These people's writing is usually incoherent and they are very proud of it. If you've ever read a bad new-age self-help book you've probably encountered writing like this.
Good writers understand that writing is about communication. The initial act of writing (ie, word puke) is worthless. What matters most is a piece of writing's ability to communicate clearly.
This writing is usually pleasant, concise, and clear.
There's something to the idea that if the writer is writing with the intention of publishing it, that should be edited. But if you're writing for yourself, and happen to simply keep your writings somewhere public, some other person's desire for you to edit more is a measurement of that other person's feeling of entitlement.
I have about as much desire to read some publisher's edited version of Anne Frank's diary as you appear to have to read the original.
> But the manuscript that Otto Frank pitched to Dutch editors didn’t contain his daughter’s entire diary. Anne herself had begun editing large swathes of her diary with publication in mind after hearing a radio broadcast that called on Dutch people to preserve diaries and other war documents. Otto respected some of those editorial decisions, but overlooked others – for example, he included material about Anne’s crush on annexe dweller Peter van Pels.
https://www.history.com/articles/anne-frank-diary-hidden-pag...
> Frank’s candid words on sex didn’t make it into the first published diary, which appeared in English in 1952. Though Anne herself edited her diary with an eye to publication, the book—released eight years after her death from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at age 15—contained additional cuts. These were only partially restored in 1986, when a critical edition of her diary was published. Then, in 1995, an even less censored version, including a passage on Frank’s own body previously withheld by her father, was published.
https://research.annefrank.org/en/gebeurtenissen/b0725097-67...
> In response to Minister Bolkestein's appeal on 28 March 1944 on Radio Oranje to keep wartime diaries and letters, Anne Frank decided to rewrite her diary into a novel: "Imagine how interesting it would be if I published a novel of the Secret Annex, from the title alone people would think it was a detective novel."
> Anne rewrote and edited her diary on loose sheets of duplicator paper. On Saturday 20 May 1944, she wrote: "Dear Kitty, At last after much contemplation I have begun my 'the Secret Annex', in my head it is already as finished as it can be, but in reality it will be a lot slower, if it ever gets finished at all." Anne's rewritten version, known as Version B, ends with the diary entry of 29 March 1944.
There is no 'unedited' version of Anne's diary, as Anne herself intentionally edited and re-edited her work during her time in the Annex. A remarkable young woman. What was published to readers are various versions that have additionally been further somewhat edited by others and in places censored, with the trend being towards gradually less censorship over time.
"Good writers" are... a matter of taste
He edited his work heavily to achieve just the stream of consciousness feel he wanted.
I think "some people" might be underselling it, as evidenced by the borderline innumerable fiction books in existence?
> and as such, it's a quite selfish activity
"quite" seems a bit harsh, surely "writing because you enjoy it" is pretty far down the list of all "selfish" activities? I'd imagine many authors also write because they think others will enjoy their works.
Though, I must admit, I'm not sure exactly what you meant by "new-age self-help" books, so I took a guess.
They're using it as a pejorative, so it's a blanket term meaning "books with ideas I don't understand and therefore dislike".
This style of writing is deceptively simple, of course, and devilishly difficult to produce.
- the article, clearly expressing the intent of its own mistakes and contextualizing them in the era of LLM-borne "perfect" text
This is not the beauty of writing. Everyone's writing needs editing. The "raw unedited emotions" are not something anyone wants to read, and this article is no exception.
The author tells us that English is their fourth language, which is certainly impressive. However their writing is messy and poorly constructed. It's difficult to read, and not at all enjoyable. The choice is not between doggerel like this, and LLM empty perfection.
I guess it's OK if you enjoy reading someone expressing himself without communicating anything valuable and well produced. It's kind of like people who enjoy stream-of-consciousness poetry or unhinged personal blog posts. It's fine.
But most of us (I think) read for our own gain, expecting substantial / stimulating text that is ideally well researched and serves a clear purpose.
Something like that needs an editor, effective proofreading, and quite some time of work and rework.
Five years ago, I probably would have been annoyed by the same.
I have nothing against LLMs for proofreading. I'm actually using one now to fix my grammar because English is my second language. I won't let it change my points, though... it's just for cleaning up without having to spend 3x the time on a comment, editing out minor mistakes.
I'm aware this might make my posts feel less natural, but I think it's a good middle ground.
This is a specifically funny question because every Masaokis video is better than every MrBeast video
Compare thoughts on this notion of AI and authenticity in writing to the way things like auto-tuners and sequencers have been perceived in the music world.
Like there are some esoteric corners of the Jazz space where musicians seem to try to emulate a sequencing machine and play perfect notes, will there be writers trying to emulate the clean AI performance? :-/
I kind of hope the anti-AI-writing stuff passes and we can focus on what makes writing good or bad again instead of “this is clearly AI” posted in response to every blog. I actually don’t care if it’s AI but I do care if it’s worth reading and pleasant to read.
I do care if it's AI. It makes it automatically not worth reading imo
Why would I put effort into reading something that had no effort put in by the author?
This guy needs an editor, AI or otherwise.