Is attribution required when using LLMs to improve the grammar/formatting of a post?

Question

Let's say a user has posted a question/answer with the following content. The English is slightly convoluted but it's good content otherwise:

On enormous territory of park there are lakes, rivers, canyons and caves. Lake Yellowstone, one of the greatest alpine lakes in North America, is located in the center of Yellowstone caldera, greatest supervolcano on a continent. Caldera is considered a dozing supervolcano; he erupted with enormous force several times for last two million years. Greater part of territory of park is covered by hardening lava; in a park there is one of five existing in the world of the geyser fields.

We can then use GPT-3 to correct this to:

On the enormous territory of the park, there are lakes, rivers, canyons, and caves. Lake Yellowstone, one of the greatest alpine lakes in North America, is located in the center of the Yellowstone caldera, the greatest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant supervolcano; it has erupted with enormous force several times over the last two million years. The majority of the park's territory is covered by hardened lava; within the park, there is one of the five existing geyser fields in the world.

Would this mere correction of grammar require an attribution to GPT-3? If yes, would it also be required for Grammarly, which offers similar features without using an LLM (Large Language Model) under the hood?

Note this is not a duplicate of Is attribution required for machine-generated text when posting on Stack Exchange? which asked about novel content rather than mere grammar improvements.

Answer 1

I can't set rules, because I'm not an employee. So this answer is just my thoughts on whether attribution should be given, not on whether it is required.

My theoretical side says it probably won't hurt to disclose, it sets a good example and won't hurt until all the dust on what place (if any) machine-generated content can have on the network is settled. What if the LLM makes a mistake or a particular LLM consistently makes many? In such cases, it would probably be nice to know which LLM did it, and it might help pick out problematic LLMs if more of them arise. It never hurts to do the best you can, to give as much information as possible, so add a disclaimer/attribution, for sure.

My more practical side says I've been using Grammarly a lot to help me with my English, and when I start editing a post, sometimes I edit a few things more that I hadn't noticed, but Grammarly did. Yet I don't add a disclaimer that Grammarly was responsible for those particular parts of my edits. For a bit of fun, let's see what Grammarly makes of that first quote in your question:

On the enormous territory of the park there are lakes, rivers, canyons, and caves. Lake Yellowstone, one of the greatest alpine lakes in North America, is located in the center of Yellowstone caldera, the greatest supervolcano on the continent. Caldera is considered a dozing supervolcano; he erupted with enormous force several times over the last two million years. The greater part of the territory of the park is covered by hardening lava; in a park, there is one of five existing in the world of geyser fields.

It's actually worse than what GPT made of it. Grammarly isn't as flawless, so I would still be forced into doing manual checks, and manually doing a few more fixes. Copy-pasting a result from an LLM doesn't really force you into double-checking as much as using Grammarly does. And, another edit after I made one with the help of Grammarly could make sense, because we both may have missed a spot.

Also, Grammarly only works because I already started editing, after recognizing the post needed work. And if the post is already as correct as Grammarly can recognize, it just doesn't suggest further changes when I mash the edit button: I get no 'easy' or 'free' edit from it if the post is already 'good enough'.

BUT! Just for fun, I've run your second quote (the one GPT already corrected, and for which Grammarly gives me no suggestions) through GPT again, with the prompt "Rewrite this to standard English". This is what you get:

The park covers a large area and has lakes, rivers, canyons, and caves. Lake Yellowstone, which is one of the largest alpine lakes in North America, is located in the center of the Yellowstone caldera, which is the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant supervolcano and has erupted with great force several times in the last two million years. Much of the park's land is covered in hardened lava, and the park is home to one of the five geyser fields in the world.

So, basically, even though the quote didn't need changing, the LLM followed my command nicely, and gave me an edit that's over 6 characters long and can be submitted to SE with no problem. It is still flawless according to Grammarly. Which means it's time for a party! 'Free' edit credit without me having to do any thinking/checking! 'Free' post bump and visibility! 'Free' visibility for me through my user card on that post as well! They all may seem relatively harmless, but they could all be abused: edits give badges and count towards the candidate score in moderator elections, meaningless edits aren't allowed so using them to bump a post for more attention certainly isn't, and the user card visibility could be used to push a certain username (think spam, or political opinion) in front of everyone. So there are certainly downsides!

I wouldn't outright ban using GPT to correct quotes like your first one, which, admittingly, does need a lot of work. And GPT did a nice enough job of making it a nice quote. But based on all of the above, I think the following should be the absolute minimum requirements for when you do use GPT or any LLM to edit posts:

• Don't just copy-paste, give a command, and copy-paste the outcome back. Manually check it. When I use Grammarly to edit posts, I do the same.
• Abide by the SE guidelines for edits. In particular, make sure your LLM doesn't do anything that's not described under the 'When should I edit posts?' section.
• Make sure the post needs editing before firing up the LLM. As I showed above, it will follow the command to rewrite, even if nothing needs to be rewritten.
• Attribute the LLM. It makes it easier to spot patterns of any problematic LLMs. It also helps moderation: If you state you've already used an LLM, any user that shows a pattern of making more meaningless edits using an LLM (they will probably not disclose but be able to be spotted) after yours for whatever reason doesn't have the excuse of 'I couldn't know!'.

Answer 2

I'd say it's a good idea to clarify that a post has been edited (not created!) with ChatGPT at this point of time. The main issue with LLM is that it’s a tool that's been gratuitously misused — and frankly the 'way' it writes has a voice of its own, much like many users have a distinctive writing style.

In this case attribution isn't required — since the substantial content is generated by the user but is encouraged since there's a risk of being mistaken for a bot.

It's worth remembering the 'issue' with ChatGPT is users cynically using questions as prompts, and posting them to see 'what happens' - and its often plausible garbage. If it's used to check a correct answer, well, it's a correct answer that might be mistaken for plausible garbage. This is bad.

If I wanted to play it safe, I'd post the original 'flawed' post, in my own voice, then use the LLM fixed version as an edit. It establishes that the original post as it was meant was done by the user, shows their intent and shows what edits were made. Should the 'automated' correction system be flawed, it gives folks a way to confirm/try to guess at the user's own intentions as well. It's a 'little' troublesome, and as such isn't really something I'd want as policy, but it feels like the best practice in such cases.

At the end of the day, much like a hammer — it's a tool to be used (for good or evil) or misused. Problem is really folks have been throwing hammers at nails, with little heed for what they hit, rather than figuring appropriate uses.

Answer 3

This is a tough issue, with reasonable arguments on both sides, and I'm not sure that there are any existing rules that provide a clear answer.

On the one hand, we don't require attribution for people who use tools like a spellchecker or Grammarly to improve the English of a post. Also, requiring people to disclose use of a LLM takes a little bit of extra time, which puts a little more work on people who are making edits in this way, which might potentially discourage valuable edits, thereby disincentivizing changes that would improve the site and serve our mission. So we should only impose such a requirement if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

On the other hand, GPT makes more substantial changes, which carries the risk that GPT has changed some meaning without you realizing it. Grammarly is unlikely to change the meaning of the question -- but there is a more significant risk that GPT changes the meaning in some small but important way. This is particularly risky if you are submitting the original text to the LLM, using the LLM to rewrite the entire thing, and then copy-pasting the result over without careful word-by-word review. So I can understand the argument that it's important to disclose the use of LLMs, to address this risk.

@animuson, a Stack Exchange employee, claims that "If it wasn't created by you, attribution is always required here." For the reasons articulated above, I am unsure if such a broad policy is indeed a good idea, or if animuson even meant to cover this case, but this is arguably a precedent that attribution is required. I think it is helpful to look at the reasons animuson provides for this policy. animuson states that use of machine-generated text "can be important information in determining the validity of an answer", and that seems like a valid concern, as use of machine-generated text may be relevant for evaluating the credibility of the post.

I find the recommendations on Ask Ubuntu to be helpful to consider if you're going to use GPT or a LLM to generate edits. In particular, I'll copy a few items from that post:

• Confirm that the post is correct
• Fully understand the material that you are posting
• Correct any issues
• Communicate in your own words
• Warn of corner cases or potential issues if needed
• Cite any reliance you made on ChatGPT/GPT/LLMs for the post

Finally, if you are editing posts, make sure you haven't removed links or destroyed useful Markdown formatting. Submitting a post to a LLM to rewrite it is likely to remove all formatting and links. Losing that would likely be a loss, in most cases, so I would be very wary of any LLM-assisted edit that lost links or Markdown.