The study makes it clear that this is a very narrow definition of that "capacity." But to the extent this study makes a possible victory against AI companies on copyright grounds I'm for it. I may make some money on my fiction writing for once if there's enough settlements.

For sure. A push against accepting LLM output as simulated human writing is a must, no matter how convincing that simulation may become.

If the research can show that LLMs are copying machines that can replace the market for specific authors, that means they have the potential to infringe on copyright.

I'll note that the study is designed to try to measure to what extent LLMs generate text that may infringe on the copyrights of authors by generating texts that are derivative in a recognizable way. This is a key issue in the current suits, and in that sense, the results are good news for authors.

Yes. Well put.

The results of these efforts have literally no currency in the market of writing, but it's still worth doing. The fact that we can tune an LLM to make a faithful recombination of words that reflect the output of a well-known or successful writer is utterly meaningless.

I still write fiction even though I cannot make any money or garner attention from it because it is a unique way to mine my experience and perceptions of the world. This process isn't gathering words into a pattern it's - in a way - meditative and often in a subconscious way.

I've been writing fiction with some degree of seriousness for more than 30 years. Professionally speaking, I am of very limited accomplishment (out of print novel, story collection that's sold a few hundred copies), but every week I spend at least a little time noodling on something or other.

You disagree like a lawyer prosecuting an argument as opposed to a co-interlocutor seeking shared insights, and it is unpleasant for me, and not something I've ever been interested in. I didn't go to law school for a reason.

I'm aware of the history. I write about it one of my books about fostering learning inside a system that structurally privileges schooling. Today is not back then.

You also have a bad habit of treating me like an idiot, so I'm going to just mute you for a bit if you don't mind.

I know it well.

I would hate a world that defines us by our academic ability, maybe because I would be significantly disadvantaged, but also because it feels like a very cramped world.

The assumption that the alternative will be de facto worse is simply not supported by any evidence beyond a status quo bias. But some of this depends on whether or not we care about judging academic ability or learning when we engage in assessment, something I'll be speaking on shortly at NCTE.

Imperfectly is doing a lot of work there, my friend. And, IMO, the problem we're facing right now is a society that has put its chips in on schooling independent of whether or not the schooling has any relationship to learning. We could "deflate" grades 'til the cows come home and it wouldn't matter

I think this is another case of my failure to link to the original context I'm responding to. I'm not denying grades matter I'm saying that the current handwringing about grades no longer being "meaningful" because of inflation, et al, presupposes something about grades that is not true.

I think valuing grades also limits what we may value in terms of the experience of a course. I got mediocre grades in some courses that proved hugely important to me as inflection points in my own educational journey.

I didn't intend to imply they never mattered, though I can see where that distinction is lost by my wording. I am responding to a series of articles I've read that is decrying that grades no longer distinguish on merit, therefore they have lost their "meaning."

Very much a systemic issue, an issue I saw get worse and more damaging year after year. I will never forget the student who, in a conference, told me they had their first grade-related anxiety attack in 5th grade. That was 2012.

I clarified lower down that I get that grades matter in that sense, but the people who say grades aren't meaningful anymore are talking about how they no longer distinguish how much has been learned, which may be true, but I would argue has always been true to a significant degree.