss” who could be the culprit?)
I don’t know why Voss or Sarah Chen, or any of these other names are so popular with LLMs, but I can attest that I have seen a lot of “Voss” as well.