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Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

bcantrill.dtrace.org

321–330 of 453 posts

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work at Anthropic) I agree. I use an LLM to write my code, but I do all of my writing by hand, since it helps me think. It reminds me of the transition over the last year from AI-assisted coding to AI doing all the coding. At first the code output wasn't good enough, and humans read and iterated on the code all day, so the details of the source code mattered. Now, the code is largely high quality and it meets a la…

> wonder if long form writing will go the way of code. You and the AI agree on an outline or other high level representation, then the LLM expands it into a document. What use is that? I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know. Who or what is the audience for that sort of long form writing? If it's a human, why would they read it? They'd just give it to an LLM and get the salient points back. If the aud…

> What use is that? I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know.

People are terrible at writing. Near universally bad. Even good writers have drafts and editors.

There is a constant refrain here that somehow short messages are more valuable than longer ones. But that assumes it's understandable. Lots of short content is, frankly, awful because the writer cannot put themselves in the position of the reader and explain all the things around the point they're making that the reader really should be told.

You can view writing as translation. From your language to a language your audience speaks. At that level is it so odd if the word count differs from one side to the other?

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#322

I wanted to share my project, but for some reason, the site won't let me... I guess my karma is too low—ha ha ha! We're all like kids trying to get a good grade.

I think one of my first posts ever was a share. My guess is there probably a new account timeout to prevent spam, and you are affected for having made your account today

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be not picking up on the subtext here. Others are, though.

There is no subtext to bigstrat2003's argument, other than "I'm wrong, and I don't care." If you give persistent, repeatable instructions to a computer, you are programming it. If you disagree, you are gatekeeping. It's that simple. The most popular programming languages in 2030 will, in fact, be English and Mandarin. Deal with it and get over it. ---------------- Edit, to bcrosby95: Look up the etymology of the word…

> The most popular programming languages in 2030 will, in fact, be English and Mandarin. Deal with it and get over it.

What are you willing to bet?

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#324

These are all important points and I love the analogy. But there is an even bigger issue with having LLMs write for you: Writing is thinking. Thinking and deciding. There have been many times when I start out writing something substantial - could be an email, a blog post, a software design document, anything - when my own views substantially changed during the writing process. Writing forces you to serialize your tho…

(I work at Anthropic) I agree. I use an LLM to write my code, but I do all of my writing by hand, since it helps me think. It reminds me of the transition over the last year from AI-assisted coding to AI doing all the coding. At first the code output wasn't good enough, and humans read and iterated on the code all day, so the details of the source code mattered. Now, the code is largely high quality and it meets a la…

>(I work at Anthropic) I agree. I use an LLM to write my code, but I do all of my writing by hand, since it helps me think.

You get pushback for this? I saw an anthropic job post recently, and they wanted you specifically to have claude muck with your resume before applying.

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be not picking up on the subtext here. Others are, though.

There is no subtext to bigstrat2003's argument, other than "I'm wrong, and I don't care." If you give persistent, repeatable instructions to a computer, you are programming it. If you disagree, you are gatekeeping. It's that simple. The most popular programming languages in 2030 will, in fact, be English and Mandarin. Deal with it and get over it. ---------------- Edit, to bcrosby95: Look up the etymology of the word…

There is subtext to my argument, namely that you're the one standing in front of the bus, and trying to pull the rest of us in front of the bus, while shouting at the people standing safely out of the road. I'll continue to reject the replacement of humanity. (That doesn't mean remaining ignorant of AI as a technology. It means rejecting the idea that we should be thrilled to be replaced by AI.)

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#326
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That... isn't writing code.

Real programmers use a magnetized needle and a steady hand!

Ops analogy is like their boss claiming they write code because they told you what to work on and you wrote the code to solve your bosses problem.

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be not picking up on the subtext here. Others are, though.

There is no subtext to bigstrat2003's argument, other than "I'm wrong, and I don't care." If you give persistent, repeatable instructions to a computer, you are programming it. If you disagree, you are gatekeeping. It's that simple. The most popular programming languages in 2030 will, in fact, be English and Mandarin. Deal with it and get over it. ---------------- Edit, to bcrosby95: Look up the etymology of the word…

Still getting technical interviews in pure python, specifying you don't use LLM, in late 2026. 4 years now from me having to learn mandarin I guess...

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#328
post #293

I don’t want to read content written by AI. A feature I would like on LinkedIn would be a 100% verified human content flag for users. LinkedIn can then do the scans and flip that to false for any users it catches posting AI assisted content. Let me filter that out of the feed. If we don’t do something to maintain some standard of discourse, we lose intellectually and as a piece of our humanity. LinkedIn is the only s…

Under European law don't you have to mark AI generated content as such?

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#329
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why people think posting undisclosed LLM writing is any better than posting some other person’s writing uncited. Even if the original author is okay with it, it’s still misleading and dishonest. Or maybe all these people would be fine having someone else write their content for them if it were free and easy? A social media is a reputation economy, but reputation doesn’t work if gaining karma requires no effo…

It's because they view the LLM's output as "their thoughts." They told the LLM (via the prompt) what to do—often with loads of run-on sentences and long trains-of-thought. From their perspective, the LLM is just acting as a translation tool, saving them the trouble of having to think (about grammar, ideal wording, or even the order in which their thoughts should be presented). They treat it as "just another tool" to…

It is really no different than you telling your ghost writer what you want the book to be generally about.

Re: Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found this extremely relevant as a (primarily) non-verbal thinker. I don't, generally, think in words, more in - I guess I would call it something like meta-shapes? A sense of a shape but not things I can exactly visualise. (You might be surprised to read this and then hear I have an English degree. Surely I thought about Shakespeare in words?! Nope. Shapes, movement, structures) For me, having to write is cri…

> I don't, generally, think in words, Don't worry, no one does. That's why it is so common for people to forget a specific word they want to use ("it's on the tip of my tongue"). If we thought in words that will never happen.

…you don’t think in words? Or do you not consider an inner monologue to be thinking?
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