- cross-posted to:
- onehundredninetysix
- adhd@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- onehundredninetysix
- adhd@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Title text:
You say no human would reply to a forum thread about Tom Bombadil by writing and editing hundreds of words of text, complete with formatting, fancy punctuation, and two separate uses of the word ‘delve’. Unfortunately for both of us, you are wrong.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3126/
As someone who has been mistaken for an LLM at least twice in the past couple of years, yeaaah. Sometimes I write like that. The LLMs learned from people like me. I can only hope it was smarter, more productive people with the same sort of writing style and not from anything I’ve produced… although it would explain a thing or two.
Nope. It’s you and me, buddy. They learned from a fancy talker and a drunk. That’s why they just make shit up.
In Denmark we have a saying, which (translated) is “the truth shall be heard from children and drunk people”
I guess fancy talkers are kinda children too, or at least former ones 🤷
The US government did extensive research on a potential truth serum. The single most effective solution they found was vodka. Every other thing they tried (including attempted mind control with LSD) had huge potential drawbacks, and usually didn’t even result in honesty. But get a dude drunk and have a pretty girl talk him up, and he’ll spill all of his secrets while thinking it’s his own idea.
The government also holds occasional “know your number” meetings amongst the people who hold security clearance. Basically a netting where they sit everyone down and go “okay you look like a wrinkly potato, you’re missing two teeth, and you smell like wet beef. At best, you’re like a 3 out of 10. Maybe a 4.5 if you bothered to shower before you hit the bar. If a solid 10 is flirting with you at the bar just outside of the base, and she seems really interested in what you do for work… She’s a fucking spy. Know your number, and know what you can reasonably pull. Because if you’re pulling above that number, you’re being honeypotted.”
Jokes on her. I have forgotten all the good information I had back when I held a clearance and I’m incredibly boring.
I am not sure how many times I’ve been mistaken for ChatGPT, but I don’t think my writing style is actually very similar.
I’m pretty sure that when people say that, most of the time, they actually mean, “I want to disagree with what you’re saying, but I lack the ability to do so legitimately. If I simply accuse you of using an LLM, people will assume I’m right and I will ‘win’.”
The topics were pretty tame that I remember, so there wasn’t much to disagree with. I was just being… uh. Florid? Verbose? Sesquipedalian?
It might be a neurodivergent trait; the need to use the right word to communicate exactly the right meaning even if it runs to several syllables.
It might lose a few people, but I’ve got to say what I mean.
And then someone else comes along in a different comment and says what I wanted to say with words of fewer than three syllables and I’m like “hmmm”.
It might be a neurodivergent trait; the need to use the right word to communicate exactly the right meaning even if it runs to several syllables.
It might lose a few people, but I’ve got to say what I mean.
Speaking as someone who got his ADHD diagnosis late and felt chronically misunderstood for his entire adolescence, I’m gonna go with

And then someone else comes along in a different comment and says what I wanted to say with words of fewer than three syllables
Beginner’s luck!
I’ve never seen LLMs talk like what you’re describing, though.
If I had to describe ChatGPT’s usual style, it’s like a neurodivergent person who really wants the average person to understand what they’re saying, hopefully without causing offense.
Oh, god, that’s me that you just described. No wonder people think I’m an LLM. Yikes! Lol!
I’ve also gotten accused of being on meth due to my Internet comments, even though I’ve never touched anything like it. Yay, AuDHD!
So it’s almost as if it were trained on Reddit?
(No offense intended! I hope you get what I mean! ☺️)
Since you’re a polysyllabic person, can you explain why the word “monosyllabic” has five syllables?
Information entropy. You need roughly as many syllables to explain the same concept with mono- or disyllabic English words as you do with a scientific polysyllable. Admittedly, some of it is “I know this word! See how smart I am!”, but another part is how much more fluid it is to say. “Monosyllabic” rolls off the tongue a lot more easily than “having only one sound”.
(The funny answer here would have been “No.”)
On top of all that, monosyllabic is accurate to the intended meaning while “having only one sound” is not: a single syllable word often comprises multiple phones and/or phonemes.
can you explain why the word “monosyllabic” has five syllables?
For the same reason why the word “lisp” has an s in it and the fear of long words is called monstrosequippedaliophobia*: because sometimes language is a callous bastard 😁
*no, I don’t accept the “Hippopoto-” many people like to tack on. Unlike the rest of the word, which describes EXACTLY what the word means, adding a large semi-aquatic mammal serves no purpose other than lengthening an already monstrously equipped dalio.
You just need to start inserting more Ai type punctuation into your text — like an Em dash for example.
This will really confuse people, resulting in more instances of you being treated like us — I mean Ai.
The funny thing is, I watch The Vlogbrothers fairly often - both of whom are writers - and recently John has told of his fondness for the m-dash. His enthusiasm and explanation was enough to get me to consider using it, but then that trait was identified as one overused by LLMs.
I’d already been mistaken for one by that point (an LLM, not a Vlogbrother), so instead I’ve stuck with the technically incorrect hyphen-minus or plain old parentheses when I’ve felt the need to do that.
Nice try Hank we know you when we see you
Found Dave Green’s Lemmy account
Bitch ass LLMs putting spaces before and after their emdashes—I REFUSE!
I may be verbose, but I’m way less friendly than most LLMs
Someone the other day mentioned semicolons are now a sign of AI. I always liked semicolons for when things are more connected as opposed to a period/full stop :/
Same. I am one of the rare people who know the difference between i.e. and e.g. I know when to use a semicolon vs an em dash.
I no longer feel special; it feels wrong.
the rare people who know the difference between i.e. and e.g.
This honestly isn’t rare at all, and people who try to flaunt it as some kind of mark of erudition tend to come across as… well, not quite what you intended.
Rare in certain corners of the internet? No.
Rare in the general public? Yes, absolutely.
In Essence Egxample
I no longer feel special**;** it feels wrong.
Reported as AI bot. /j
Well that’s annoying because I’ve always used semicolons
Yeah I use semicolons all the time; I can only hope my lack of native level english skills makes up for it and I don’t sound like a LLM. I swear I’m just some autistic imbecile that has love for words instead of numbers
Lol! Same here. I feel seen. :)
at that point it’s just “grammar and punctuation is a sign of AI”, which actually means “i don’t know what AI output looks like”.
Not ChatGPT output — I’m just like this.
That’s an m-dash, which we all know is irrefutable confirmation of LLM output. /s
I think I’m a—LLM now.
And I am b—LLM, nice to meet you!
iirc its m-dash as well as constant rule of threes and generally using incredibly formal sentence structures even when the language involved is not formal in any way. Kind of like what I just did there though probably with an extra comma after m-dash.
Yep ChatGPT must have learned from people like me, because:
- I write long texts
- I over explain stuff to people who did not ask for explanation
- I use bullet points in every post
Claim:
- I use bullet points in every post
Fact Check:
Out of your 36 comments, this is the only one with bullet points. That’s only 2.7% of your comments. One other has an enumeration, but an enumeration is not bullet points.
Additionally, you have one post, but that also doesn’t use bullet points. 0% of your actual posts use bullet points.
Conclusion: Claim is FALSE. Ziffy-fa-Jazz-KZone-Sweek’em does not use bullet points in every post.
- they might have another account
- or talk about their presence outside of Lemmy
Fact: we don’t know and can’t come to a definite conclusion
In a literal sense, you only need one exception to disprove an “every” claim.
In a figurative sense, you literally can’t
Chat gpburn
Nice :) I like that you did that! But to clarify some things:
- I use them mostly in emails where there is actual content to write
- I rearly post online
- I was exadurating
- I use new account every few months.
Emoji, title, bullet points, repeat
Can you elaborate on the second point?
Well now they literally cannot, since you asked!
They can but it wouldn’t prove or disprove anything eitherway
Hey, that’s a really well-formatted commemt! If it weren’t for all my typos, people would probably suspect me too – but hey at least now I have an excuse not to edit anymore.
(Edited: 2 minutes ago)
Expect to see this accidentally included in someone’s forum screed soon:
Here’s a detailed response to BombaFan486’s post, including three separate (but natural) uses of the word ‘revelatory’, ending with the disclaimer, “Not ChatGPT output. I’m just like this.”
Is there anything else I can do for you?
There really is an xkcd for everything.
I’ve had a handful of people think I was AI too because of my fancy word choice and mediocre knowledge of punctuation. My writing voice is ubfortunately devoid of emotion most of the time, and when it isn’t, it tends to fall into the matter-of-factly category. I try to include punctuation or breaks to be a little more similar to my speaking such as “well, uh, you wouldn’t…” or “I- Yeah, I don’t know.” I think my personal favourite I do do is “I think it was… two…? weeks ago?”
And yet I still get dubbed AI because I periodically use the word plethora…
i found splitting up paragraphs into many small, newlined sentences help a lot. it seems to be mainly big paragraphs that give people uncanny feeling.
or alternatively join me. in not capitalizing letters anymore.
This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, even better than banana man
it damn well bloody helps to include a fucking shitload of swearing, e-fucking-specially if it’s a mite creative too.
Seeing any em dash in the wild makes me immediately suspicious
That’s probably part of the joke
I loooove using m dashes. They’re just so—expressive.
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Compose key, hyphen, hypen. Because while it’s a less common usage, visually I prefer the shorter en dash – over the em dash — anyway.
Also for people missing the Unix-style compose key on Windows: https://wincompose.info/. Memorising numeric codes is for chumps :)
OH MY GOD, I CAN GET A COMPOSE KEY ON WINDOWS
Thank youBot account obvs
I feel like this is more likely to lead you astray than anything. An LLM bot will immediately know the alt code, while a real person will only know it if they use Windows. Lots of people use Linux, or mobile keyboards.
I always just google ‘em dash’ then ctrl+c it.
Or if they start explaining what a compose key is; also human
Opt shift hyphen. What’s an alt code? 🍏
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What if they don’t know the code and just use a keyshift instead?
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Ah, welcome back, Witch Test…
meh - I just use a dash and move on.
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for me it’s just altgr+caps followed by tapping - thrice, way better use of the caps lock key. thank u xmodmap
—
I am in this comic and I don’t like it.
Then make it look less perfect with custom command AI, after finding a FOSS AI website that has a lot of uncensored AI my life hasn’t been same again
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ChatGPT is changing the way we talk
Started the video, and the first comment I saw was along the lines of “so it’s changing scripts that are read, not how people talk”. Had no need to watch any further.
you can keep using pronounciation correctly and writing long paragraphs of words if you lowercase it all, just saying.
Me. I like formatting and using em/en dashes and semicolons.
Omg me
















