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We're losing our voice to LLMs

tonyalicea.dev

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Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#81

Post by aquariusDue »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #18

Not sure if it's an endemic problem, just yet, but I expect it to be, soon. For myself, I have been writing, all my life. I tend to write longform posts, from time to time[0], and enjoy it. That said, I have found LLMs (ChatGPT works best for me) to be excellent editors. They can help correct minor mistakes, as long as I ignore a lot of their advice. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/

I just want to chime in and say I enjoy reading your takes across HN, it's also inspiring how informative and insightful they are. Glazing over, please never stop writing.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#83

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

aquariusDue wrote: post #81
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #18

Not sure if it's an endemic problem, just yet, but I expect it to be, soon. For myself, I have been writing, all my life. I tend to write longform posts, from time to time[0], and enjoy it. That said, I have found LLMs (ChatGPT works best for me) to be excellent editors. They can help correct minor mistakes, as long as I ignore a lot of their advice. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/

I just want to chime in and say I enjoy reading your takes across HN, it's also inspiring how informative and insightful they are. Glazing over, please never stop writing.

Thanks so much!

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#84

Post by erwincoumans »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #29
ricardo81 wrote: post #6

I deleted my Facebook account a couple of years ago and my Twitter one yesterday. It's not just LLMs, it's how the algorithms promote engagement. i.e. rage bait, videos with obvious inaccuracies etc. Who gets rewarded, the content creators and the platform. Engaging with it just seems to accentuate the problem. There needs to be algorithms that promote cohorts and individuals preferences. Just because I said to someo…

I know that some folks dislike it, but Bluesky and atproto in particular have provided the perfect tools to achieve this. There are some people, largely those who migrated from Twitter, who mostly treat Bluesky like a all-liberal version of Twitter, which results in a predictably toxic experience, like bizarro-world Twitter. But the future of a less toxic social media is in there, if we want it. I've created my own f…

I tried Bluesky and wanted to like it. My account got flagged as spam, still no idea why. Ironically it could be another way of loosing ones voice to an LLM :)

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#85

Post by SoftTalker »

bakugo wrote: post #44
WD-42 wrote: post #5

Where are these places where everything is written by a LLM? I guess just don’t go there. Most of the comments on HN still seem human.

There are already many AI-generated submissions on HN every day. Comments maybe less so, but I've already seen some, and the amount is only going to increase with time.

Every time I see AI videos in my YouTube recommendations I say “don’t recommend this channel” but the algorithm doesn’t seem to get the hint. Why don’t they make a preference option of “don’t show me AI content”

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#86

Post by CityOfThrowaway »

freejazz wrote: post #36
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #13

In a lot of ways, I'm thankful that LLMs are letting us hear the thoughts of people who usually wouldn't share them. There are skilled writers. Very skilled, unique writers. And I'm both exceedingly impressed by them as well as keenly aware that they are a rare breed. But there's so many people with interesting ideas locked in their heads that aren't skilled writers. I have a deep suspicion that many great ideas have…

> In that way, perhaps we now have a monotexture of writing, but also perhaps more interesting ideas being shared. They aren't your ideas if its coming out of an LLM

Are they your ideas if they go through a heavy-handed editor? If you've had lots of conversations with others to refine them?

I dunno. There's ways to use LLMs that produces writing that is substantially not-your-ideas. But there's also definitely ways to use it to express things that the model would not have otherwise outputted without your unique input.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#87

Post by vanviegen »

chemotaxis wrote: post #48
ricardo81 wrote: post #6

I deleted my Facebook account a couple of years ago and my Twitter one yesterday. It's not just LLMs, it's how the algorithms promote engagement. i.e. rage bait, videos with obvious inaccuracies etc. Who gets rewarded, the content creators and the platform. Engaging with it just seems to accentuate the problem. There needs to be algorithms that promote cohorts and individuals preferences. Just because I said to someo…

> It's not just LLMs, it's how the algorithms promote engagement. i.e. rage bait, videos with obvious inaccuracies etc. I guess, but I'm on quite a few "algorithm-free" forums where the same thing happens. I think it's just human nature. The reason it's under control on HN is rigorous moderation; when the moderators are asleep, you often see dubious political stuff bubble up. And in the comments, there's often a fair…

On HN everybody sees the same ordering. Therefore you get to read opinions that are not specifically selected to make you feel just the perfect amount of outrage/self-righteousness.

Some of that you may experience as 'dubious political stuff' and 'patently incorrect takes'.

Edit, just to be clear: I'm not saying HN should be unmoderated.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#88

Post by SoftTalker »

nasmorn wrote: post #11
adamzwasserman wrote: post #2

It is not a zero sum game. I have always had a very idiosyncratic way of expressing myself, one that many people do not understand. Just as having a smartphone has changed my relationship to appointments - turning me into a prompt and reliable "cyborg" - LLMs have made it possible for me to communicate with a broader cross section of people. I write what I have to say, I ask LLMs for editing and suggestions for impro…

I should probably do that too. I once wrote an email that to me was just filled with impersonal information. The receiver was somebody I did not personally know. I later learned I made that person cry. Which I obviously did not intend. I did not swear or call anyone names. I basically described what I believe they did, what is wrong about that and what they should do instead.

If someone cries about an email you sent, the problem isn’t with you.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#89

Post by whitehexagon »

mkzet wrote: post #10

The Internet will become truly dead with the rise of LLMs. The whole hacking culture within 90s and 00s will always be the golden age. RIP

Not quite dead yet. For me the rise of LLMs and BigTech has helped me turn more away from it. The more I find Ads or AI injected into my life, the more accounts I close, or sites I ignore. I've now removed most of my BigTech 'fixes', and find myself with time to explore the fun side of hacking again.

I dug out my old PinePhone and decided to write a toy OS for it. The project has just the right level of challenge and reward for me, and feels more like early days hacking/programming where we relied more on documentation and experimentation than regurgitated LLM slop.

Nothing beats that special feeling when a hack suddenly works. Today was just a proximity sensor reading displayed, but it invloved a lot of SoC hacking to get that far.

I know there are others hacking hard in obscure corners of tech, and I love this site for promoting them.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#90

Post by steveylang »

adamzwasserman wrote: post #2

It is not a zero sum game. I have always had a very idiosyncratic way of expressing myself, one that many people do not understand. Just as having a smartphone has changed my relationship to appointments - turning me into a prompt and reliable "cyborg" - LLMs have made it possible for me to communicate with a broader cross section of people. I write what I have to say, I ask LLMs for editing and suggestions for impro…

Here's my guess- your post reflects your honest opinion on the matter, with some LLM help. It elaborated on your smartphone analogy, and may have tightened up the text overall.
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