Re: Planet Postgres and the curse of AI

On Wed, 2024-07-17 at 13:21 -0400, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
> I've been noticing a growing trend of blog posts written mostly, if not entirely, with AI
> (aka LLMs, ChatGPT, etc.). I'm not sure where to raise this issue. I considered a blog post,
> but this mailing list seemed a better forum to generate a discussion.
>
> The problem is two-fold as I see it.
>
> First, there is the issue of people trying to game the system by churning out content that is not theirs [...]
>
> So this first problem is that it is polluting the Postgres blogs [...]
>
> The second problem is worse, in that LLMs are not merely gathering information, but have
> the ability to synthesize new conclusions and facts. In short, they can lie.
>
> Do we need a policy or a guideline for Planet Postgres? I don't know. It can be a gray line.
> Obviously spelling and grammar checking is quite okay, and making up random GUCs is not,
> but the middle bit is very hazy. (Human) thoughts welcome.

As someone who writes blogs and occasionally browses Planet Postgres, this has not
struck me as a major problem. I just scrolled through it and nothing stood out to
me - perhaps I am too naïve.

There certainly are people who publish random short utterances, perhaps with the
intention to hit the "top posters" list, but I don't think we need strong measures.

If anything, I am most annoyed by articles that are just thinly veiled advertising,
but there is already a policy controlling that.

As long as there is not a flood of AI generated babble (and I cannot see one), I'd
say that this will regulate itself: spewing empty content and lies is not going to
reflect well on the author and his/her organization.

PostgreSQL has excellent documentation. Anybody who blindly follows advice from a
blog without checking with the documentation only has himself/herself to blame.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe