6 hours ago
AI warning: This is another thread about AIs and their effect on writing (including poetry), not *by* an AI, as far as I know.
I recently read a news story in which Anthropic, developer of AIs such as Claude, is planning to include "code" in Claude's output which - though invisible to human readers - would allow Claude to determine if a written document had been written by Claude. It was claimed that this signature would be unaffected by typography, file format, etc., and could be recognized (by Claude) even in incomplete samples of text.
First off, the motivations are obvious: judges will only need to run electronically submitted legal documents through Claude to find out if the AI had created them (with severe consequences for the parties filing them). The same for publishers, editors, professors, and Hollywood producers.
Second fork: of course this aspect of Claude's services would motivate courts, producers, etc., to "hire" Claude - to the benefit of Anthropic.
Third fork: this would also motivate even slightly sketchy writers *not* to use Claude specifically - the same way law firms refuse to use Word™ due to its tendency to hide comments, approvals, and old drafts in the file. In a roundabout way, this could actually increase trust... a sort of public service by Anthropic even among communities that don't hire them... the way concealed firearm carriers benefit those who don't: deterrence.
Question: how does/will this affect (unassisted) writers, and poets in particular? Does it?
In case it may seem poetry is too short for a "signature" like this to fit, a thought on what it might involve. Not linguistic tics, but easily (for a massive machine) followed rules. For example, "From the tenth sentence on, every prime-numbered sentence will contain a prime number of words." I think this would be undetectable and (since it effectively counts spaces instead of syllables) workable, especially for long documents. Remember, it's the machine (with its resources) that has to conform and detect, not a person who can't look at the whole document as he composes it. The actual rule could be more complicated (ignoring sentences, for example).
I recently read a news story in which Anthropic, developer of AIs such as Claude, is planning to include "code" in Claude's output which - though invisible to human readers - would allow Claude to determine if a written document had been written by Claude. It was claimed that this signature would be unaffected by typography, file format, etc., and could be recognized (by Claude) even in incomplete samples of text.
First off, the motivations are obvious: judges will only need to run electronically submitted legal documents through Claude to find out if the AI had created them (with severe consequences for the parties filing them). The same for publishers, editors, professors, and Hollywood producers.
Second fork: of course this aspect of Claude's services would motivate courts, producers, etc., to "hire" Claude - to the benefit of Anthropic.
Third fork: this would also motivate even slightly sketchy writers *not* to use Claude specifically - the same way law firms refuse to use Word™ due to its tendency to hide comments, approvals, and old drafts in the file. In a roundabout way, this could actually increase trust... a sort of public service by Anthropic even among communities that don't hire them... the way concealed firearm carriers benefit those who don't: deterrence.
Question: how does/will this affect (unassisted) writers, and poets in particular? Does it?
In case it may seem poetry is too short for a "signature" like this to fit, a thought on what it might involve. Not linguistic tics, but easily (for a massive machine) followed rules. For example, "From the tenth sentence on, every prime-numbered sentence will contain a prime number of words." I think this would be undetectable and (since it effectively counts spaces instead of syllables) workable, especially for long documents. Remember, it's the machine (with its resources) that has to conform and detect, not a person who can't look at the whole document as he composes it. The actual rule could be more complicated (ignoring sentences, for example).
Non-practicing atheist