Just stumbled onto something called AutoCrit. Probably hardly the discovery I think it is, so I guess there are some real people here who know of it. At first glance it seems like a nice idea, but is this something I'd want to incorporate in my tool bag? There's this idea in the back of my head that I'm just letting a robot do human work. It's definitely not a substitute for anything, that much I know, but could it be an asset?
I guess that must be AI? No way am I letting an AI crit my work. At times they can almost pass as human, but they have no mind, they're machines programmed to imitate and copy/paste. They're about as intelligent as parrots, who just copy/paste snippets of things they've heard people say, but with no real understanding of what it means. I'll let them check my spelling and grammar, though they frequenly get the grammar wrong, and if you spell a word right but it's the wrong word (like led instead of lead, or red instead of read), they have no idea.
Its basically like prowriting aid, hemingway writer, or gramarly - its not really AI , just the application of a set of programmed rules... the problem with all these programs is that they are very litteral and don't realise that English is nuanced...so for example every perceived instance of passive voice can't be eliminated, or every adverb cut ruthlessly, without also ruining the feel of the writing and making everything sound the same its also not very accurate, when i trialed it about 20% of the supposed errors weren't errors at all and the corrections were wrong.
Oh ok—I got really interested in those shortly after joining this board and was going to get one, but I did some research and realized they're not really much of a help. Basically everything I said about AI above applies, but at least nobody's pretending the non-AI writing programs are intelligent and aware.
Yeah, I've been looking into it some more after posting this (because I prefer coming here first) and it requires me to upload my stuff somewhere, which I try to keep to a minimum. While this thing could ostensibly take up a small part in the toolbox, it can never be the be-all-end-all they make it out to be. I'd know more if I could test it, but to get access to the features that matter you'll need to pay either way. Seems a strange choice to me. If you want the kids to buy the coke, you're not giving them powdered sugar to sample. Anyway, I think I recall a claim that they do use some sort of AI, which automatically disqualifies it as The Final Tool. Besides, for all the AI prowess, there's a button that refers you to a forum full of humans to help you, so... Irony? I think that's irony. If only I had some sort of tool that could explain irony to me. Not Alanis Morissette. I'm not a fan, but she's not really a tool. ;o)
