The artificial intelligence MEGATHREAD

[Gadianton]

Could you provide three main reasons why a person would cut and paste entire, long, AI responses on an Internet forum?

response sans the summary:

1. Convenience and Efficiency
The user sees the AI-generated answer as a complete, ready-made solution and wants to share it with minimal effort on their part.

Time-saving: Instead of synthesizing the information, paraphrasing, or adding personal insight, they copy-paste the entire response. This is the path of least resistance.

Perceived Completeness: AI responses (especially from models like GPT-4) are often well-structured, comprehensive, and articulate. The user may believe the full response is necessary to cover all nuances and is "too good to edit."

Laziness or Lack of Expertise: They may not fully understand the topic and are therefore reluctant to modify or summarize the AI's text for fear of losing key information or introducing errors.

2. Desire to Demonstrate Authority or Provide Perceived Value
The user uses the AI's polished, detailed response to bolster their own standing or to be seen as a helpful contributor.

Credibility by Proxy: A long, articulate response can make the poster appear knowledgeable or thorough, even if they are not the true author. It's a form of intellectual impression management.

Aspiration to be Helpful: The user genuinely wants to solve the forum's question or problem. Seeing a comprehensive AI answer, they believe the most helpful action is to provide that answer in full, assuming more detail is better.

Showcasing AI Capability: Sometimes the user is subtly (or explicitly) demonstrating the power of the AI tool itself, turning the forum post into an informal showcase of what the technology can produce.

3. Lack of Forum Etiquette or Understanding of the Social Context
The user fails to recognize that a forum is a human-to-human community with norms, not just an information delivery system.

Misunderstanding Collaboration: Forums typically thrive on discussion, personal experience, and digested knowledge. A monolithic AI block of text can stifle conversation, coming across as a "lecture" rather than a contribution to a dialogue.

Ignoring Plagiarism Norms: Many forums have explicit or implicit rules against posting others' work without attribution. The user may not consider AI-generated text as "someone else's work" in a traditional sense, or may simply disregard these norms.

Poor Information Hygiene: They may not realize that lengthy, unsourced text dumps are often seen as low-effort, spam-like, and disrespectful of readers' time. The optimal practice is to summarize, quote key parts, and always cite the AI as the source, but this requires more awareness and effort.

Does everyone agree that these points might be relevant to MG's use of AI on this forum, including laziness and lack of expertise, credibility by proxy, and lack of forum etiquette or understanding of the social context?

[bill4long]

Yeah, it’s not worth having everyone study the Mormon Scriptures. They’re not that big a deal. But there are a lot of academics in the world. A few of them should be looking at the Mormon texts.

Most non-Mormonn scholars would be bored with such obvious nincompoopery. There's only a fixed amount of time in one's life. But some have. For example, Dan Vogel, John Turner, Simon Southerton, and Dan McLellan.

[Whiskey]

I thought I would ask AI why people use AI.

Except you didn't post your prompt, which ends up being one the main issues with people using AI, in particular, MG's use. All your examples were flattering for the AI user, or at least makes the AI user the victim, suggesting you biased the AI toward a noble answer.

Is it a problem when people on Internet forums post AI responses but don't post the prompts used to generate the AI response? What are the main two reasons why a person would not include their prompt along with the AI's response?

I'll skip the wall of text, unless requested to post it, and provide deepseek's summary:

Conclusion
Omitting the prompt fundamentally undermines the collaborative and investigative spirit of most forums. While sometimes done out of mere oversight or a mistaken belief in efficiency, it can also be a deliberate tactic to present AI outputs with more authority or to protect one's prompting strategy. For AI-generated content to be truly useful and trustworthy in community discussions, sharing the prompt should be a standard practice, akin to citing sources or showing one's work in a calculation.

Excellent post and suggestion. Thanks man.

[Marcus]

Could you provide three main reasons why a person would cut and paste entire, long, AI responses on an Internet forum?

response sans the summary:

1. Convenience and Efficiency
The user sees the AI-generated answer as a complete, ready-made solution and wants to share it with minimal effort on their part.

Time-saving: Instead of synthesizing the information, paraphrasing, or adding personal insight, they copy-paste the entire response. This is the path of least resistance.

Perceived Completeness: AI responses (especially from models like GPT-4) are often well-structured, comprehensive, and articulate. The user may believe the full response is necessary to cover all nuances and is "too good to edit."

Laziness or Lack of Expertise: They may not fully understand the topic and are therefore reluctant to modify or summarize the AI's text for fear of losing key information or introducing errors.

2. Desire to Demonstrate Authority or Provide Perceived Value
The user uses the AI's polished, detailed response to bolster their own standing or to be seen as a helpful contributor.

Credibility by Proxy: A long, articulate response can make the poster appear knowledgeable or thorough, even if they are not the true author. It's a form of intellectual impression management.

Aspiration to be Helpful: The user genuinely wants to solve the forum's question or problem. Seeing a comprehensive AI answer, they believe the most helpful action is to provide that answer in full, assuming more detail is better.

Showcasing AI Capability: Sometimes the user is subtly (or explicitly) demonstrating the power of the AI tool itself, turning the forum post into an informal showcase of what the technology can produce.

3. Lack of Forum Etiquette or Understanding of the Social Context
The user fails to recognize that a forum is a human-to-human community with norms, not just an information delivery system.

Misunderstanding Collaboration: Forums typically thrive on discussion, personal experience, and digested knowledge. A monolithic AI block of text can stifle conversation, coming across as a "lecture" rather than a contribution to a dialogue.

Ignoring Plagiarism Norms: Many forums have explicit or implicit rules against posting others' work without attribution. The user may not consider AI-generated text as "someone else's work" in a traditional sense, or may simply disregard these norms.

Poor Information Hygiene: They may not realize that lengthy, unsourced text dumps are often seen as low-effort, spam-like, and disrespectful of readers' time. The optimal practice is to summarize, quote key parts, and always cite the AI as the source, but this requires more awareness and effort.

Does everyone agree that these points might be relevant to MG's use of AI on this forum, including laziness and lack of expertise, credibility by proxy, and lack of forum etiquette or understanding of the social context?

I do, absolutely.

[Philo Sofee]

I thought I would ask AI why people use AI.

Except you didn't post your prompt, which ends up being one the main issues with people using AI, in particular, MG's use. All your examples were flattering for the AI user, or at least makes the AI user the victim, suggesting you biased the AI toward a noble answer.

Is it a problem when people on Internet forums post AI responses but don't post the prompts used to generate the AI response? What are the main two reasons why a person would not include their prompt along with the AI's response?

I'll skip the wall of text, unless requested to post it, and provide deepseek's summary:

Conclusion
Omitting the prompt fundamentally undermines the collaborative and investigative spirit of most forums. While sometimes done out of mere oversight or a mistaken belief in efficiency, it can also be a deliberate tactic to present AI outputs with more authority or to protect one's prompting strategy. For AI-generated content to be truly useful and trustworthy in community discussions, sharing the prompt should be a standard practice, akin to citing sources or showing one's work in a calculation.

OK, I did the same thing - I asked ChatGPT 5.2, with the exact same prompt. Here is what I got. I found it remarkably honest and straight forward:
Short answer: yes, it can be a problem, but why it’s a problem depends on why the prompt is missing. Here’s a clean, forum-friendly way to think about it.
Is it a problem not to post the prompt? It becomes a problem when the AI output is treated as if it were a direct, unmediated contribution from the poster, especially in discussions about scholarship, theology, history, or interpretation. Without the prompt, readers cannot tell:
what assumptions were baked in, what constraints were imposed, what tone, audience, or framing was requested, whether counter-arguments were excluded by design.
An AI response is not “neutral.” It is prompt-shaped. Hiding the prompt hides the intellectual steering wheel.
That said, not every omission is malicious. Which brings us to the two main reasons.
The two main reasons people do not include their prompts
1. Innocent or practical reasons (non-problematic). Many people simply don’t realize prompts matter, or think of AI as a “smart search” rather than a shaped tool. They are sharing something they found interesting, not making a scholarly claim, and don’t want to clutter a post with what looks like backstage mechanics.
In this case, the omission reflects naïveté, not deception. The person may genuinely believe the output “stands on its own.”
This is common with newer or casual AI users.
2. Rhetorical control or authority-laundering (problematic).
More concerning is when someone omits the prompt to preserve the illusion of objectivity or authority.

This can include: framing the AI as an independent “third-party expert”; concealing leading assumptions or exclusions in the prompt; avoiding accountability for biased or one-sided framing; using AI to win an argument rather than explore one.
In these cases, the AI output functions like a masked ventriloquist because the user speaks, but the voice sounds external and authoritative.
This is not always conscious, but it does distort fair discussion.

Why the prompt matters (in one sentence):

The prompt is to AI what methodology is to scholarship. Without it, conclusions cannot be properly evaluated.
A balanced forum norm (if you want one)

A healthy middle ground many communities are moving toward:

1. If AI is used for brainstorming or illustration the prompt is optional.
2. If AI is used to support an argument or factual claim then the prompt should be summarized or linked.
Even a short note like “I asked the AI to summarize X from Y perspective” restores transparency.

The bottom line is:

Not including the prompt usually means one of two things:

The user doesn’t yet understand that prompts shape outcomes. The user benefits rhetorically from others not knowing how the answer was shaped. Only the second is a real problem. But without transparency, readers can’t tell which is which.

If you want, I can help you craft a polite, non-accusatory one-liner for forum use that invites prompt disclosure without starting a fight. This is me, Philo Soffee now - I didn't ask it to do this.

[MG 2.0]

Riddle me this: the LDS church consistently proclaims that Joseph Smith and his family suffered persecution from neighbors in the community in and around Palmyra in the 1820s well before the Book of Mormon was published and the church was founded in 1830. What was the genesis of those persecutions if not the family's magic practices (treasure digging, necromancy, talismans, etc.)?

Quinn's broader thesis was that magic and religion were interwoven in early American folk Christianity. Not that magic sat outside respectable belief as a clear line of demarcation between 'acceptable' and non acceptable practice/belief. A majority of early Americans were “unchurched” and participated in a broad folk‑religious milieu. Several generations of the Smiths moved within this “magic world view.” It wasn't as if ordinary frontier Protestants were on one side and those that practiced or delved into folk magic were on the other. Practices that we would now call "occult" operated within the same universe as prayers, dreams, and providential readings of events.

Much of the persecution against the Smith family was something other than "we hate folk magic" as you seem to be saying. Legal and social records point to more specific anxieties: fraud, disorderly conduct, and religious 'deviance' (Joseph making claims about God that were unacceptable to those that were 'churched' in the true doctrines of Christianity and that there were to be no further revelations). They saw Joseph as bucking the accepted forms of Christianity that were being established by the ministers of the day. It was a threat to their authority and livelihood.

It wasn't just a folk magic sideshow to them.

For years now many LDS historians have acknowledged that treasure seeking and 'village magician' activity were part of Joseph's background. That upstate New York and Vermont were meccas of treasure digging.

Also, in regards to the Smiths and treasure digging being the 'trigger' that turned people in the direction of persecuting the Smith family and Joseph in particular, we should remember that in the late 1820's they had lost their farm and were renters on forfeited land, which by contemporary accounts damaged their reputation and fueled class resentment.

I don’t see the evidence supporting the claim that “folk magic” in general was an inherently unacceptable “profession” in Joseph’s environment. It became unacceptable when sharpened into a weapon against a particular, unpopular religious innovator...Joseph Smith...whose failures, debts, and grand claims gave his opponents ample material to frame him legally as a disorderly impostor and religiously as a sorcerer.

And it continues today among a certain segment of non believers and critics.

Treasure digging and seer stone use were part of the picture, granted, but they were not a self‑sufficient, stand alone cause of persecution. They were raw material that critics used in a broader struggle over social respectability, economic trustworthiness, and religious authority.

Regards,
MG

[Equality]

Riddle me this: the LDS church consistently proclaims that Joseph Smith and his family suffered persecution from neighbors in the community in and around Palmyra in the 1820s well before the Book of Mormon was published and the church was founded in 1830. What was the genesis of those persecutions if not the family's magic practices (treasure digging, necromancy, talismans, etc.)?

Quinn's broader thesis was that magic and religion were interwoven in early American folk Christianity. Not that magic sat outside respectable belief as a clear line of demarcation between 'acceptable' and non acceptable practice/belief. A majority of early Americans were “unchurched” and participated in a broad folk‑religious milieu. Several generations of the Smiths moved within this “magic world view.” It wasn't as if ordinary frontier Protestants were on one side and those that practiced or delved into folk magic were on the other. Practices that we would now call "occult" operated within the same universe as prayers, dreams, and providential readings of events.

Much of the persecution against the Smith family was something other than "we hate folk magic" as you seem to be saying. Legal and social records point to more specific anxieties: fraud, disorderly conduct, and religious 'deviance' (Joseph making claims about God that were unacceptable to those that were 'churched' in the true doctrines of Christianity and that there were to be no further revelations). They saw Joseph as bucking the accepted forms of Christianity that were being established by the ministers of the day. It was a threat to their authority and livelihood.

It wasn't just a folk magic sideshow to them.

For years now many LDS historians have acknowledged that treasure seeking and 'village magician' activity were part of Joseph's background. That upstate New York and Vermont were meccas of treasure digging.

Also, in regards to the Smiths and treasure digging being the 'trigger' that turned people in the direction of persecuting the Smith family and Joseph in particular, we should remember that in the late 1820's they had lost their farm and were renters on forfeited land, which by contemporary accounts damaged their reputation and fueled class resentment.

I don’t see the evidence supporting the claim that “folk magic” in general was an inherently unacceptable “profession” in Joseph’s environment. It became unacceptable when sharpened into a weapon against a particular, unpopular religious innovator...Joseph Smith...whose failures, debts, and grand claims gave his opponents ample material to frame him legally as a disorderly impostor and religiously as a sorcerer.

And it continues today among a certain segment of non believers and critics.

Treasure digging and seer stone use were part of the picture, granted, but they were not a self‑sufficient, stand alone cause of persecution. They were raw material that critics used in a broader struggle over social respectability, economic trustworthiness, and religious authority.


Regards,
MG

The first part of your response is eerily similar to what ChatGPT says if asked "What was D. Michael Quinn's principal thesis in his book titled Early Mormonism and the Magic World View?":

In Early Mormonism and the Magic World View D. Michael Quinn’s principal thesis is that early Mormonism — especially the religious development of Joseph Smith and the first generation of Latter-day Saints — was deeply embedded in the “magic world view” of early-19th-century America. Quinn argues that:

the cultural and religious environment in which Joseph Smith grew up was suffused with folk magic, occult traditions, treasure-seeking, astrology, seer stones, divining rods, talismans, and other practices that modern readers typically classify as “magic”; and that these practices were not seen at the time as irrational or heretical but were part of a broader worldview that combined religious and magical expectations about spirits and the unseen world.

Did you come up with that by your self, independently of any AI helpers?

And do you think you actually addressed the questions I asked and the sources to which I directed your attention?

[MG 2.0]

Quinn's broader thesis was that magic and religion were interwoven in early American folk Christianity. Not that magic sat outside respectable belief as a clear line of demarcation between 'acceptable' and non acceptable practice/belief. A majority of early Americans were “unchurched” and participated in a broad folk‑religious milieu. Several generations of the Smiths moved within this “magic world view.” It wasn't as if ordinary frontier Protestants were on one side and those that practiced or delved into folk magic were on the other. Practices that we would now call "occult" operated within the same universe as prayers, dreams, and providential readings of events.

Much of the persecution against the Smith family was something other than "we hate folk magic" as you seem to be saying. Legal and social records point to more specific anxieties: fraud, disorderly conduct, and religious 'deviance' (Joseph making claims about God that were unacceptable to those that were 'churched' in the true doctrines of Christianity and that there were to be no further revelations). They saw Joseph as bucking the accepted forms of Christianity that were being established by the ministers of the day. It was a threat to their authority and livelihood.

It wasn't just a folk magic sideshow to them.

For years now many LDS historians have acknowledged that treasure seeking and 'village magician' activity were part of Joseph's background. That upstate New York and Vermont were meccas of treasure digging.

Also, in regards to the Smiths and treasure digging being the 'trigger' that turned people in the direction of persecuting the Smith family and Joseph in particular, we should remember that in the late 1820's they had lost their farm and were renters on forfeited land, which by contemporary accounts damaged their reputation and fueled class resentment.

I don’t see the evidence supporting the claim that “folk magic” in general was an inherently unacceptable “profession” in Joseph’s environment. It became unacceptable when sharpened into a weapon against a particular, unpopular religious innovator...Joseph Smith...whose failures, debts, and grand claims gave his opponents ample material to frame him legally as a disorderly impostor and religiously as a sorcerer.

And it continues today among a certain segment of non believers and critics.

Treasure digging and seer stone use were part of the picture, granted, but they were not a self‑sufficient, stand alone cause of persecution. They were raw material that critics used in a broader struggle over social respectability, economic trustworthiness, and religious authority.


Regards,
MG

The first part of your response is eerily similar to what ChatGPT says if asked "What was D. Michael Quinn's principal thesis in his book titled Early Mormonism and the Magic World View?":

In Early Mormonism and the Magic World View D. Michael Quinn’s principal thesis is that early Mormonism — especially the religious development of Joseph Smith and the first generation of Latter-day Saints — was deeply embedded in the “magic world view” of early-19th-century America. Quinn argues that:

the cultural and religious environment in which Joseph Smith grew up was suffused with folk magic, occult traditions, treasure-seeking, astrology, seer stones, divining rods, talismans, and other practices that modern readers typically classify as “magic”; and that these practices were not seen at the time as irrational or heretical but were part of a broader worldview that combined religious and magical expectations about spirits and the unseen world.

Did you come up with that by your self, independently of any AI helpers?

And do you think you actually addressed the questions I asked and the sources to which I directed your attention?

Is the information you posted from Chat GPT accurate? If you asked the same question of Grok, Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini would you get eerily similar answers? Would that increase or decrease the likelihood that your original inquiry was right or wrong? Would the same scenario hold true to almost any inquiry you would entertain regarding early Mormon history? Do you know enough about early Mormon history to 'fact check' your Chat GPT inquiry 'on the fly and know that you are correct'?

Back to your post.

Would you not agree that the most plausible triggers for early persecution of Joseph Smith and his family dealt with and/or consisted of multiple factors?

1. Money digging.
2. Glass looking reputation.
3. Family debt.
4. Failed economic ventures. (the Ginseng venture rising to the top).
5. Bold claims regarding God.
6. Accusations of idleness and improvidence.
7. Religious outliers from the outset.
8. Legal entanglements and neighborhood disputes.

Granted, there would have been some that were more interested in Joseph's glass looking activities for various reasons. And they came after him in connection with those various reasons.

In my previous posts I noticed that you didn't respond to specifics. Would you care to?

You are going down a trail that now has been travelled many times with various conclusions. You've made yours. For others it remains a 'mixed bag' which, as in so many other instances, leaves one to discern/choose between greater goods and/or lesser evils (if you want to call it that).

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

The first part of your response is eerily similar to what ChatGPT says if asked "What was D. Michael Quinn's principal thesis in his book titled Early Mormonism and the Magic World View?":

…

Did you come up with that by your self, independently of any AI helpers?

And do you think you actually addressed the questions I asked and the sources to which I directed your attention?

Is the information you posted from Chat GPT accurate? If you asked the same question of Grok, Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini would you get eerily similar answers? Would that increase or decrease the likelihood that your original inquiry was right or wrong? Would the same scenario hold true to almost any inquiry you would entertain regarding early Mormon history? Do you know enough about early Mormon history to 'fact check' your Chat GPT inquiry 'on the fly and know that you are correct'?

Back to your post.

Would you not agree that the most plausible triggers for early persecution of Joseph Smith and his family dealt with and/or consisted of multiple factors?

1. Money digging.
2. Glass looking reputation.
3. Family debt.
4. Failed economic ventures. (the Ginseng venture rising to the top).
5. Bold claims regarding God.
6. Accusations of idleness and improvidence.
7. Religious outliers from the outset.
8. Legal entanglements and neighborhood disputes.

Granted, there would have been some that were more interested in Joseph's glass looking activities for various reasons. And they came after him in connection with those various reasons.

In my previous posts I noticed that you didn't respond to specifics. Would you care to?

You are going down a trail that now has been travelled many times with various conclusions. You've made yours. For others it remains a 'mixed bag' which, as in so many other instances, leaves one to discern/choose between greater goods and/or lesser evils (if you want to call it that).

Regards,
MG

Mentalgymnast is posting AI again.

[Limnor]

Would you not agree that the most plausible triggers for early persecution of Joseph Smith and his family dealt with and/or consisted of multiple factors?

1. Money digging.
2. Glass looking reputation.
3. Family debt.
4. Failed economic ventures. (the Ginseng venture rising to the top).
5. Bold claims regarding God.
6. Accusations of idleness and improvidence.
7. Religious outliers from the outset.
8. Legal entanglements and neighborhood disputes.

I’d agree with this—though I might call it something other than persecution. I’m not sure if you think that list is supposed to strengthen Joseph’s credibility. Taken together, that list make it harder—not easier—to conclude he was telling the truth about the plates.