Fair enough, though another possibility I see is that the automated training process for LLMs used OCR for those papers (Or an already existing text version in the internet was using bad OCR) and those papers with the mashed word were written partially or fully by an LLM.

Either way, the blanket term "AI" sucks and it's honestly getting kind of annoying. Same with how much LLMs are used.

Reading is incredibly important for mental development, it teaches your brain how to have the language tools to create abstractions of the world around you and then use those abstractions to change perspectives, communicate ideas and understand your own thoughts and feelings.

It's never too late to start exercising that muscle, and it really is a muscle, a lot of people have a hard time getting started reading later in life because they simply don't have the practice in forming words into images and scenes.... but think about how strong that makes your brain when you can form text into whole vivid worlds, when you can create images and people and words and situations in your mind to explore the universe around you and invent simulated situations with more accuracy... I cannot scream enough how critically important it is for us to exercise this muscle, I hope you keep looking for things that spark your interest just enough that you get a foothold in reading and writing :)

This is how I was taught to write up to highschool. Very "professional", persuasive essays, arguing in favor of something or against it "objectively". (Assignment seemed to dictate what side I could be on LOL.) Limit humor and "emotional speech." Cardboard.

I was taken aback in my first political science course at the local community college, where I was instructed to convey my honest arguments about a book assignment on polarization in U.S politics. "Whether you think it's fantastic or you think it sucks, just make a good case for your opinion." Wait, what?! I get to write like a person?!

I was even more shocked when I got a high mark for reading the first few chapters, skimming the rest, and truthfully summarizing by saying it was plain that the author just kept repeating their main point for like 5 more chapters so they could publish a book, and it stopped being worth the time as that poor horse was already dead by the 3rd chapter.

It was when it hit me, that writing really was about communication, not just information.

I worry about that these days: That this realization won't come to most, and they'll use these Ai tools or be influenced by them to simply "convey information" that nobody wants to read, get their 85%, and breeze through the rest of their MBA, not caring about what any of this is actually for, or for what a beautiful miracle writing truly is to humanity.

I know exactly what you mean, I still frequent a lot of writing communities and that "cardboard" feeling is spreading. Most young people who have an interest in writing are basically sponges for absorbing how their peers write, so it's tragic when their peers are machines designed to produce advertiser-friendly ad-copy.

Large discord groups and forums are still the proving ground for new, young writers who try to get started crafting their prose to this day, and I have watched it for over 30 years. It has changed, dramatically, and I would be remiss to say I have no idea where the change came from if I didn't also see the patterns.

Yes it's entirely anecdotal, I have no intention of making a scientific argument, but I'm also not the only one worried about the influence of LLM's on creators. It's already butchering the traditional artistic world, just for the very basic reason that 14-year-old Mindy McCallister who has a crush on werewolves at one time would have taught herself to draw terrible, atrocious furry art on lined notebook paper with hearts and a self-inserted picture of herself in a wedding dress. This is where we all get started (not specifically werewolf romance but you get the idea) with art and drawing and digital art before learning to refine our craft and get better and better at self-expression, but we now have a shortcut where you can skip ALL of that process and just have your snarling lupine BF generated for you within seconds. Setting aside the controversy over if it's real art or not, what it's doing is taking away the formative process from millions of potential artists.

Her video on trans issues has made it very difficult to take her seriously as a thinker. The same types of manipulative half truths and tropes I see from TERFs pretending they have the “reasonable” view, while also spreading the hysteric media narrative about the kids getting transed.