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Overleaf now incorporates an AI assistant, as of this morning. It is opt-out, not opt-in. I have very mixed feelings about this: and by "mixed", I mean ranging from annoyance to anger. www.overleaf.com/learn/how-to...

So in reality you're mostly annoyed because before you could use typos and grammatical errors as a proxy to detect weak papers due to some correlation between the two, whereas now it requires reading them carefully?

No! I don't mind the grammatical errors. They don't correlate with anything. I hate the fluff. I'd rather read something with typos than pages of nothing.

We're doing a complete disservice to everyone by pretending that the style (fewer typos and better use of a thesaurus) matters more than the substance. I don't read a paper to have paragraphs and paragraphs of polished platitudes.

No matter how you think about this, I do not think Overleaf is to blame. They are not enabling a new capability. They making an existing capability (AI text polishing), that was heavily used already, easier to use. If they would not do it, an competitor might emerge that does.

I can blame the game, if not the players. Also, that I was opted in by default instead of given the option is a huge conceptual difference.

Yes, AI writing does not have sufficient precision for scientific writing. The devil's in the details and AI just doesn't get them right in my experience. There's still no replacement for careful deliberation in the choice of words

It's sufficient to write grant proposals, though! 🙊