AI Essay Response
At the end of class on March 27th we were asked to take a few moments to review an essay that had been produced by AI regarding Section 230 of the CDA.
We were meant to read it critically and try to see what could be up for dispute in what was written. I took a second to look around the room to see all my classmates with furrowed brows as they took a look at what was written.
Up until this point, I had not (to the best of my knowledge) read anything produced by an AI. I don't know what I was expecting to be different. Is it ridiculous to think it would be more robotic? A formal essay is not meant to be emotional or personal, so reading this felt no different to me than reading something written by another student. I wouldn't have known it was not written by a human had I not been told. It's a little bit creepy to me.
Annotations by the Class¶
Visual of text with highlighted portions by students
probablyanxious (me):
deemed obscene by Congress or state legislatures
What is deemed as obscene by Congress and political leaders can be anything LGBT related.
danielmussell:
The Protect Act (PROTECT)
Cannot be an actual act of congress since it's not an absurd initialism (see PATRIOT act)
EricDes:
The Protect Act (PROTECT) which further clarified what material is considered “obscene” and made sure that Section 230 was not being abused to access such materials by minors.
While the PROTECT act is a real thing its goal was not to stop minors accessing obscene material but to penalize people accessing/creating obscene materials of minors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003
LColl:
Section 230 has been a highly contested part of the Communications Decency Act since its inception
I noticed the ai never really outright stated what section 230 actually is, it just kind of states that it is a controversial internet privacy law, but never really specifies what changes it would put in place.
EricDes:
Section 230 has been a highly contested part of the Communications Decency Act since its inception
It is very clear that the AI did not write about section 230 based on what it is. I think what happened was the majority of literature about section 230 were articles about how controversial section 230 was so the AI thought that is what the user wanted. This shows that AI are just regurgitating the most popular views on a topic instead of writing original work.
rowanegg:
or if minors should have access to such materials at all
I read an interesting true crime book that relates the radicalization of young shooters/the 'incel' movement to open access to online platforms - could be an interesting point for further research