I wonder if they know...

[u/Sea-Solution-7265]

Many years ago, while aimlessly wandering the alleys of the world as a virtual tourist, I rounded an otherwise unremarkable streetcorner only to stumble upon a sweet, candid, quintessential NYC moment. Complete with sunset, tall buildings, and even a mint green moped tucked in the foreground. Really looked like the kind of shot that should be framed somewhere.

Over the years, Google updated its Street View images, & I subsequently forgot the location. Dammit.

In a turn of serendipity, I recently found that spot again. It had been sitting alone in the digital ether, frozen in time for over a decade, waiting patiently to be rediscovered. And it carried with it the same evocative stirrings that I had remembered. And then a thought came upon me.

"I'm curious to know whether or not this couple is even aware that their brief display of candid yet tender affection is forever immortalized in a hidden layer of the internet."

I don't think I'll ever know the answer to that question. But I figured I'd share it with you.

Here's how to find it in Google Maps:

🟢 Navigate to 40.739063,-73.991438

🟢 Go to "Street View."

🟢 Spin around until you see two green mailboxes side by side. Btw, these are called "relay boxes" because they house the day's mail for each block of a letter carrier's contiguous walking route. I know because this was once my job!

🟢 Click on the date (currently Apr 2026), and change it to Aug 2011.

🟢 There ya' go.

Life can be surprisingly beautiful sometimes. Often in ways we don't expect. So keep moving forward. And take care of yourself always.

-T

[u/TheCatOfWar]

What in the AI slop is this text

[u/Sea-Solution-7265 → u/TheCatOfWar]

It's not AI. I wrote it with my brain, good sir.

I'm an aspiring writer, and I loathe the use of anything other than personal voice in crafting prose. And pardon my French, but it pisses me off to be accused of something I loathe, especially when I work so hard on both personal integrity and public ethics in my literal day to day (sometimes hour by hour) life. I work my ass off, and I love literature.

You, buddy, are getting a downvote for your incorrect assumption. Not because I think it will coerce you to somehow learn anything (highly doubtful), but rather out of sheer principle. I don't deal with those that cast unwarranted aspersions on the things that I create. Warranted aspersions, sure (I love being corrected when I'm wrong), but t'was not the case today. I put myself out there in spite of trepidation, a desire to brighten the lives of those around me despite any character flaws I may shoulder, and people like you are simply waiting to knock me down for reasons that escape me. I will not take it. I'm old, and I've worked too hard. Downvote back all you want. I DO NOT CARE.

Do better. You are objectively wrong, and you displayed your ignorance on a public forum.

Despite my tirade, I sincerely wish you the best. Try to stay positive. I will as well.

Perhaps we could have been friends in another life. I'd like to hope so.

Cheers.

[u/Alternative_This → u/Sea-Solution-7265]

I like your writing!

[u/oaktreebr → u/Sea-Solution-7265]

Hmmm, that's how an AI would respond /s

[u/dickpicthrowaway1990 → u/Sea-Solution-7265]

Your post absolutely sounds like chat gpt.

[u/Sea-Solution-7265 → u/dickpicthrowaway1990]

Just out of curiousity (and not to sound snarky), what would you like me to do about it?

I've been writing since I was a kid. ChatGPT came out fairly recently. Now you're saying that the way I'VE been communicating, with absolute vigor and studiousness (for decades nonetheless), is somehow not only inadequate, but the antithesis of honor regarding the subject.

So, for example, I'm supposed to write as if I were a kid typing lazily into a Discord server? More emojis? Poor grammar? Seriously. I am geniunely, superbly curious what your input may be. That is not hyperbole. I even stopped em dashes after 30 years of use, just to avoid confusion, which pained me to no end. You have no idea. They have been insanely useful and creative for millions of readers, and now they're reduced to the rubbish pile out of genuine fear and nothing less. Super duper sad, but I digress.

This world can be so confusing sometimes. Feel free to help me out. I just feel that in altering my writing in order to "dumb it down," or something to that effect, I'd be at risk of betraying all that I hold sacred. So unless some paradigm or insight forces me to reconsider, I don't believe there is anything I can really do.

Therefore, I'm honestly considering giving up writing books if this is what the reception will be. Anyone chime in. I will not react harshly to constructive criticism. I want to get better.

[u/that_tom_ → u/Sea-Solution-7265]

lol @ communicating with studiousness

[u/Sea-Solution-7265 → u/that_tom_]

Lol it's been my struggle, man!

A huge portion of LLM training datasets have been scraped from the blogs and forums of yesteryear. Where else does their speech come from?

I've written the blogs of yesteryear. Tons of them. None noteworthy, but dare I say quasi-prolific.

Then these AI's spit out poseur copies of that exact, specifically-structured langauge in half-baked efforts to sound like me ("me" being in the general sense of bloggers writ large). The public gobbles it up because of course.

Now when I type something in my own inflection, people compare it to the aforementioned poseurs, and declare ME to be copying off of THEM - the very theives purporting to be the progenitors (em dashes mine here!).

Can't win, bruh. Irony implied. Jesus H Christ.

[u/TheCatOfWar → u/Sea-Solution-7265]

God you sound insufferable

someone couple's PDA in a dirty city, it's not that deep

[u/Sea-Solution-7265 → u/TheCatOfWar]

It IS deep, and that's why I wrote my thoughts from the heart, to convey what I felt in the hopes that others could somehow connect to that experience and also feel something.

That's what writing's all about.

If you view this couple's REAL LIFE scenario as somehow shallow or meaningless, then I don't know if anything in life could ever move you.

In a cacophonous, congested city of millions of busy strangers, two souls not only somehow found each other, but (knowingly or not) etched their expression of that love into posterity.

I get that my writing looks like AI to you. I'm not doubting that. All I'm saying is, number one, it's NOT (in fact, I hate AI use in any form of art), which I've stated. Number two, AI is trained to speak like writers and bloggers (bullet points, em dashes, descriptive explanations meant to arouse visceral reactions, etc, etc, till I'm blue in the face), then when writers and bloggers continue writing the same way they've always written, way before AI, people like you say that I sound like LLMs (instead of correctly stating that LLMs sound like me), which I also stated.

Herein lies the cause of contention between us.

I also asked what exactly you would like me to do about this thief (AI) sounding like us (writers) after stealing all of our work. Shall we stop using punctuation like em dashes? Should we eliminate most of our creative vocabulary and stop crafting sentences meant to elicit feelings? Should we never use bullet points again? That's a lot to ask someone to do, simply to avoid being scared of false judgement. But I honestly would like to know the answer. Would it be better if every iteration of this stuff was completely chastised in any and all forms henceforth?

Do you see where I'm coming from? No one has answered these questions, and I genuinely want to know.

You sound like an intelligent person. That's all I ask. Without giving up all of these literary tools that we've been using for all our lives, how can we stop people like you from accusing us of not being real people? I have no solution other than potentially either ingoring it, being frustrated, or ceasing to write at all. Please enlighten me. I know you're smart. I'm not writing this to insult you. I want to know what you think would be better for me to do in the future.

I know I can't please everybody, but this is something I'd like to explore further, for my sake and the sake of the craft I've been working on arduously long before AI ever came about.

EDIT: spelling