- From: Moses Ma <moses.ma@futurelabconsulting.com>
- Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2026 18:33:41 -0800
- To: public-credentials@w3.org
- Message-ID: <a46ec4ea-8fc6-4ce3-9ce5-5e36a24d9f98@futurelabconsulting.com>
Hi everyone, Daniel is right, the results so far are very interesting. I won't spoil it by saying any more. Please participate in the experiment - *https://forms.gle/42mWD8HAouAhM9kVA* <https://forms.gle/42mWD8HAouAhM9kVA> Moses On 2/14/26 12:52 PM, Daniel Hardman wrote: > Good experiment, Moses. I'll be very curious to see the results. > > FWIW, I have been trying to hold myself to the following standard: > https://dhh1128.github.io/papers/ai-coca.html > > The part that I'm not sure about is: "I will acknowledge the AI’s > contribution according to the reasonable expectations of my audience." > Are "the reasonable expectations of my audience" shifting? Should > they? On several technical papers I've written recently, I've found > that AI helps me articulate complex ideas a lot faster than I could do > on my own -- but the ideas are still entirely from me, and I take > responsibility for them. Even the AI's language is highly constrained > by the guidelines I give, the other content I have written as starters > for the piece, and by my own substantial post-edits. So I haven't > credited an AI. Was this the right call? I'm not sure. Here is how I > described the contributions of myself and AIs on a recent album I > released with suno's help (where my contribution was mostly as a > lyricist): https://sivanea.com/ai-collab. When I shared the album with > FB friends (along with the same caveats about how much of the album > came from me versus AI), one of my friends who's a musician told me he > felt discouraged because he had worked for years to play the guitar as > nicely as the guitar riff in one of my songs -- it didn't matter that > I was transparent, it still felt uncomfortable. And I get it. He's not > wrong. And yet, I feel like I found a creative outlet that was > meaningful and absolutely represents my own investment and > personality, too... > > I guess this is something we'll be wrestling with for a while... > > On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 1:19 PM Moses Ma > <moses.ma@futurelabconsulting.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > Just as an experiment, I’m providing two responses, one written > organically and the other was generated by an LLM. Please vote on > which you think is human generated? Doing this is allowing me to > explorethe nature of human versus AI generated content. > > Vote here: *https://forms.gle/42mWD8HAouAhM9kVA* > <https://forms.gle/42mWD8HAouAhM9kVA> > > I'll reply with the survey results in about a week. > > Moses > > --- > > Version A: > > I am also worried about the slopification of not only this forum, > but the entire practice of strategic collaboration. First, I > recently wrote something where there was concern that my work was > AI generated simply because I used em dashes—I tend to use them a > lot, as it offers the reading equivalent of a thoughtful pause. I > had to use an AI detector on an extensive article I blogged ten > years ago to show that my natural writing style triggered the > detector, when it was simply, well, good writing. (The article I > blogged received over half a million page views.) I subsequently > discovered that most “humanizers” simply inject words less likely > ones, to appear human generated by reducing the quality of the > writing. > > The reality is that AI tools are now part of the cognitive > environment. Clearly, the key issue isn’t “used an LLM” vs “didn’t > use an LLM.” It’s authorship and responsibility. If someone uses a > model to structure thoughts, tighten prose, and check logic — but > the ideas, judgments, and commitments are theirs — that’s still > meaningful participation. If the model is doing the thinking, and > the human is just "phoning it in" by forwarding output, then yes, > we’re drifting toward a lot more than just model collapse > > The other issue is where we’re heading. Just as AI generated > coding and video have crossed their critical thresholds of > realism, collaborative ideation will also do so within a few > years. As LLMs have slowly transitioned from “stochastic > plagiarism” to the use of reasoning models, they will at some > point cross a similar threshold, the "uncanny valley" of cognitive > realism. Especially when multi-agent systems start emulating what > we do here. At that point, our internal slop detectors—even set to > high sensitivity so anything we read could “feel” AI > generated—will not be able to tell the difference. > > Version B: > > Thanks for raising this. I think you're pointing at something real > and worth discussing openly. > > The distinction you draw between using an LLM as a tool and > outsourcing your thinking to one is important, and I'd argue it's > actually sharper than it might first appear. Proofreading > preserves the structure of your reasoning while cleaning up > expression. Generation replaces the reasoning itself. Those are > fundamentally different activities, even if the output can > sometimes look similar on the surface. > > Where I think this gets genuinely difficult is that the line isn't > always clean. Someone might use an LLM to help organize scattered > thoughts into a coherent draft, then revise it substantially. > That's somewhere in the middle, and I'd hesitate to call it > illegitimate. The question probably isn't whether an LLM touched > the text at all, but whether the person behind it actually > wrestled with the problem, made judgment calls, and can defend > what they wrote if pressed. > > That said, I think the practical concern you're raising stands > regardless of where we draw the line. When responses on a list > like this start reading like they were produced by someone who > spent 30 seconds prompting rather than 30 minutes thinking, it > does erode trust. You start reading differently. You skim more. > You engage less. And that's corrosive to exactly the kind of > deliberation this group exists for. > > I don't know what the right intervention is. Norms are probably > more useful than rules here. Something like: if you wouldn't be > comfortable explaining and defending every claim in your message > during a live conversation, maybe reconsider sending it. That's > not a perfect filter, but it at least recenters the expectation > that contributions reflect genuine engagement rather than > generated fluency. > > > > On 2/13/26 3:41 AM, Filip Kolarik wrote: >> Dear VCWG, >> I want to raise a concern that’s been bothering me lately. It >> feels like this mailing list is being flooded by LLM-generated >> responses. >> >> Whether or not that’s intentional, meaningful work depends on >> people engaging directly with arguments and tradeoffs, and when >> contributions read like synthesized summaries rather than >> considered positions, the discussion loses clarity and momentum. >> >> I’m not arguing against using tools; I use LLMs to proofread my >> own writing. But there is a difference between proofreading text >> you wrote and letting an LLM generate the entire response. If >> normalized, we risk damaging the effectiveness of the group and >> turning this mailing list into a swamp to be ignored. >> >> Best regards, >> Filip >> https://www.linkedin.com/in/filipkolarik/ > > -- > *Moses Ma | Managing Partner* > moses.ma@futurelabconsulting.com (public) | > moses@futurelab.venture (private) > v+1.415.568.1068 | allmylinks.com/moses-ma > <http://allmylinks.com/moses-ma> > > -- *Moses Ma | Managing Partner* moses.ma@futurelabconsulting.com (public) | moses@futurelab.venture (private) v+1.415.568.1068 | allmylinks.com/moses-ma Learn more at futurelabconsulting.com For calendar invites, please cc: mosesma@gmail.com - but please don't email me there
Received on Sunday, 15 February 2026 02:33:52 UTC