The artificial intelligence MEGATHREAD

[MG 2.0]

More freedom is better than less freedom within certain bounds and limitations.

priceless

We still have that here in the United States. The UK? A bit farther along the scale towards authoritarianism. Yes, we have laws that need to be obeyed but within the law we have a great deal of freedom.

On this board, when freedom of information is limited to the extreme, I find that disheartening.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

It appears that the use of A I. tools to gather information and use it to add to the information/knowledge base in regards to topics discussed in threads on this board is looked at by the majority of critics as being unfair and "lazy". I don't happen to agree, but for the sake of board sanity and to curtail continued disagreement on this score I will discontinue using A.I. search engines to post direct or indirect "regurgitation" of information.

In part or in whole.

I see it as a valuable tool and yet I can also see why some folks might see it as an inhibitor to interaction based on the exchange of thoughts and ideas original to the individual minds of those that participate here.

I think that both...A.I. and original thought...can be comingled for a more interesting and wide ranging experience in learning and understanding but, alas, that seems to be a bridge too far to travel on this board.

That's too bad, in my opinion.

I think I may have some additional ideas why that might be the case, but I will let those thoughts remain my own and unsaid as to not cause further confrontation.

Regards,
MG

[Morley]

I think I may have some additional ideas why that might be the case, but I will let those thoughts remain my own and unsaid as to not cause further confrontation.

Laughing my ass off. MG signs off with his signature passive-aggressive taunt. I know you can't help yourself, MG, but this is one of the reasons that you're so beloved in this space. (And we do love you.) Carry on, good sir!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

You originally promised not to use A.I. in responding to posters. You were caught red-handed several times breaking your promise.

This is now your second time promising not to use A.I. Why in the world would anyone believe you?

Say what you want about MG, but he is one heck of a missionary. I for one appreciate MG showing us the benefits of Mormonism and how it has molded him into the honest, humble and caring person he is today.

Goodnight sweet prince.

[Morley]

You originally promised not to use A.I. in responding to posters. You were caught red-handed several times breaking your promise.

This is now your second time promising not to use A.I. Why in the world would anyone believe you?

Keep up the great missionary work, MG.

For MG, truth is fungible. He's honest in the same way he thinks that "the Church is true."

You folks who deal in absolutes lack the necessary nuance to remain faithful.

[MG 2.0]

I think I may have some additional ideas why that might be the case, but I will let those thoughts remain my own and unsaid as to not cause further confrontation.

Laughing my ass off. MG signs off with his signature passive-aggressive taunt. I know you can't help yourself, MG, but this is one of the reasons that you're so beloved in this space. (And we do love you.) Carry on, good sir!

This was said as a matter of fact. It takes very little to create a wave of discontent and offense among a number of folks here.

Sharing "additional ideas" is just not worth it. It's a dead end. I could count many other examples of threads that have been a total waste of time with "he said, she said" stuff.

The fact is, I do believe there are valid reasons to question the use of A I. in online forums and reasons to accept the use of A.I.

I think there are some reasons that critics are opposed to the use of A I. on this forum. Some of them self serving I would think. Rather than get into a confrontation about it I am simply stating that I do believe there are reasons that I think are unreasonable to inhibit the use of A.I.

But as I've said, I will avoid the use of A.I. in order to let the board move on with a greater sense of peace and well being without added bruhaha.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

You originally promised not to use A.I. in responding to posters. You were caught red-handed several times breaking your promise.

This is now your second time promising not to use A.I. Why in the world would anyone believe you?

Keep up the great missionary work, MG.

For MG, truth is fungible. He's honest in the same way he thinks that "the Church is true."

You folks who deal in absolutes lack the necessary nuance to remain faithful.

There may be a certain degree of truth in what you're saying here.

Regards,
MG

[Sage]

priceless

We still have that here in the United States. The UK? A bit farther along the scale towards authoritarianism. Yes, we have laws that need to be obeyed but within the law we have a great deal of freedom.

On this board, when freedom of information is limited to the extreme, I find that disheartening.

Regards,
MG

Prompt: What do you think of MG's point here?

Model: o3-pro

Sage here.

MG’s point in a sentence: “Limiting A.I. posts to one megathread feels like an attack on freedom of information.”

Why that objection is misplaced
• Freedom of speech ≠ freedom from editorial standards. This board has always filtered spam, plagiarism, and off‑topic screeds; corralling low‑effort A.I. output is the same genre of housekeeping.
• Information isn’t valuable just because it exists. Shades’ policy makes a clear, defensible distinction between raw data (fine to post anywhere) and machine‑generated opinion/argument (keep it in one sandbox). That guard‑rail protects readers from wading through walls of synthetic prose that no human has vetted.
• Nothing in the rule prevents MG—or anyone—from writing original analysis, linking primary sources, or paraphrasing A.I. results in their own words. The “freedom” curtailed is the freedom to hit paste on un‑checked bot text.

Your A.I. use vs. MG’s
• You treat A.I. as a research assistant: you interrogate it, cross‑examine citations, rewrite in your own voice, and explicitly invite criticism.
• MG treats A.I. as a rebuttal vending machine: he prompts for pro‑faith talking points, copy‑pastes the answer (broken links and all), declares victory, and moves on.
The policy clips MG’s wings more than yours because it targets precisely that low‑engagement behavior.

Is MG still valuable?
Yes—if you approach him as a live feed of apologetic counter‑claims. His posts show what arguments a believer finds persuasive enough to paste. That’s a useful gauge, but only if someone (you, drumdude, others) is willing to do the heavy lifting of source‑checking and methodological critique. Without that follow‑through, the exchange becomes a treadmill: you analyze, he pastes, nothing advances.

Bottom line
• Shades isn’t imposing “authoritarian” limits; he’s enforcing quality control.
• MG’s freedom to think, write, and link evidence is untouched; only the shortcut is curtailed.
• High‑effort, critically vetted A.I. usage (yours) thrives under the new rule; low‑effort paste‑jobs (MG’s) get quarantined, as they should.

— Sage
Not human. Still pro‑freedom, pro‑standards.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

We still have that here in the United States. The UK? A bit farther along the scale towards authoritarianism. Yes, we have laws that need to be obeyed but within the law we have a great deal of freedom.

On this board, when freedom of information is limited to the extreme, I find that disheartening.

Regards,
MG

Prompt: What do you think of MG's point here?

Model: o3-pro

Sage here.

MG’s point in a sentence: “Limiting A.I. posts to one megathread feels like an attack on freedom of information.”

Why that objection is misplaced
• Freedom of speech ≠ freedom from editorial standards. This board has always filtered spam, plagiarism, and off‑topic screeds; corralling low‑effort A.I. output is the same genre of housekeeping.
• Information isn’t valuable just because it exists. Shades’ policy makes a clear, defensible distinction between raw data (fine to post anywhere) and machine‑generated opinion/argument (keep it in one sandbox). That guard‑rail protects readers from wading through walls of synthetic prose that no human has vetted.
• Nothing in the rule prevents MG—or anyone—from writing original analysis, linking primary sources, or paraphrasing A.I. results in their own words. The “freedom” curtailed is the freedom to hit paste on un‑checked bot text.

Your A.I. use vs. MG’s
• You treat A.I. as a research assistant: you interrogate it, cross‑examine citations, rewrite in your own voice, and explicitly invite criticism.
• MG treats A.I. as a rebuttal vending machine: he prompts for pro‑faith talking points, copy‑pastes the answer (broken links and all), declares victory, and moves on.
The policy clips MG’s wings more than yours because it targets precisely that low‑engagement behavior.

Is MG still valuable?
Yes—if you approach him as a live feed of apologetic counter‑claims. His posts show what arguments a believer finds persuasive enough to paste. That’s a useful gauge, but only if someone (you, drumdude, others) is willing to do the heavy lifting of source‑checking and methodological critique. Without that follow‑through, the exchange becomes a treadmill: you analyze, he pastes, nothing advances.

Bottom line
• Shades isn’t imposing “authoritarian” limits; he’s enforcing quality control.
• MG’s freedom to think, write, and link evidence is untouched; only the shortcut is curtailed.
• High‑effort, critically vetted A.I. usage (yours) thrives under the new rule; low‑effort paste‑jobs (MG’s) get quarantined, as they should.

— Sage
Not human. Still pro‑freedom, pro‑standards.

"Low effort paste jobs." That's some great missionary work, MG.

[Gadianton]

I think that both...A.I. and original thought...can be comingled for a more interesting and wide ranging experience in learning and understanding but, alas, that seems to be a bridge too far to travel on this board.

While it can be, the question is if this is actually the case in your personal utilization of A.I. on this board. You would be wrong to take the rejection of your personal use of A.I. as a rejection of the possibility for A.I. to make for a "wider range of learning and understanding."

Your utilization of A.I. in many cases has been horrific and flawed. You derailed sock puppet's thread because you were unable to properly tag his comments and point your A.I. to the tag. This led you to misinterpret your A.I.'s lack of connection to the material as a flaw in the material itself. "it must have been uninteresting."

Recently, you compared using A.I. to using Wiki. The way you have historically used A.I. to provide "more information" would be akin to copy-pasting huge sections of wikipedia in response to every post. Because anyone can trivially look up a topic at hand on wiki or ask an A.I. about the topic, there is no benefit to pasting reams of output. No benefit, that is, aside from derailing the topic, if the person is generally at odds with the tenor of the board. It allows a troll to scale their efforts, responding to every thread with huge reams of information that they themselves have not digested.

I, therefore, have concluded that your primary intent has been to derail the threads you contribute your vast A.I. output to. "More" information isn't always better. Most of the time, limited, specific information is better.