>Beyond folks for whom English is a second language

I am one of those folks, and I’m strongly against AI writing for that use case as well.

The only reason I can communicate in English with some fluency is that I used it awkwardly on the internet for years. Don’t rob yourself of that learning process out of shyness, the AI crutch will make you progressively less capable.

Why exempt people who use English as a second language? Anyone with a level of proficiency sufficient for reading the comments here can manage writing English at a passable level. If that takes effort and requires looking up idioms or words, then good! That is how you learn a language — outsource that and you don't. It won't stick even if you see what is being output.

I don't care if they use an LLM to ask questions about grammar or whatever, as long as they write their own text after figuring out whatever it was they were struggling with.

Traditional translation tools still work, and they're pretty darn good still.

As someone who learned English as a second language, I would encourage people to use LLMs and any other resources to practice, and then use what they've learned to communicate with others.

Telling an LLM to "refine" your writing is just lazy and it doesn't help you learn to express yourself better. Asking it for various ways of conveying something, and picking one that suits you when writing a comment is OK in my book.

The way I see it, people will repeat the same grammar and pronunciation mistakes, and use restricted vocabulary their whole lives, just because learning requires effort, and they can't be bothered.

I can accept that nobody is perfect, as long as they have the will to improve.

Also, there is nothing wrong with looking like an idiot. Thats only in your mind. As long as you have put thought into your reply, even if it not structured correctly, or verbose, or does not have perfect English, humans can still decipher it and understand it.

> We just want to communicate with you

Then you should have no issue with people using LLMs to communicate more clearly.

One heartbreaking loss from LLMs are the funny little disfluencies from ESL speakers. They're idiosyncratic and technically wrong, but they indicate a clear authorial voice.

AI polished writing shaves away all those weird and charming edges until it's just boring.

English is my 3rd language. I still disagree with using an LLM to write on one's behalf. I either get to read your thoughts in your voice or the comment is getting a downvote/flag.

> I don't understand why people are immediately trying to find some loophole in this with spelling, grammar, etc checks.

First, what "loophole" is the comment above referring to? Spell-checking and grammar checking? They seem both common and reasonable to me.

Second, I'm concerned the comment above is uncharitable. (The word 'loophole' is itself a strong tell of that.)

In my view, humanity is at its best when we leverage tools and technology to think better. Let's be careful what policies we put in place. If we insist comments have no "traces of LLM" we might inadvertently lower the quality of discussion.