Wordtune review
post by KatjaGrace · 2021-01-26T09:40:18.305Z · LW · GW · 9 commentsWow, Facebook is advertising an AI-driven writing tool to me. I think this is the first time I’ve seen a mainstream potentially useful product coming from all of this. Let’s see how it does. I’ve started by writing this paragraph quickly myself, and then I will rewrite it using Wordtune, to demonstrate its features. Then I may rewrite it further using its premium features or my more honed writing, all going well. (original)
Wow, Facebook is showing me a machine-learning based writing platform. I believe that this is the first mainstream application of all this. See how it goes. I wrote this paragraph on my own quickly, and then rewrote it using Wordtune to demonstrate its features. Then I may rewrite it using its premium features or using my more refined writing skills, if all goes well. (Wordtune)
I am intrigued by Facebook’s advertisement with regards to an artificial intelligence (AI) writing tool. I’m not aware of any mainstream application arising from these efforts.Let us see how it goes. I created this paragraph quickly myself, and now I’m going to rewrite it using Wordtune to demonstrate all it has to offer. Afterwards, I will be able to incorporate premium features in it or craft it into a more refined style, all going well. (formal Wordtune)
Wow, Facebook is advertising a writing tool which uses artificial intelligence (AI) that I did not know existed. This is something of a landmark event; I’ve not yet seen a mainstream useful product coming out of anything like this. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes. I’ve begun by writing this paragraph myself but I will then rewrite it with the aid of Wordtune to illustrate its various features. Then I may rewrite it further using its premium features or my more honed writing, all going well. (longer Wordtune)
Wow, Facebook’s touting a writing tool powered by artificial intelligence. This is the first time I’ve seen a mainstream use coming from all this. Let’s see what it does. I wrote it quickly, and I’m gonna rewrite it with Wordtune, just so I can show you how it works. After that I’ll maybe rewrite it more using its premium features or my own better skills. (casual Wordtune)
Wow, Facebook offers me an AI-driven writing tool. This is the first mainstream product I’ve seen from all of this. Let’s see. I first wrote the paragraph, and then I rewrote it with Wordtune, so you can see its features. Then I will retake it using its premium features or my better writing, all going well. (shorter Wordtune)
Facebook just surprised me with an ad for an AI writing tool. Could it be the first useful mainstream product to come from all this? Let’s take it for a ride. I wrote this paragraph fast, then asked Wordtune to rewrite it, to show you its moves. I might repeat the demonstration with its other style options, or mine, fate willing. (me spending more time)
A Facebook ad for AI-improved writing! GPT-3-like tools enter the mainstream. Let’s try it. I jot five lines, apply Wordtune, and watch. Next I might compare paid features or my own skills. (me shorter)
Facebook takes a break in its endless stream of extremely comfortable-looking bra suggestions and creepy-but-welcome commercials for things I mentioned in conversation or thought of in a dream once or something, to offer me artificial intelligence to automate half my writing process. Wait, what? Is it the future at last? Shit! I like that half of my writing process. Well, let’s see it. I’ll write a shitty paragraph, and then see what this ‘Wordtune’ can do with it. Then maybe I’ll see what I can do with it, to compare (and see if it’s all over for my joyous thesaurus expeditions). (me, humorous conversational)
9 comments
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comment by alexgieg · 2021-01-26T16:02:09.516Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I see one potential use for this: anonymity. There are models able to fingerprint writing styles which can then be used to pinpoint a specific unknown individual as the author behind a set of unrelated texts, and then deanonymize them if they wrote something out there under their real identity. This tool, or a similar one, could therefore change one's style into a somewhat generic one that would be much harder, maybe even impossible, for style fingerprinting to work, specially if the weights used could be randomized for every sentence to make it essentially unfeasible to reverse the process in order to obtain the original.
Replies from: Charlie Steiner, Raemon↑ comment by Charlie Steiner · 2021-01-27T02:02:00.839Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Good point. Or plagiarism intended to fool anti-plagiarism software - ideally by making plagiarized material match your own style.
comment by gjm · 2021-01-26T11:52:36.086Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Not very surprisingly, I felt that every single one of the Wordtune versions was strictly worse than your original that it took as input.
(That doesn't necessarily mean it's useless. It might improve worse-written text. Some of its rewrites might be usable as the basis for something better. Sometimes you might want badly-written text of a kind it's good at creating; e.g., it looks like asking it to be "formal" produces some of the same pathologies humans sometimes produce when trying to write formally, so if you needed examples of that kind of bad writing you could maybe get some with Wordtune. Not that there's any shortage of examples elsewhere.)
comment by Gordon Seidoh Worley (gworley) · 2021-01-27T01:22:03.363Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Interesting. I expect one of the first places to see large scale adoption of AI to produce and improve writing is in what I'll call click farms: online sites that post real content but depend on a steady stream of articles to generate views to show ads to generate revenue. These sites and the people the write for them face a major challenge: they have to constantly churn out posts about stuff day after day at a rate of 1-3 articles a day. Not surprisingly, most of this ends up being fairly low quality content, with maybe 1/10 things being something worth reading (the writers of the content know this but they're trapped by the ad dynamics).
AI would let them carry on with the current strategy but not spend so much time on writing the filler content.
comment by Yoav Shoham · 2021-01-26T21:24:57.114Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
As a LW contributor, you’re almost by definition self-aware and a good communicator. So I wouldn’t expect WT to necessarily improve your fluent text. But I wonder if any of the versions, perhaps with your subsequent massaging, led to a text that you felt better reflected your thoughts.
Replies from: KatjaGrace, Gunnar_Zarncke↑ comment by KatjaGrace · 2021-02-25T02:09:10.289Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yes - I like 'application' over 'potentially useful product' and 'my more refined writing skills' over 'my more honed writing', in its first one, for instance.
↑ comment by Gunnar_Zarncke · 2021-01-26T23:22:46.362Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I would like to see what it does to ramblings of random trolls on Twitter.