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LLMs can get "brain rot"

llm-brain-rot.github.io

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Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#101

Post by turtletontine »

standardly wrote: post #93
avazhi wrote: post #47

“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.

That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.

I think this article has already made the rounds here, but I still think about it. I love using em dashes! It really makes me sad that I need to avoid them now to sound human

https://bassi.li/articles/i-miss-using-em-dashes

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#102

Post by veber-alex »

standardly wrote: post #93
avazhi wrote: post #47

“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.

That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.

hehe, I see what you did there.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#103

Post by AlecSchueler »

standardly wrote: post #93
avazhi wrote: post #47

“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.

That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.

Don't forget the "it's not just X, it's Y" formulation and the rule of 3.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#104

Post by AlecSchueler »

askafriend wrote: post #48
avazhi wrote: post #47

“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.

If it conveys the intended information then what's wrong with that? You're fighting a tsunami here. People are going to use LLMs to help their writing now and forever.

Style is important in writing. It always has been.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#105

Post by ciaranmca »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #40
thelastgallon wrote: post #14

If most of the content produced by younger generations is about skibidi toilet[1] and 67[2], isn't that what LLMs are going to be trained on? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6-7_(meme)

only if the trends last long enough (which they rarely do!), skibidi is already old news according to some kids I know

Agreed, “ Popularity as a better indicator”. Hypothetically you could look at popularity over time to filter out viral rot content and work out if people feel the content is useful.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#106

Post by sailingparrot »

askafriend wrote: post #48
avazhi wrote: post #47

“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.

If it conveys the intended information then what's wrong with that? You're fighting a tsunami here. People are going to use LLMs to help their writing now and forever.

> If it conveys the intended information then what's wrong with that?

Well, the issue is precisely that it doesn’t convey any information.

What is conveyed by that sentence, exactly ? What does reframing data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI entails and what information is in there?

There are precisely 0 bit of information in that paragraph. We all know training on bad data lead to a bad model, thinking about it as “coginitive hygiene for AI” does not lead to any insight.

LLMs aren’t going to discover interesting new information for you, they are just going to write empty plausible sounding words. Maybe it will be different in a few years. They can be useful to help you polish what you want to say or otherwise format interesting information (provided you ask it to not be ultra verbose), but its just not going to create information out of thin air if you don't provide it to it.

At least, if you do it yourself, you are forced to realize that you in fact have no new information to share, and do not waste your and your audience time by publishing a paper like this.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#108

Post by hunter-gatherer »

standardly wrote: post #93
avazhi wrote: post #47

“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.

That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.

Lol. This is brilliant. I'm not sure if anyone else has this happen to them, but I noticed in college my writing style and "voice" woukd shift quite noticeably depending on whatever I was reading heavily. I wonder if I'll start writing more like an LLM naturally as I unavoidably read more LLM-generated content.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#110

Post by janderson215 »

turtletontine wrote: post #101
standardly wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.

I think this article has already made the rounds here, but I still think about it. I love using em dashes! It really makes me sad that I need to avoid them now to sound human https://bassi.li/articles/i-miss-using-em-dashes

The em dash usage conundrum is likely temporary. If I were you, I’d continue using them however you previously used them and someday soon, you’ll be ignored the same way everybody else is once AI mimics innumerable punctuation and grammatical patterns.
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