This is something that constantly gets missed by HN in discussions about AI in the arts. There's the quality of the output and the essence behind the art itself. Humans want both [1][2] but these models only provide an output. Could ChatGPT output the next IT or Lord of the Rings, probably.
However, once it's understood that it wasn't written by a human it loses all value. I use this quote by Kane Parsons a lot but I think it summarizes why humans like art.
> If I see an element of the environment has been, you know they used generative fill or whatever to change something about the scene, even if--. It just shuts the part of my brain that wants to know more about that world and wants to look for details, 'cause I would assume if they're willing to make an arbitrary choice there, they can make an arbitrary choice with literally anything.
Specifically, people like dissecting art whether its writing, a movie or an image. It could be seeing the Chekov's Gun finally fire, and going back through the pages to see the author wrote it in there earlier and you missed it. It could be speculating about the unopened questions the author deliberately left there. This is how a lot of people at least in my circles engage with art and AI provides none of that. Even if the author specifically prompts that into it, those arbitrary choices are going to be made in certain spots that just disinterests me.
1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096969892... 2: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-45202-3
I largely agree with your take on the subjective value of writing that I happen to know was generated by a machine, but that is not at all what I'm talking about here. I'm responding to the specific claim in TFA that LLMs produce low-quality output, detectable independently of whether the reader knows how it was produced:
> I am appalled at the absolute shit [LLMs] spew as prose. They always follow the same robotic cadence and cliches, and sprinkle the same tired vocabulary all around.
This claim is demonstrably untrue, and central to the author's overall thesis.