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

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

#391

Post by rogerrogerr »

sublinear wrote: post #352
a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? As long as it works to spec, I haven't had anyone care. They literally hire people so they don't need to care about the details. Put money in, get working software out. And, AI is rapidly getting better than people at both code review and authorship, so a human deeply involved is turning into nothing but a slowdown. The main purpose people have is testing that the specs were, in fact, implemented properly.

I guarantee your specs/testing are either inadequate and/or you're not leveraging lots of existing (and probably free open source) code that was already written by humans and meets the spec better without ever needing an LLM. The vast majority of properly written software was already plumbing well over a decade ago. The software engineering is making high level decisions based on experience with respect to the existi…

> That's not dogma. That's the science.

twitch

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

#392

Post by olalonde »

andy99 wrote: post #47
dynm wrote: post #14

I'm a bit skeptical of arguments of the form, "You should not use LLMs without disclosure because LLMs at bad at writing." My reasoning is: If LLMs get better at writing—which I think is extremely likely—will you switch positions and say that now using LLMs without disclosure is A-OK? Surely some people are willing to bite that bullet and say yes. But for most people, my guess is that the answer will remain no. Thus,…

This misunderstands what it means to be better at writing. Root cause here is that writing is how humans communicate ideas. An LLM written thing isn’t doing that, it’s something equivalent to copy/pasting a Wikipedia article. Even if the writing gets better, it will still be necessarily empty when expanding anything that isn’t completely specified. LLMs seem already to be pretty good at translating, where you already…

> LLMs seem already to be pretty good at translating

I often use LLMs to translate from "shitty English" to "good English". The substance remains the same but it's nicer to read.

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

#393

Post by sublinear »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #391
sublinear wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee your specs/testing are either inadequate and/or you're not leveraging lots of existing (and probably free open source) code that was already written by humans and meets the spec better without ever needing an LLM. The vast majority of properly written software was already plumbing well over a decade ago. The software engineering is making high level decisions based on experience with respect to the existi…

> That's not dogma. That's the science. twitch

You're absolutely right to react that way.

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

#394

Post by alpinisme »

jampekka wrote: post #258
alpinisme wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear that doing an abstract painting can make you reconceptualize in the way that reframing in other words does. The point about putting in other words is that you may stumble on a clearer, more tractable, more extensible framing. The kind of reframing an abstract painting does is very different, more like changing your attitude or way of looking. But I don’t think it ever leads to a place where you will su…

I'm not much of an artist, but I'd guess trying to paint a painting of how quicksort works, in a way someone else can grasp it too, can need a lot more reconceptualization than writing a description about it. Doing plots or diagrams, or even implementing an algorithm, for sure often need more thinking than writing a description.

Yes but diagrams aren’t abstract paintings (or interpretive dances), which I assume the original commenter meant as intentionally artsy and indirect forms of art.

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

#395

Post by chvid »

hparadiz wrote: post #386
chvid wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many programmers don't write long text; their way of getting a deep understanding of a problem domain is to build something, is to write code - in a process very similar to writing a long piece of text - it has the same reflection and externalization of thought. The widespread introduction of LLM code generation is very destructive to that. Perhaps LLMs can be brought to support human cognition in the same way writin…

Miss me with this. I write way more now than a year ago. Mainly because I have to explain myself to the LLM. I'm fairly certain I write 50x more than before simply because before my weekend was spent gaming and watching anime. Now I'm having fun building things.

But what are you writing? My bet is it is short bursts of text that are thrown away as soon as it is interpreted by your LLM.

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

#396

Post by tom_alexander »

asdff wrote: post #326
andai wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Relevant comic expressing the same idea: https://www.facebook.com/twonks/posts/great-job-/13130659843...

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

#397

Post by snk »

patrickmay wrote: post #190
Hasz wrote: post #61

LLMs are not defacto bad at writing and are not defacto distinguishable from human writers. Lots of people are just lazy, never customize anything, and tell chatgpt to make them a post about x to be a "thought leader". Most are even lazier and blatantly rip off some else for their own means. However, it is perfectly possible to have an LLM imitate an existing corpus of writing (yours or someone else) and with a good…

If you're going to put that level of effort in, just write the thing yourself. It will be a comparable level of effort and you'll learn something doing it. Your readers will also appreciate hearing your real voice.

Well, no. If I can get an LLM to write like Asimov, that's better than I will ever do, honest.

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

#398

Post by Forgeties79 »

hparadiz wrote: post #386
chvid wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many programmers don't write long text; their way of getting a deep understanding of a problem domain is to build something, is to write code - in a process very similar to writing a long piece of text - it has the same reflection and externalization of thought. The widespread introduction of LLM code generation is very destructive to that. Perhaps LLMs can be brought to support human cognition in the same way writin…

Miss me with this. I write way more now than a year ago. Mainly because I have to explain myself to the LLM. I'm fairly certain I write 50x more than before simply because before my weekend was spent gaming and watching anime. Now I'm having fun building things.

Idk man I get a ton out of gaming and other media. If I say “I’m a cinephile” no one bats an eye, it’s seen as elevated and intellectually stimulating. Your examples reflect more on the gate keeping we do with what’s considered “worthy of our time” and “art” than the value of LLM’s.

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

#400

Post by WD-42 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #341
27183 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I'm game. Say $1000, donated to a charity of the winner's choice? How do you want to set the bet up, and how do you think it should be decided? To be precise: I will bet that high-level programming languages won't be any less popular as a whole, but the vast majority of code will be written by AI rather than humans, working from specs written in natural language or something very close to it. What we call "source cod…

These arguments are so silly.

Other person probably doesn’t like the idea that LLMs will replace hard earned skills. On the flip side, I bet you’ve seen your skills atrophy at an alarming rate and are trying to justify it.

Both sides come from fear. Just relax and take things as they come. Whatever happens happens.

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