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Writing with LLM is not a shame

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Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#41

Post by CRConrad »

jascha_eng wrote: post #32
latexr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> clearly written by an LLM, the long emdash was even present. Can we please stop propagating this accusation? Alright, sure, maybe LLMs overuse the em-dash, but it is a valid topographical mark which was in use way before LLMs and is even auto-inserted by default by popular software on popular operating systems— it is never sufficient on its own to identify LLM use (and yes, I just used it—multiple times—on purpose…

Fact is that I maybe saw it in 10% of blogs and news articles before Chatgpt. And now it pops up in emails, slack messages, HN/reddit comments and probably more than half of blog posts? Yes it's not a guarantee but it is at least a very good signal that something was at least partially LLM written. It is also a very practical signal, there are a few other signs but none of them are this obvious.

> And now it pops up in emails, slack messages, HN/reddit comments and probably more than half of blog posts?

Yeah, maybe that's the one thing people who didn't know how to do it before have learnt from "AI" output.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#42

Post by saalweachter »

ekianjo wrote: post #14
nicbou wrote: post #3

I think it's fair to use AI as an editor, to get feedback about how your ideas are packaged. It's also fair to use it as a clever dictionary, to find the right expressions, or to use correct grammar and spelling. (This post could really use a round of corrections.) But in the end, the message and the reasoning should be yours, and any facts that come from the LLM should be verified. Expecting people to read unverifie…

> message and the reasoning should be yours, I think we havent realized yet that most of us don't really have original thoughts. Even in creative industries the amount of plagiarism (or so called inspiration) is at all times high (and that's before LLMs were available).

Sure, but also, curation is a service.

An author that does nothing but "plagiarize" and regurgitate the ideas of others is incredibly valuable... if they exercise their human judgement and only regurgitate the most interesting and useful ideas, saving the rest of us the trouble of sifting through their sources.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#43

Post by klabb3 »

It's very similar to the Stack Overflow debate of the previous decade. Bad developers would copy paste without understanding. It's the same here. Without understanding, you just can't build very sophisticated things, or debug hard issues. And even if AI got better at this, anyone else can do it too, so you'll be a dime a dozen engineer.

Those who don't compromise on understanding will benefit from an extra tool under their belt. Those who actively leverage the tool to improve their understanding will do even better.

Those who want shortcuts and not bother understanding are like cheating in school – not in a morally wrong way, but rather in a they missed the entire point way.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#44

Post by bilvar »

amiga386 wrote: post #40
dep_b wrote: post #11

Just got a few recommendations by my colleagues on LinkedIn that were clearly written by an LLM, the long emdash was even present. But then again, the message was tuned to specific things I did. Also they were from Eastern Europe, so I imagine they just fixed their input. If you call yourself a writer, having tell tale LLM signs is bad. But for people who's work doesn't involve having a personal voice in written lang…

> it might help them getting them to express things in a better way than before. You know what people did before the AI fad? They read other people's books . They found and talked to interesting people. They found themselves in, or put themselves in, interesting situations. They spent a lot of time cogitating and ruminating before they decided they ought to write their ideas down. They put in a lot of effort. Now the…

Did people really use to do all that work when someone asked them to write a recommendation on LinkedIn?

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#46

Post by singpolyma3 »

dep_b wrote: post #11

Just got a few recommendations by my colleagues on LinkedIn that were clearly written by an LLM, the long emdash was even present. But then again, the message was tuned to specific things I did. Also they were from Eastern Europe, so I imagine they just fixed their input. If you call yourself a writer, having tell tale LLM signs is bad. But for people who's work doesn't involve having a personal voice in written lang…

... you know all serious writers use mdash right? This is not so magic LLM watermark

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#47

Post by singpolyma3 »

Gigachad wrote: post #27
dep_b wrote: post #11

Just got a few recommendations by my colleagues on LinkedIn that were clearly written by an LLM, the long emdash was even present. But then again, the message was tuned to specific things I did. Also they were from Eastern Europe, so I imagine they just fixed their input. If you call yourself a writer, having tell tale LLM signs is bad. But for people who's work doesn't involve having a personal voice in written lang…

Craziest thing I saw at work was someone using AI generated text in a farewell card. Like it's so obvious, it's so much more offensive to send someone an AI generated message than to just not send anything at all.

What made it obvious?

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#49

Post by CRConrad »

ekianjo wrote: post #16
echelon_musk wrote: post #2

Writing with LLMs is not a shame Or Writing with an LLM is not a shame

> Writing with an LLM is not a shame Should be "Writing with a LLM is not a shame", no reason to put a "an" here.

Nope, that's not how a / an works in English.

Re: Writing with LLM is not a shame

#50

Post by ginko »

latexr wrote: post #15
dep_b wrote: post #11

Just got a few recommendations by my colleagues on LinkedIn that were clearly written by an LLM, the long emdash was even present. But then again, the message was tuned to specific things I did. Also they were from Eastern Europe, so I imagine they just fixed their input. If you call yourself a writer, having tell tale LLM signs is bad. But for people who's work doesn't involve having a personal voice in written lang…

> clearly written by an LLM, the long emdash was even present. Can we please stop propagating this accusation? Alright, sure, maybe LLMs overuse the em-dash, but it is a valid topographical mark which was in use way before LLMs and is even auto-inserted by default by popular software on popular operating systems— it is never sufficient on its own to identify LLM use (and yes, I just used it—multiple times—on purpose…

So do you always put in the ALT+ incantation to get an emdash or copy&paste?

I feel the emdash is a tell because you have to go out of your way to use it on a computer keyboard. Something anyone other than the most dedicated punctuation geeks won't do for a random message on the internet.

Things are different for typeset books.

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