The End of an Era • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of an Era

#211

Post by kriro » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

""" Another prediction is that MOST readers will care about machine-vs-meat as much as they currently care about publishing imprints, which is to say almost none. """

This does not align with what I see in the fiction book space at all. At least in the communities that I frequent (fantasy, sci-fi, horror) there is no AI publication that I am aware of that is good. And readers react allergically to any notion of AI involvement be it for covers or the actual writing. I think people will gladly pay a premium for human written texts just like people gladly play chess in fact the number of chess enthusiasts has drastically increased despite engines being able to crush the best players in the world. Writing is art and art requires a human soul for lack of a better word.

As for proving that you wrote it...yeah that could be tricky. I do all my writing in Latex tracked in git. I guess if the AI accusations get really wild one could add some sort of proctoring for the writing process (film yourself while writing).

Re: The End of an Era

#212

Post by xorcist » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

DarkUranium wrote: post #193

xorcist wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. LLMs are text production machines. You can also view them as data expansion tools. They expand an input to an arbitrary long text. That text contains roughly the same amount of information as was contained in the input to begin with. This is not very useful unless your work is content production. More useful is when the output length is shorter than the input. Then it is a (lossy) data compression tool. These…

I really hate the whole thing about companies promoting using LLMs to change one-liner emails into this long multi-paragraph thing that ends up saying almost nothing ... just wasting everyone's time in reading them (with an extra sprinkling of hallucinations).

I believe you are supposed to use an LLM on the receiving side to compress them again.

This is supposed to help our economic growth during the coming decade.

Re: The End of an Era

#213

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

un-diletante wrote: post #190

I feel like writing has traditionally had two purposes, to communicate some internal feeling or idea of the writer, and to entertain. For the reader, even if their primary purpose was to be entertained, they would have no choice but to also engage with the internality of the writer. This latter point is what is changing. I fully admit that we have been surpassed by the machine in the ability to entertain. And the big…

[deleted]

Re: The End of an Era

#214

Post by reloty » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

Is he financed by AI money now with the "meat-book" concern trolling? Pure "inevitability".

Re: The End of an Era

#215

Post by lowbloodsugar » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

I think that Silo is just a darker, stupider City of Ember. Like there have been shitty derivative works long before AI came along. Now there’s AI that can plagiarize faster and better than humans and those people are sad.

Re: The End of an Era

#216

Post by douglee650 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

un-diletante wrote: post #190

I feel like writing has traditionally had two purposes, to communicate some internal feeling or idea of the writer, and to entertain. For the reader, even if their primary purpose was to be entertained, they would have no choice but to also engage with the internality of the writer. This latter point is what is changing. I fully admit that we have been surpassed by the machine in the ability to entertain. And the big…

The high-level structures of writing are prose, poetry, and drama.

Cross cutting them is the purpose, these are not mutex: exposition, narrative, description, conviction.

There's also straight rambling nonsense.

Re: The End of an Era

#217

Post by projektfu » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

tempest_ wrote: post #185

bayindirh wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us understood that, and tried to tell it over and over. My keyboard is worn, my mind is numb, my soul is weary from typing/telling that the output is not the aim, but the content it carries, the substance it holds. Yet a very vocal group advocates integrating LLMs into every aspect of their lives, and the other group watch in dismay. On the other hand, I used a sentence form used by LLMs in a comment during a…

It is very weird. 6 months ago I generated some documentation for a service that was largely undocumented. When it was done my only thought was "who is this for?" Is any one going to actually read this or are they just going to ask the LLM? If someone didnt write it, why would I read it? It just becomes something to pipe into the context for the next person. It seems though a lot of people don't have this experience,…

For my medical notes assistant I had to set a global "write in a telegraphic, minimal style" because it was fluffing up every aspect of the notes. Nobody wants to read that BS and it's impossible to find information in a series of walls of text.

Re: The End of an Era

#218

Post by harimau777 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

argentinian wrote: post #149

DC-3 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the appeal of literature generally and the novel in particular is that it provides you with an incredibly intimate connection to the subjectivity of another person, though they may be long dead, or the speaker of another language, or from a far away part of the world that you would never be able to visit yourself.

I would argue that a story can mainly provide a connection with your own subjectivity. If it moves something in you, that's what mainly matters. If your goal by reading is too learn about the subjectivity of another real person, then yes, read human authors. You said it, that's it's part of what a book can offer, but there can be other reasons for reading

Off topic, but you name is somewhat ironic. Argentina's most famous writer, Jorge Luis Borges, built much of his career on the idea that writing is inextricably and inherantly linked to its author.

Re: The End of an Era

#219

Post by smalltorch » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #202

smalltorch wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im curious what you mean by this

They are quoting John 1:14. At the beginning of his book, John describes Jesus as being the personified word of God. That was likely an early example of the influence of Neo Platonism on Christianity.

Yes but curious GP's thoughts on comparing LLM writing to the reference and how it relates to the topic

Re: The End of an Era

#220

Post by cyclopeanutopia » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

rossant wrote: post #65

hbcdbff wrote: post #28

Completely disagree, I think LLMs write horribly badly. Documentation, marketing, prose, it’s all horrible slop writing, immediately recognisable regardless of model

Is that still going to be the case in 1 year? 5? 10?

It will be worse after consuming its own crap and poisoned sources.