How Does Veritula Work?
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Forum Rules
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I’m not using AI for this response and will not do so moving forward on Veritula to respect the rules and what seems to be the sentiment behind these rules (unless they change). My criticism is made in good faith and I will try to be especially careful not to make an unwanted mistake in this regard, because usually I would ask AI to check my wording for that.
I’ve been told by someone here that they preferred to talk to a person, not to an AI. This argument is understandable when there is no effort or no thinking involved by the human who uses the AI, or even worse, when the argument is not even looked at and just fed into an LLM to produce some counter, which is disrespectful, does not honor the time, effort and good faith of the other, and why the idea of a meat proxy and the criticism regarding that behavior makes sense. However, in my opinion, AI-assisted can mean many different things, some of which should be encouraged, not restricted or even punished.
Here are two examples that come to mind:
My English is not great but the English from a Spanish friend of mine is considerably worse, and I wonder if I should tell him about this platform, because he would usually use AI to polish his English. Instead, of course, he could use Spanish and then let it be translated. I understand this would probably be possible under the current rules but I’m not entirely sure. If it is, would it also be allowed for him to use a tool that makes it sound not like a literal translation, if he still understands afterwards what is being said? An AI assist here seems helpful for everyone involved.
All my contributions on this platform before this post have been AI-assisted in part exactly because I wanted to be as respectful of my counterpart’s time and effort (and those of any observers) as possible: I am aware that we sometimes can misunderstand the other’s position or use rhetorical moves without noticing it. So I would send the conversation we have had so far to the AI, share my thoughts on how I understand it and want to proceed, ask it to steelman the other side’s view, and see if its response would help me. It would then be a back and forth where I would try to figure out for myself if I should really change my mind on this or, if not, how exactly I want to respond to the steelmanned version to make my point clear. Now, as a result here I got the criticism that the language should be simpler and the arguments shorter, which is great feedback! I would incorporate that for the future, and any other criticism that I agree would make it better for the discussion. This would then be the current best version I have to offer, but yes, it’s with the use of an AI tool instead of me going out to talk with some philosopher friends about the latest criticism, taking notes, and then have some other friend check my final version for rhetorical moves, clarity, simplicity and shortness before posting it here.
In general, one question in my mind is how future proof this kind of rule is - if we merge more with the tools around us, if they are more integrated in us, would it still not be wanted to use them if done in good faith?
I’m not using AI for this response and will not do so moving forward on Veritula to respect the rules and what seems to be the sentiment behind these rules (unless they change).
As written, the forum rules don’t ban AI. They say to disclose it. Someone may voice a preference about AI use and it’s up to you to honor it. Their preference doesn’t bind you like the forum rules do. But members will make decisions about who to spend time discussing with. Our discussion about animals, if you choose to continue it, will probably go better if you don’t use AI.
That said, it’s a good idea, especially for new members, to get a feel for the platform, study the rules, and understand the culture better before going full-steam ahead and submitting dozens of AI-assisted ideas. It’s best to exercise care when entering a new space and prove that you’re worth engaging with. (I’m not only talking about you specifically, I mean new members in general.) Checking a checkbox indicating AI use is a small cost, and it’s a good way to be transparent with readers of one’s ideas.
To that end, it pays to show an understanding that Veritula isn’t a debate club, and that the goal isn’t to win an argument (although winning and losing do happen here, in an objectively recognizable sense – though finding an error is rarely an actual ‘loss’). The goal is to find a bit of truth. It pays to show that you can change your mind, eg by saying things like ‘I never thought of it that way – you’ve given me a new way to look at things.’ Having your AI say something like that on your behalf obviously carries less weight than if you said it yourself. And excessive use of AI gives the impression that someone is just trying to win an argument. (Not saying you specifically – again, this is about the forum rules in general.)
My English is not great but the English from a Spanish friend of mine is considerably worse, and I wonder if I should tell him about this platform, because he would usually use AI to polish his English.
Your English is fine. Clearly good enough to have discussions. As for your friend, he can enlist the help of AI to translate ideas. Again, he’d just need to disclose it.
That all makes sense to me, thanks. But there is a cost: my previous badges were removed which means that my contributions would have stayed limited to 3 per day if I understand the rules correctly. This should change of course, now, that I do not use AI for responses, so I should be fine in the log run, but my friend, who would then disclose that he uses AI for all his discussions, would never be able to submit more than 3 ideas per day, and would also never be able to join more than one discussion per week because none of his responses would count towards earning the necessary badges https://veritula.com/badges.
My criticism goes deeper though: I really think that there is a case to make that for the goal you describe, to find a bit of truth (or maybe just the current best explanation), it is actually better to use AI, simply because we can spend less time correcting bad faith, misunderstandings, unclear language etc. (Also, one might just say "well, so it takes a bit more time, no problem" - but it's more complicated, because bad faith is often provoking emotions etc which often ends debates before finding a bit more truth)
In our sample discussion about animal consciousness, if I would correct for the "too long" and "not simple enough", I think it would be helpful. But of course, now that I know that you don't appreciate it and since you are currently the only one responding, I will gladly follow your wish not to use it.
I guess, the point I'm trying to make is really that it should not be coming with any form of punishment (like that this does not count for badges) IF the AI assist is clearly done in good faith.