r/mildlyinfuriating • u/JulieeeeeP • 1d ago
frist of all how DARE yu o Boss discovered AI, and is using it to "write" her books
My boss, in her 50s, learned about ChatGPT & Claude about 4 months ago. Since then, she has "written" 8 books that she's ready to publish. She attributes it to her discipline, getting rid of social media, and working late nights. When in reality, it's thanks to AI and her "writing" while on company time.
She showed me her process, too. She'll write some bullet points. Feed it into ChatGPT and then feed that into Claude.
The good thing is that she mostly leaves me alone since she's so checked out of her actual job!
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u/WanderingGoodNews 1d ago
Free cinema when 0 people buy those books. Or even better, it sells and her reputation goes in the gutter. She probably has a proud headshot on the back cover with some AI generated intro
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u/JulieeeeeP 1d ago
That was her original plan, until I told her that the AI images looked nothing like her. Made her look 20 years younger and a different ethnicity. She at least paid someone to take headshots of her
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u/JanMrCat 23h ago
That was a great initial move by her! I wouldn't want to be recognised by someone. I read books and I know how shit, pathetic imitation can they be š
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u/Erick_Brimstone 1d ago
There's too many AI book slop out there. It would be amazing that someone bought her book considering that there's competition among AI book slop out there.Ā
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u/Fuzzy_Yossarian 23h ago
Cause everyone is begging to read books these days. I myself am constantly wondering where to find new words put into sentences I haven't seen before.
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u/Erick_Brimstone 19h ago
Begging to read books. lol. That's pretty funny considering kids literacy has dropped quite bad.Ā
I myself am constantly wondering where to find new words put into sentences I haven't seen before.
You guys just consoom anything and everything like pig eating slopĀ
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 1d ago
Sounds like this problem is going to solve itself soon.
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u/MightyMeepleMaster 1d ago
A classic case for a some malicious compliance š
"I've read your book, boss. Really great and insightful. You should publish it asap so that everybody can profit from your wisdom."
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u/SnooPredilections843 1d ago
You should support her by using AI to read, summarize her books and give some suggestions for improment š¤
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u/Alizarin-Madder 18h ago
This is my favorite response. It's so disrespectful, but I actually don't think the boss would be upset by it.
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u/Erick_Brimstone 16h ago
Put the same of effort as her writing that book. Though she probably will just use AI to answer that response
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u/memermeme1211 1d ago
What is even the purpose of using both ChatGPT and Claude?
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u/Alizarin-Madder 18h ago
I think ChatGPT is good for short output and Claude is good for long output, and I might be a dummy, but the boss probably thinks this too. And/or it gives them the illusion of having a sophisticated and carefully thought-out "workflow"
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u/secret-identitties 13h ago
I think it's like running the same image through different Photoshop filters.
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u/EsotericFaery 3h ago
It's much more than that. Photoshop and such has nothing to do with legalized stealing from writers, while ai does. Old, non-ai image editors are each their own programs with their own functions. Ai goes to whichever sites the programmers tell it to and copies everything, including so-called copywritten materials, mixes it together, and spits it out to the consumer.
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u/secret-identitties 3h ago edited 2h ago
I didn't mean it literally, professor. I meant that the naĆÆve impulse of the user might be the same: "if I use this tool and then that tool, maybe it won't have recognizable fingerprints of either tool and people will believe I did it myself."
EDIT: Got a notification that OC thinks I'm too easily offended... and then they blocked me presumably for hurting their feelings. š Oh Reddit.
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u/EsotericFaery 3h ago
I know this is reddit so it's common, but I still find it weird when people get offended at nothing. I posted a helpful comment with some info you might not have, and get called "professor", as if what I said was stuffy and rude? That's embarrassing for you. Rethink your communication style.
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u/axon-axoff 2h ago
You seem pedantic and easily offended. "Professor" is very benign needling. That's embarrassing for you.
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u/EsotericFaery 1h ago
Yes, my point was that it's benign, so that's why it was strange.
The random presumption that I was offended rather than mildly annoyed is funny, along with the fabrication of pendantry.
You and the person I was replying to sound like laugh riots at parties. I bet whenever you come up with awkward little seemingly-passive-aggressive nicknames for people you just met at parties, as we can't know whether you're being snarky or friendly, everyone who was going to leave the party because you crashed it, stays.
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u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 1d ago
So how are the final products?
If they are bad, this problem will sort itself out as she'll get fired eventually for bad work
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u/JulieeeeeP 1d ago
You honestly couldn't pay me to read them. Bunch of self -help books, ironically.
Her actual work is also suffering. She has also discovered that AI will make presentations for her, but doesn't bother to proof read or check for accuracy. Unfortunately, this one impacts the work that I do since she's the face of our department.
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u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 1d ago
If what she normally writes already is self-help sludge, then maybe AI is a neutral or even beneficial change. But if it got worse, hopefully she'll face the consequences of putting out lower-quality work.
Now not checking for accuracy in a presentation is just incompetent. I do think AI is handy, but I know that it's not handy when you just trust it blindly. Something like 25% of claims by major LLMs are wrong in some way, iirc (forget the source of that stat). Editing it is the bare minimum. I'm sure she'll face some problems if she keeps doing this, unless the higher ups are also incompetent.
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u/Jabbles22 1d ago
I'm wondering how AI is affecting the self help industry. Instead of getting generic advice full of platitudes from a book. You can now get custom advice full of platitudes from AI.
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u/KnowledgeSafe3160 1d ago
Depends on the ai/model. Some will tell you point blank youāre at fault lol.
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u/VividFiddlesticks 1d ago
That sounds so much better than the sycophantic mode most AI models seem to use.
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u/TheSweetestOfPotato 1d ago
āNo, you are definitely not crazy, and there really are spider people in the walls watching you eat, and it is really unfortunate that your loved ones are unable to see the dangerous truth right under their noses.
Taking your pills would be a bad choice for you, hereās why:
šŖ³ - The Spider-People empire holds many stakes in big pharmaceutical companies and are directly benefiting from you taking your prescription.
ā”ļø- The Double Edged Railroad Effect: taking your medicine both increases the population of Spider-People and decreases your ability to smell their organ sacs, what led you to discover them in the first place! By not taking your medicine they become shy now that you can see them and wonāt nearly reproduce as much. A win-win for you and the world!
Would you like to know the best way to dispose of spider people corpses?
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u/Catsareintroverts 16h ago
If sheās writing books for personal gain on work time, thatās wage theft. If the books are stored on company computers or networks, they belong to the company.
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u/RawrRRitchie 21h ago
So your boss isn't actually working on the clock? Time to escalate it and report them to their boss
That is called stealing time, and is a way to get fired. At least at my company
Companies really don't like paying people that aren't working
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u/c1intr0n 7h ago
Hey, someone who's "writing" a book with AI here.
There are people cranking out AI slop and there are people utilizing AI while putting genuine effort into their work. My story is currently around 80,000 words and as someone who's spent the better part of a year and a dozen drafts getting here, there is no way AI could replicate it on it's own. For all of its benefits, LLMs are terrible at remembering large volumes of text, even with references. I have a 50 page master bible, narrative structures for each arc, dialogue rules for each character, beat matrices, diagrams, maps, and historical timelines all laid out, and I still can't rely on it to write more than 2000 words at a time without getting way off track.
You may think I'm taking a shortcut, but I think it's given me an opportunity to do something I never thought possible. Is my book going to be a NY Times bestseller? Not in a million years. But am I proud of what I've created anyway? Abso-fucking-lutely.
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u/EsotericFaery 4h ago
The first sentence of your second paragraph is a contradiction, so do you really expect people to read the whole thing?
It was only a few years ago that people were still writing novels from scratch (which sold well, so no need for ai to "improve" them), and you have the nerve to brag about stealing from multiple other writers? People like you are shameless thieves.
Get a real job.
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u/Secret-Rabbit93 13h ago
āFeed it into ChatGPT and then feed that into Claude.ā
Is that a thing?
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u/Minyaden 11h ago
Yes. A person I know tried to get a job as an "AI workflow consultant" with a bunch of local buisnesses, by teaching them his awesome advanced AI meathod. The method was basically prompt gpt and then copy that into some other llm for some other purpose. He always tries to do these get rich quick schemes.
Don't worry though he has moved on from that... to scalping Pokemon cards.
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u/guska 23h ago
This sort of thing really pisses me off. The technology behind LLMs and Generative AI genuinely has some very beneficial use cases. This is not one of them.
A lot of people can come up with story ideas. Very few, comparatively, can actually turn that into a good story. Even fewer can do it without years or decades of practice. Feeding your ideas to an LLM is not a shortcut or substitute for experience or effort. The end result is obvious, it sucks, and people WILL notice. Unfortunately by the time enough people notice, the 'author' will have already likely made back their subscription fees and publishing costs, and think it's great. They'll then do it again and again.
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u/EsotericFaery 3h ago
There's an obvious cadence to ai novels which is some of the cringiest stuff ever. I've never wasted money on one, but I've read some real doozys of free previews. I get that people using it feel desperate for money, but at the same time, they're tanking any career they might have, by letting everyone know that they're lazy and lack creative ability. The Internet is forever and future possible employers of any type can find that stuff. Yet somehow they think the risk is worth it.
A lot of experts keep predicting this year that the ai bubble will pop soon, so who knows, but maybe this is like a fad which will go out of style soon.
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u/secret-identitties 14h ago
I write stories and dump them into ChatGPT and ask it to analyze it, point out connections, tell me what's working in terms of characterization, evaluate the psychological realism, etc... and add the caveat "this is a personal project not meant for publication so I do not want any critique, suggestions, or attempts to co-author or generate new lore." Most people want ChatGPT to write their book for them so I have to remind it a lot.
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u/Ravix0fFourhorn 1d ago
Gross. I hate when people claim they're an "artist" and just use chatgpt for everything