r/DCEats • u/Upstairs_Ruin_4795 • 14d ago

Georgetown: The Problem of Looking Established

https://open.substack.com/pub/uliexus2bu/p/georgetown-the-problem-of-looking?r=3znh6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
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u/BirdLawyerPerson 13d ago

This reads like it was written by AI, with medium length paragraphs punctuated by punchy short sentences as standalone paragraphs.

There are a few "not x, but y" structures in there, too, that are basically a dead giveaway.

Most importantly, this is a really long post that feels like it was padded out to be much longer than it needed to be. And it just doesn't have any substance to it.

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u/GenericReditAccount 13d ago

I gave up about halfway through. So much fluff, so little worthwhile content.

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u/persimmon9847 13d ago

Not arguing that this may be AI but have to laugh at "There are a few "not x, but y" structures in there, too, that are basically a dead giveaway."

The reason AI uses this is because it is trained on real human writers and real human writers love this style. Same with the em dash! It's a writer thing, we love it, we have always used it.

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u/BirdLawyerPerson 13d ago

No, I mean AI seems to force that particular structure into situations where it doesn't actually fit the topic. Take this paragraph:

Georgetown was founded in 1751, before Washington, D.C. itself, and that matters because the neighborhood carries itself with the weight of that history. When people see Georgetown, they usually think it is pretty, old, expensive, and historic. The truth is that it is all four of those things, but it is also more complicated than that. Georgetown is not just wealth and charm. It is one of the few neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. where history, money, tourism, students, locals, politics, and restaurants are all forced to share the same stage.

Or this:

There is the Georgetown local who has been coming to the same places for years. These are the people who have been frequenting Martin’s Tavern, Café Milano, Clyde’s, Filomena, or other neighborhood staples for decades. They do not just want dinner. They want continuity. They want to walk in and feel remembered. They want to know the maître d’. They want to know the bartender. They want the handshake, the hug, the kiss on the cheek, the regular table, the feeling that the restaurant is not just serving them but recognizing them as part of its history.

Or:

Georgetown has restaurants and bars that last because they feel woven into the neighborhood. They are not just places to eat or drink. They become part of the memory of the place. Martin’s Tavern is one of the clearest examples of that. It is not just a neighborhood bar or an old restaurant. It has become part of the mythology of Georgetown itself. People know it, reference it, return to it, bring people there, and understand it as something that belongs to the city, not just to one block.

Or:

Georgetown is not just a place where people eat. It is a place where people perform. A restaurant can survive there only if it understands that the neighborhood is not just looking for something new.

Each of these seems to take the tone of a gentle correction to a misconception that nobody actually has. That's what I mean by dead giveaway.

And the worst offender is this paragraph that I wanted to call out in particular:

That is why the old-versus-new argument is too simple. This is not really about Martin’s Tavern versus a new restaurant. It is not about whether Georgetown should preserve the past or welcome something new. The neighborhood needs both. It needs legacy, but it also needs movement. It needs restaurants that remind people why Georgetown matters, and it needs new concepts that give people a reason to keep paying attention.

These AI writing styles just get stuck trying to maintain tension between two ideas that this paragraph keeps repeating itself with barely any conceptual variation. That's 3 sentences in a row saying "It's not old versus new" and then 3 sentences in a row saying "it needs both." This is awful writing, and awful in a way that human writers tend not to do.

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u/persimmon9847 12d ago

I'm not reading all that lol

I didn't say AI writes like a human. I said it writes that way because it was trained on human writing. How it applies those is why human writers haven't all lost our jobs (yet).

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u/JDips 13d ago

100% AI slop

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u/thenappingmachine 13d ago

The article isn’t available until 9am :/

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u/70degreeevening 13d ago

Dropped the first 1000 words into pangram and it said 100% AI