The uncanny valley of LLMs' prose
LLMs are good at playing you
Large language models seem just like humans, but some of this is in our heads.
Jordan Rudess and MIT’s jam_bot: A New Era of Human-AI Musical Collaboration
As We May Think Credit: Mostafa 'Neo' Mohsenvand
Giving LLMs a personality is just good engineering
AI skeptics often argue that current AI systems shouldn’t be so human-like. The idea - most recently expressed in this opinion piece by Nathan Beacom - is that language models should explicitly be tools, like calculators or search engines. Although they can pretend to be people, they shouldn’t, because it encourages users to overestimate AI capabilities and (at worst) slip into AI psychosis. Here’s a representative paragraph from the piece:
AI-synthesized faces are indistinguishable from real faces and more trustworthy
Artificial intelligence (AI)–synthesized text, audio, image, and video are being weaponized for the purposes of nonconsensual intimate imagery, financial fraud, and disinformation campaigns. Our evaluation of the photorealism of AI-synthesized faces indicates that synthesis engines have passed through the uncanny valley and are capable of creating faces that are indistinguishable—and more trustworthy—than real faces.
AI-synthesized faces are indistinguishable from real faces and more trustworthy
Artificial intelligence (AI)–synthesized text, audio, image, and video are being weaponized for the purposes of nonconsensual intimate imagery, financial fraud, and disinformation campaigns. Our evaluation of the photorealism of AI-synthesized faces indicates that synthesis engines have passed through the uncanny valley and are capable of creating faces that are indistinguishable—and more trustworthy—than real faces.
Sam Altman says people are starting to talk like AI, making some human interactions 'feel very fake' | Fortune
“Real people have picked up quirks of LLM-speak,” the OpenAI CEO said.
Uncanny Valley | Anna Wiener
The meeting begins without fanfare. They thought I was an amazing worker at first, working late every night, last out of the office, but now they wonder if the work was just too hard for me to begin with. They need to know: Am I down for the cause? Because if I’m not down for the cause, it’s time. They will do this amicably. Of course I’m down, I say, trying not to swivel in my ergonomic chair. I care deeply about the company. I am here for it.
233. "The Illusion of Thinking" — Thoughts on This Important Paper
This is a fantastic paper. I just love it. tl;dr AI is not human. Anthropomorphization has been bad for AI, LLMs, and Chat. Clippy walked so today's AI could run.
Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling + LLMs = ???
Does anyone remember Chris Crawford, the game designer and GDC speaker on Interactive Storytelling/Fiction? He's also the author of a book by that…
Understanding Multimodal LLMs
An introduction to the main techniques and latest models
Ghost in the Machine
Not AI | Ghost in the Machine - A Documentary by Valerie Veatch | Premiering at Sundance 2026
Ethan Landes, Kathryn B. Francis & Jim A. C. Everett, People defer to AI moral advice, but not blindly - PhilArchive
As AI large language models (LLMs) become increasingly embedded in everyday technologies, should we be concerned about their capacity to influence human beliefs - particularly in the moral domain? Being persuaded ...
