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When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

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Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#101

Post by nottorp »

toldyouso2022 wrote: post #20
armchairhacker wrote: post #8

How much is ChatGPT replacing human writing? It still seems to me like most of the articles on HN are human-written, and I heard CNBC tried replacing writers with ChatGPT and it went terribly. But I've also heard anecdotes of freelance writers getting replaced [1] [2] [3], and every once in a while I spot or hear about something ChatGPT-written in the wild. I'm sure ChatGPT replaces boilerplate writing (e.g. legal do…

While reading your post I wondered if it was written (in part) by chatgpt. I hope you don't take offense, I'm not saying that it's written badly, it's more about of paranoia activating when there is long-form content talking about chatgpt writing posts in forums and such.

> there is long-form content

The post you're replying to has had a lot more effort put in than the usual forum post but... long form? Anything longer than 160 characters is long form now?

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#102

Post by passion__desire »

kqr wrote: post #40
hammyhavoc wrote: post #25

> Most people hate to write as much as they hate math. Way more than admit it I fucking love writing. Most people I know also fucking love writing, and I do mean love . Some do it for pleasure, some do it as a career, others do it as a means to an end in their career, and they haven't found value in LLMs. There's writing and writing . If all you're doing is rewording what someone else has already done like a high sch…

> I fucking love writing. Most people I know also fucking love writing, and I do mean love . One can tell from the opening of your comment. Composition, cadence, vocabulary, repetition. It ties together. I prompted an LLM to produce an enthusiastic expression around writing, but it came up with drivel like > Writing fills my heart with pure delight, igniting my soul and inspiring my mind with boundless creativity. I…

I asked GPT-4 to write in style of Alan Watts.

"Indeed, I find an intoxicating exuberance in writing, a passion that's as profound as it is poignant. It's akin to dancing with words, a ballet of ideas and sentiments, pirouetting across the stage of one's imagination. There's a rhythm, a cadence to it, a harmonious symphony of phrases and thoughts that, when assembled with care and cunning, can stir the soul and ignite the mind. I don't just love writing, I am fervently, ardently, unabashedly in love with it. The artistry of it, the texture and tone of each word, each sentence; the way they flow, ebb and surge like the ocean's tide. There's a divine repetition in the crafting, a reiteration of thoughts, feelings, experiences, each time subtly different, each time uniquely enlightening. Writing is my symphony, my ballet, my ocean, my universe. It is in the weaving of words, the crafting of tales, the elucidation of the esoteric, that I truly come alive. It's not merely that I love writing; writing, my dear friend, is the very essence of my love."

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#104

Post by javchz »

lordnacho wrote: post #22
rcme wrote: post #14

Sometimes I wonder if I'm using the same ChatGPT as everyone else. I pay for GPT4 access in ChatGPT, and it is a really terrible writer. I also pay for Copilot, and I think a can count the number of times it has been helpful with one hand. I'm trying to get on this hype train, but I'm left with an empty feeling every time I try to seriously spend some time with these new tools.

I'm surprised about copilot. I find every day it saves me time by "nexting" whatever I'm doing. Whenever it's right about what I wanted to write, I save a bit of time. My go-to example is if conditions. When I start with the first case, it almost always figures out the rest of the cases correctly.

I think copilot it's amazing saving time in boilerplate code.

But I can understand why some workflows may be a liability rather than help. Similar to chatgpt sometimes allusinate code with reserved words that don't exist in the language (but exists in others), or uses old code from a deprecated api / version of your framework.

In other words, somtimes the cleaning process can take as much time, as just writing the code yourself.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#105

Post by nottorp »

tkgally wrote: post #52

Many people find writing very difficult or are not confident about their ability to do it accurately. For people like that, GPT can be a godsend. If they need to write an e-mail or short report for work, they can just give GPT a few bullet points and it will produce a perfectly serviceable, error-free text. People who need to write in a second language will find GPT especially useful, because they can write those bul…

Not so sure being served the text on a platter will lead to any improvement.

Which is fine when some experienced person uses the generator to do something that they already know how to do (boilerplate code generation) or is tangential to their main activity (report generation).

In the long run though, what happens when we reach a generation that is taught to use the LLMs for their job from the start? Will they be able to handle anything unexpected?

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#106

Post by hammyhavoc »

passion__desire wrote: post #102
kqr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fucking love writing. Most people I know also fucking love writing, and I do mean love . One can tell from the opening of your comment. Composition, cadence, vocabulary, repetition. It ties together. I prompted an LLM to produce an enthusiastic expression around writing, but it came up with drivel like > Writing fills my heart with pure delight, igniting my soul and inspiring my mind with boundless creativity. I…

I asked GPT-4 to write in style of Alan Watts. "Indeed, I find an intoxicating exuberance in writing, a passion that's as profound as it is poignant. It's akin to dancing with words, a ballet of ideas and sentiments, pirouetting across the stage of one's imagination. There's a rhythm, a cadence to it, a harmonious symphony of phrases and thoughts that, when assembled with care and cunning, can stir the soul and ignit…

Looks very similar to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35898426

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#107

Post by quickthrower2 »

fooker wrote: post #78
zmmmmm wrote: post #4

Interestingly enough, you can reverse this statement: "when you gain the ability to write, you gain the ability to think" - and in part gain some insight into how LLMs seem to suddenly have "emergent" behaviour to perform quite impressive feats of logic.

There is a logical mistake in your contrapositive statement. A implies B is equivalent to Not B implies Not A. The issue is that (Not gain) and (Lose) aren't exact opposites. The insight is interesting though.

It is worse, it is A implies B equivalent to C implies D mistake of humanising machines.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#108

Post by passion__desire »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #106
passion__desire wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked GPT-4 to write in style of Alan Watts. "Indeed, I find an intoxicating exuberance in writing, a passion that's as profound as it is poignant. It's akin to dancing with words, a ballet of ideas and sentiments, pirouetting across the stage of one's imagination. There's a rhythm, a cadence to it, a harmonious symphony of phrases and thoughts that, when assembled with care and cunning, can stir the soul and ignit…

Looks very similar to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35898426

In how many different ways can a simple phrase "I love writing" can be expanded so that the variations don't resemble each other?

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#109

Post by neilv »

I'd love to see numbers on what percentage of ChatGPT writing is for BS that the prompter doesn't actually care about -- they only have to be able to say they did it.

Examples: homework, corporate busywork.

I'd also like to see numbers on writing with ChatGPT that the prompter does care about a bit, but that is effectively worthless BS, especially if generated by LLM, and just makes more piles of garbage for someone else.

Examples: advertising, relationship management, "content" for selling ads or SEO.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#110

Post by tlb »

passion__desire wrote: post #108
hammyhavoc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks very similar to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35898426

In how many different ways can a simple phrase "I love writing" can be expanded so that the variations don't resemble each other?

Pop music contains 10^5 or so versions of “I love you”. I think there could be a similar number for writing.
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