I know it's "Evil AL", not "Evil AI", but there _is_ an "Evil AI" at work here - this is aislop, pure and simple. I wondered for a bit why the whole thing felt repetitive and boring, and then I hit this paragraph and it threw everything else into context:
> LAN-LOK is more than a forgotten DOS curiosity, it is a preserved moment in the daily life of Antarctic research stations during the earliest days of their local area networks. It captures the frustrations, humor, and personalities that shaped computing at Palmer Station as it transitioned from isolated standalone PCs to a shared (fragile) LAN.
It's frustrating, because this game absolutely has the vibes of a lot of old DOS/door games and I was kinda interested in learning about it, but this just sucks all the fun and interest out of it.
I dunno, the rest of the article feels very AI-written as well. Immediately after that, it goes into an overly in-depth bullet-pointed breakdown, it repeats information constantly...
It’s either written by an AI or I’m sorry, it’s just poorly written.
Come on, try and imagine the human being who would write that sentence.
The article is obviously AI written in its entirety.
I mean look at this sentence which randomly contains the " - " pattern twice in a row, which is then not repeated once anywhere else in the article:
> Created after the installation of the station’s first peer-to-peer local area network (PalmerLAN), the game captures - through humor, satire, and surprisingly accurate mechanics - the daily realities of early LAN administration in one of the most isolated research communities on Earth.
Using dashes twice like that is valid. It's a bit like parentheses, to frame a tangential statement between them, but with emphasis instead of quietly. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash
I use that construction in my totally human writing often enough. Some of us missed a few English classes it seems.
> Are you seriously going to claim that this is not LLM generated?
Do you see me making that claim? My comment seems to be about grammar. Do you always jump to conclusions?
> I made no comment as to the validity of the construction.
See:
> I mean look at this sentence which randomly contains the " - " pattern twice in a row
They're called parenthetical dashes. They're not random. And it's one pattern, not two. You'll find it used with parentheses (obviously) and commas as well as dashes and perhaps even other punctuation[1].
As to whether or not the post was written by AI, I don't care either way. That seems to be something you care about. But you shouldn't base those conclusions on the use of parenthetical dashes.
I'm curious if you have any evidence stronger than your own vibes about this one sentence. I didn't get that sense from the article at all, and continue to assume that it's a genuine piece of history.
There's a TikTok going around with a guy telling us about how his daughter stumbled across a "Weird AI" online, which takes popular songs and makes them funny.
The section “The Origins and Descendants of the Break/Fix Game Mechanic” is where I clocked out. It’s pure 100% AI filler. No human being would think to include multiple paragraphs associating a 90s DOS game about PC sysadmins with the film Wreck-It Ralph. Downvoting the article.
It would be cool if the dos emulator this uses would be updated with some touch controls that were like the old hackers keyboard on Android and some drag mouse like scummvm.
I know it's "Evil AL", not "Evil AI", but there _is_ an "Evil AI" at work here - this is aislop, pure and simple. I wondered for a bit why the whole thing felt repetitive and boring, and then I hit this paragraph and it threw everything else into context:
> LAN-LOK is more than a forgotten DOS curiosity, it is a preserved moment in the daily life of Antarctic research stations during the earliest days of their local area networks. It captures the frustrations, humor, and personalities that shaped computing at Palmer Station as it transitioned from isolated standalone PCs to a shared (fragile) LAN.
It's frustrating, because this game absolutely has the vibes of a lot of old DOS/door games and I was kinda interested in learning about it, but this just sucks all the fun and interest out of it.
That sentence does set off alarm bells, but in the context of the entire article I don't think it's AI written.
I dunno, the rest of the article feels very AI-written as well. Immediately after that, it goes into an overly in-depth bullet-pointed breakdown, it repeats information constantly...
It’s either written by an AI or I’m sorry, it’s just poorly written.
It has an LLM feel to me - the kind of verbosity that you get when a kid is padding out their homework to hit a word count.
Come on, try and imagine the human being who would write that sentence.
The article is obviously AI written in its entirety.
I mean look at this sentence which randomly contains the " - " pattern twice in a row, which is then not repeated once anywhere else in the article:
> Created after the installation of the station’s first peer-to-peer local area network (PalmerLAN), the game captures - through humor, satire, and surprisingly accurate mechanics - the daily realities of early LAN administration in one of the most isolated research communities on Earth.
Totally natural human writing!
Using dashes twice like that is valid. It's a bit like parentheses, to frame a tangential statement between them, but with emphasis instead of quietly. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash
I use that construction in my totally human writing often enough. Some of us missed a few English classes it seems.
Are you seriously going to claim that this is not LLM generated?
https://alphapixeldev.com/what-is-a-mercenary-programmer-and...
The guys twitter account is full of LLM slop: https://x.com/alphapixel
Perhaps all these other posts from the same author in completely different styles are also not LLM generated? https://wildirismarketing.com/articles-and-blog-posts/
>I use that construction in my totally human writing often enough. Some of us missed a few English classes it seems.
I made no comment as to the validity of the construction.
> Are you seriously going to claim that this is not LLM generated?
Do you see me making that claim? My comment seems to be about grammar. Do you always jump to conclusions?
> I made no comment as to the validity of the construction.
See:
> I mean look at this sentence which randomly contains the " - " pattern twice in a row
They're called parenthetical dashes. They're not random. And it's one pattern, not two. You'll find it used with parentheses (obviously) and commas as well as dashes and perhaps even other punctuation[1].
As to whether or not the post was written by AI, I don't care either way. That seems to be something you care about. But you shouldn't base those conclusions on the use of parenthetical dashes.
1: https://editorsmanual.com/articles/commas-vs-parentheses-vs-...
I'm curious if you have any evidence stronger than your own vibes about this one sentence. I didn't get that sense from the article at all, and continue to assume that it's a genuine piece of history.
Agreed, and it was repetitive indeed, to the point of annoyance; for some strange reason there is this though:
> so Mark and Shane may have been Palmer winter-over reserchers.
> I know it's "Evil AL", not "Evil AI"
There's a TikTok going around with a guy telling us about how his daughter stumbled across a "Weird AI" online, which takes popular songs and makes them funny.
The section “The Origins and Descendants of the Break/Fix Game Mechanic” is where I clocked out. It’s pure 100% AI filler. No human being would think to include multiple paragraphs associating a 90s DOS game about PC sysadmins with the film Wreck-It Ralph. Downvoting the article.
Playable in-browser here for those who wish to skip directly to the chase: https://archive.org/details/Lanlok
Anyone find a way to get this to work on mobile? It loads and runs fine but there isn’t a way to provide any input into the emulator that I can find.
Thanks, this is cute. I lost my first try, then managed to win with 3380 points on my next go. Tip: Don't be afraid to use commands #3 and #4.
It would be cool if the dos emulator this uses would be updated with some touch controls that were like the old hackers keyboard on Android and some drag mouse like scummvm.
It should be noted that nemesis “Evil Al” is “AL” not “AI”; the font makes this quite ambiguous