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AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
351–360 of 729 posts
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#352I really like the point I read somewhere the other day; instead of sending me the AI output, just send me the prompt you used to generate it. That is the only part that contains only the information you are trying to convey. The rest is just guesses flowery language added, and it confuses the actual message being sent.
How is this? https://claude.ai/share/99bfee0f-bab9-4593-aabb-377e71f1151d
The stream-of-consciousness is only hard to read because it lacks paragraph breaks, sometimes sentence breaks, and there's so many misspelled words. If you just tweak it to fix that stuff, it becomes fairly readable, like most internet comments or whatnot. (Which do you think this comment is, a polished essay, or lightly-formatted stream of consciousness?)
Meanwhile, the LLM-generated essay is hard to read because it's essentially the high-school essay that's padding its paper to meet a minimum page count. I'm surprised that you find it easier to read than most human text, because I've invariably found that my first reaction to LLM-generated text is "where's the point?"--everything is just buried in so much fluff.
So yeah, I find the prompt much better than the LLM output.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am actually asking you to do your job. Pre-LLMs, if I got comments that were difficult to read in a code review, that PR isn't getting merged until they fix it. So: Review the docs. If it's that bad, just say "I don't understand these comments" and send it back.
What I’m trying to say is that they can generate many more hundreds of lines of code and comments than I can reasonably review. Maybe the comments do make sense they’re just five lines longer than they ought to be. Multiply that by 20 times and then add in 150 lines of documentation that is not technically incorrect. Not to mention that the response to each review will come with its own set of new comments and new do…
Sure - but the volume is a separate problem from the quality of comments. Even if the comments were the best possible your complaint would still stand.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're conflating a couple of different things here. 1. I do disagree with your position in both the prompt and the output; I don't think you're correct. That doesn't mean I don't think you're worth talking to. 2. I do think the output was thoughtless; there is thought evident in the prompt, but then you passed it through a blandifying filter that took it out. You made your contribution less valuable and less…
I had 3 main positions - are you disagreeing with them all? You have not directly engaged with any of them. 1) Content shouldn't be judged solely on the use of an LLM. 2) There is a distinction between slop and assisted authorship. 3) LLMs can be valuable accessibility tools. You are now saying that the OUTPUT was thoughtless, whereas before you said that "I" had not put meaningful thought into it. Those are differen…
> are you disagreeing with them all
Yes. I think an LLM can be useful for trivial or functional tasks, but for expressing complex positions, it's worse than useless. It's absolutely valid to dismiss LLM-generated prose, and people who who think they're doing 'assisted authorship' tend to be mistaken.
I'm not saying you are incapable of thought; I'm saying that you've abdicated that by transmitting through an LLM.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#355I submit pretty much the opposite of this, but it didn't gain any traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332291
Fascinating seeing you get irate with people who are giving you feedback that your own thoughts are far superior to the regurgitated "cleaned up" version which is absolute garbage indeed.
You have some solid ideas there but they are very poorly organized. I think you would benefit from a class in writing. I had a month-long technical writing workshop back a couple of decades ago that my company sponsored and it helped me tremendously with starting with wall of consciousness, progressing to writing plan, outline and then editing. It had a very positive impact on my career in professional services where clear communication via documents is an essential part of value prop.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#356The part that astonishes me is that in the year of our common era two thousand twenty-six that it's not universally offensive and reviling to post an AI-generated response to another person. If I'm reading something on the internet, I'm either reading it to learn, or I'm reading it to be persuaded. If I wanted the LLM to teach me (thank you, no), I would ask an LLM. I'm reading your website/newsletter/email because I…
This is why even if I ask GPT or Claude or whatever to rewrite an email, I still rewrite it by hand with my own words, what I look for is, did the AI remove sentences where I repated myself or that were too wordy? Perfect, I'll ommit those details.
Could probably ask the AI what changes they'd make to the email.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know it's AI because the laziest coworker you know just posted 400 paragraphs of text on a minor topic.
Sure, that's one of those obvious tells. But when I sit and spend 10 minutes making a well thought out and researched comment, and then properly format it in markdown, and then the first response is "this is AI", it's really frustrating.
If you read more literature you will get better at writing and your writing should stop being as similar to the banal mess that AI spits out. This is on you to differentiate.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#358The part that astonishes me is that in the year of our common era two thousand twenty-six that it's not universally offensive and reviling to post an AI-generated response to another person. If I'm reading something on the internet, I'm either reading it to learn, or I'm reading it to be persuaded. If I wanted the LLM to teach me (thank you, no), I would ask an LLM. I'm reading your website/newsletter/email because I…
What's astonishing to me is how quickly people at my workplace have adopted this habit. Six months ago my manager was vociferously complaining about his boss asking him to review a lengthy document that was clearly AI generated, saying that his boss wasn't even capable of understanding the document the LLM had created. Now the majority of technical communication I get from my manager is just a transcript exported dir…
I've been wondering lately if this is about the end of the road for me for a career in tech (I've had a good long one, so.. maybe?).
I'm so tired of AI Slopped architecture documents, code, messages in slack, emails etc. I'm close to flat out rejecting any architecture doc I get that's written by an LLM, because I'm not sure the engineers even understand what they're proposing. The code is often a nightmare under the hood, even if it works. I've got smart coworkers who now just copy paste everything via an LLM giving themselves something approaching a lobotomy in the process.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#359My coworkers continue to dump hundreds of lines of AI documentation in every PR and every other line of code has between one and ten lines of AI generated comments, talking about the real unlock and how things are byte for byte identical on the load bearing path or how the acceptance ladder is misleading. Features are coming out and metrics are improving, but we’re basically in a post readability code base, with the…
You forgot the smoke tests that passed.
So many smoke tests in every PR i make with AI. Not that i mind, I just find that phrase funny.
Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)
#360Recently I've gotten lots of DM's from boutique marketing firms offering to promote the game i'm working on. I'm pretty sure they all find leads via scraping the Steam API. Many of these small firms are people in developing countries.
It's frustrating dealing with them since they all use AI in communications. Everything is written so flowery and with so much extra words. Any feedback I give is met with overwhelming praise about "how right I am". Its exhausting.
I understand many of them are in developing countries and aren't confident in their English skills. But I always tell them I'd rather they write in broken English to communicate their own ideas. I want to hear what they have to say, directly from their brain. I don't have issues with parsing bad english. Usually its straight and to the point.
They always end up defaulting back to AI messaging. Even when I tell them to be genuine. I'd love to give one of these firms a chance, but they fail this basic step. I think they think everyone in the developed world likes AI or something.