I am not a writer. My oldest son,16, started writing short stories. He did not use AI in any aspect of the words on the page. I did however recommend that he feed his stories and ask a LLM for feedback on things that are confusing, unclear, or holes in the plot.

Not to take any words it gives but read what it says and decide if those things are true, if so, make edits. I am not saying it is a great editor but it is better than any other resource he has access to as a teenager. Yeah better than me or his mom

Have you looked for:

- Writing groups. They often have sessions that provide feedback and also help writers find/build a sense of community. Your son would also get to listen to other writers talk about their work, problems they’ve run into and overcome, and other aspects of their craft.

- School (sometimes library) writing workshops. This helps students develop bonds with their peers and helps both students: the ones giving feedback are learning to be better editors.

Both of these offer a lot of value in terms of community building and also getting feedback from people vested in the the craft of writing.

Good feedback, we live a somewhat unusual lifestyle. We are digital nomads that live on a sailboat. I think some of that is possible and I will recommend he look for some online writing groups but the places we generally sail to are countries where schools/libraries aren’t going to have those types of things. It is challenge enough flying him back to the US to take AP exams

The open question is will someone who learns this way actually develope taste and mastery. I think the answer is mixed because some will use it as a crutch but it will also be able to give them a little bit of insight beyond what they could learn by reading and inquisitive minds will be able to grow discerning.

Large Language Model, not Large Fact Model.

This is very sad.

Why? Seems like a good idea, relying on the LLM to write for you won’t develop your skills, but using it as an editor is a good middle ground. Also there’s no shame in saying an LLM is “better” than you at a task.

Creative expression is also about relationships with other people and connecting with an audience. Treating it like product optimization seems hollow and lonely. There's friction to asking another person to read and give feedback on something you wrote, but it's the kind of friction that helps you grow.

Art is fundamentally a human activity. No amount of artistic work can be delegated to a machine, or else the art is dehumanised.

This seems like it would ban drawing tablets, musical instruments, and a lot of other things which seem silly to ban.

In this particular instance the medium is not the message. or the art.

You say that as if it's a justification, not an observation.

For one, the world doesn't need to be that way, I.e. We don't need to "leave behind" anyone who doesn't immediately adopt every single piece of new technology. That's simple callousness and doesn't need to be ruthlessly obeyed.

And for two, it's provably false. What is "the future?" VR? The metaverse? Blockchain? NFTs? Hydrogen cells? Driverless cars? There has been exactly ZERO penalty for not embracing any of these, all sold to us by hucksters as "the future".

We're going to have to keep using a classic piece of technology for a while now, the Mark 1 Human Brain, to properly evaluate new technology and what its place in our society is, and we oughn't be reliant on profound-seeming but overly-simplistic quotes as that.

Be a little more discerning, and think for yourself before you lose the ability to.

There is something deeply disturbing about your attitude towards making mistake.

You think you shouldn’t give advice because your feedback is not valuable and may even cause your son to give up writing, but you have so far given no reason why AI wouldn’t. From the entire ChatGPT “glazing” accident I can also argue that the AI can also give bad feedback. Heck most mainstream models are fine tuned to sounds like a secretary that never says no.

Sorry if this sounds rude, but it feels like the real reason you ask your son to get AI feedback is to avoid being personally responsible for mistakes. You are not using AI as a tool, you are using it as an scapegoat in case anything goes wrong.

> LLMs have been trained on likely all published books, it IS more qualified than me.

It has also be trained on worthless comments on the internet, so that’s not a great indicator.

> But I never want me to be a reason he backs away from something because my feedback was wrong.

Do you want an LLM to be the reason? You can explain that your Feedback is opinionated or biased. And you know him better than any machine ever will

Exactly, I would rather read his stories and discuss them with him. My advice on anything outside of pure opinion is invalid

Having something else help doesn’t preclude reading with them - it also may have better advice. Very rarely is anyone suggesting an all or nothing approach when talking about adding a tool.

I am 6ft tall and feel like my hands are above average in size. I have a regular iPhone 16 pro. I still don’t understand how people use bigger devices.

Do they like using two hands? I can’t single hand a phone any larger without having to shift it in my hand.

I don’t want to use two hands on my phone outside of typing.

People type a lot though. It's also better for video, games, reading, general browsing. If you value one handed operation above all that though, then obviously smaller is better.

If you actually want to learn………

I have experienced multiple instances of junior devs using llm outputs without any understanding.

When I look at the PR, it is immediately obvious.

I use these tools everyday to help accelerate. But I know the limitations and can look at the output to throw certain junk away.

I feel junior devs are using it not to learn but to try to just complete shit faster. Which doesn’t actually happen because their prompts suck and their understanding of the results is bad.

Gemini deep research runs circles around OpenAI deep research. It goes way deeper and uses way more sources.

It is just crazy to me…..fuck Hamas but Israel committing genocide should be condemn by our govt, not openly supported.

It kinda is.

More and more researches are showing via brain scans that we don’t have free will. Our subconscious makes the decision before our “conscious” brain makes the choice. We think we have free will but the decision to do something was made before you “make” the choice.

We are just products of what we have experienced. What we have been trained on.

I have mild sleep apnea and my Apple Watch is the reason I figured it out. If you wear it every night, you will catch it. I have on average 1-2 events an hour. Even with that few, the Apple Watch would catch the O2 drop enough times over a month that it worried me to see my O2 drop under 90%

Impressive that it caught it. Did the apple watch catch 1-2 events per hour? Or was that a sleep study? Sleep apnea isn't usually "officially" diagnosed until you hit >5/hour, 1-2/hour isn't even "mild", it's basically "normal".

Apple Watch just caught my blood oxygen dropping. I had a legit sleep study done.

With my cpap, I normally have two 1-2 events/hour but my blood oxygen no longer drops

My FIL has been a conservative his whole life and has never voted. He immediately recognized the nazi talking points from Trump. Said Trump was going full Nazi. But it wasn’t enough to get him to register to vote and vote against a nazi

I use it for mundane shit that I don’t want to spend hours doing.

My son and I go to a lot of concerts and collect patches. Unfortunately we started collecting long after we started going to concerts.

I had a list of about 30 bands I wanted patches for.

I was able to give precise instructions on what I wanted. Deep research came back with direct links for every patch I wanted.

It took me two minutes to write up the prompt and it did all the heavy lifting.

It is as bad as it has ever been………

But border patrol has always been a bunch of small dick assholes, all the way back to Obama.

My wife and I adopted a child from another country. He was 18 months of age at the time.

We flew into LAX. We were exhausted from a long flight. We got to customs. Agents approached us and said that they had a few questions and said that I (the father) needed to collect our bags and they would escort my wife(us citizen), my oldest son (us citizen), and my youngest son(adopted foreign national) to the waiting area.

I got our bags and tried to rejoin my family. They denied me entry. Said they had questions for “them”. After an hour I started to have to raise hell because I had all the supplies for my family. Diapers. Food, etc. I was told it obviously took us a while to adopt this kid so we can wait longer.

I eventually stated that they were illegally holding two us citizens and I was going to call 911 for them to take me serious.

They acted like they didn’t know my wife and oldest wee US citizens. Bunch of bullshit. Fuck those assholes and every one of them that continues to violate our constitutional rights.

Signed

12 year US Navy Civilian.

Did the adoption agency warn you about crossing borders?

Many families with recent adoptees have terrible experiences. It’s sad, but it’s important to prepare for it.

Adoption and human trafficking can look very similar. And border guards are often assholes.

Lol they've wisened up to that, now they just take your phone in secondary. If you are a veteran they likely just see you as more of a threat.

Now imagine you had no recourse to citizenship and how terrified you would feel. Threatening to call 911 would lead to escalation of crisis rather than its opposite.

Having seen what the US gov't did to Maher Arar 20 years ago, I have never felt comfortable crossing that border since, despite being a white middle class Canadian of no suspect at all. Just place, wrong time, wrong person, and it can go so, so badly, without any recourse.

Were they doing it because they thought you were immigration illegally or because they thought this could be human trafficking situation?

I don't think either one is the case and obviously I know nothing of your situation besides what you've said, but I can understand why they might be suspicious if a couple of Americans leave the country and come back with an infant that was not part of their family when they departed.

Again, I'm not saying that I think that this is true or even that their concern is reasonable in this specific situation, just that there is another explanation for this other than power tripping racist border thugs, and depending on circumstances it may have been prudent.

Being snarky when you are holding all the power in a power imbalanced situation, is never prudent.

> all the way back to Obama.

I, a natural born US citizen, was a student in the Bush years and I'd drive up to Canada. Coming back, the US guys were always aggro and weird. I had one guy smelling my laundry.

At the time I figured it was some post 9/11 BS.

US citizen here in Michigan, grew up and currently live near the border with southwest Ontario.

For as long as I can remember it's just been known that going to Canada the border control folks are friendly, and coming back into the US is a mixed bag. Sometimes things are fine to cold, other times it's like the folks are having a bad day and taking it out on you.

And this is just me, rando US citizen without any criminal record, going to Canada for random couple-day touristy things. Seeing Toronto, Niagara Falls, hiking, etc.

I always had the impression that this is how they were trained. Like it's part of the homeland security/border agent training to act as hostile as possible. I've never had a positive interaction with an US border patrol.

Sexual harassment and assault, such as illegal strip searches and the conditions at women's detention facilities, is a common form of Immigration abuse. This comment is an important reminder of just one form of that.

Agreed, I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic. I’m afraid that the officer was simply being a sicko rather than actually “investigating”.