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I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

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Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#101

Post by Arainach »

threatripper wrote: post #19
ryeats wrote: post #14

You know that teammate that makes more work for everyone else on the team because they do what they are asked to do but in the most buggy and incomprehensible way, that when you finally get them to move on to another team and you realize how much time you spent corralling them and fixing their subtle bugs and now when they are gone work doesn't seem like so much of a chore. That's AI.

You sound bitter. Did you try using more AI for the bug fixing? It gets better and better.

One of the biggest problems with AI is that it doesn't get better and better. It makes the same mistakes over and over instead of learning like a junior eng would.

AI is like the absolute worst outsourced devs I've ever worked with - enthusiastically saying "yes I can do that" to everything and then delivering absolute garbage that takes me longer to fix/convince them to do right than it would have taken for me to just do it myself.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#102

Post by ants_everywhere »

bgwalter wrote: post #58
ants_everywhere wrote: post #22

My writing style is pretty labor intensive [0]. I go through a lot of drafts and read things out loud to make sure they work well etc. And I tend to have a high standard for making sure I source things. I personally think an LLM could help with some of this, and this is something I've been thinking about the past few days. But I'd have to build a pipeline and figure out a way to make it amplify what I like about my v…

Michelangelo worked alone on the David for more than two years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Michelangelo)#Process Maybe later he got lazier. I haven't really heard of famous authors using assistants for drafts instead of research (I don't mean commercial authors like Stephen King). Even research many authors simply could not afford.

Maybe Michelangelo was a bad choice, but I hope it's clear from my wording that I was using Michelangelo as an example and not saying anything specific his use of assistants compared to his peers. And David is a masterpiece not a minor work.

I don't see where the article says he worked alone on David. It does seem that he used a miniature (bozzetto) and then scaled up with a pointing machine. One possibility is he made the miniature and had assistants rough out the upscaled copy before doing the fine work himself. Essentially, using the assistants to do the work you'd do on a band saw if you were carving out of wood.

> I haven't really heard of famous authors using assistants for drafts instead of research (I don't mean commercial authors like Stephen King).

Restricting to non-commercial authors would narrow it down since hiring assistants to write drafts probably only makes financial sense if the cost of the assistant is less than the cost of your time it would take drafting.

Alexander Dumas is maybe a bit higher brow than Stephen King

> He founded a production studio, staffed with writers who turned out hundreds of stories, all subject to his personal direction, editing, and additions. From 1839 to 1841, Dumas, with the assistance of several friends, compiled Celebrated Crimes, an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas

But in general I agree, drafts are often the heart of the work and it's where I'd expect masters to spend a lot of their time. Similarly with the statue miniatures.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#103

Post by cgriswald »

ookblah wrote: post #87
bdangubic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

smart people are reading comments like and going “I am glad I am in the same market as people making such comments” :)

seriously, the near future is going to be: 1) people who reject it completely for whatever reason. 2) people who use it lazily and produce a lot of garbage (lets be honest, this is probably going to happen a lot which is why maybe group #1 hates this future. reminds me of the outsourcing era) 3) people who selectively use it to their advantage. no point in groups 1 and 3 trying to convince each other of anything.

I think that has been the state of affairs for awhile now.

I think your explanation for group 1 is true to a degree but have two other additional explanations: (1) Some element of group 1 is ideologically opposed. It might be copyright, or Luddism, or some other concern for our fellow humans. (2) Some are deluded into thinking there are only two groups and that group 3 people are all delusional.

Although it is probably an uphill battle I do think both groups 1 and 3 have things to learn from each other.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#104

Post by ninetyninenine »

runiq wrote: post #92
ninetyninenine wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They write that sentence because gen ai has been effective for them. We have intelligent people using ai and claiming it’s useful. And we have other intelligent people who’s saying it’s not useful. I’m inclined to believe the former. You can’t be deluded about positives usefulness. But you can be about the negative simply by using the LLM in a half assed way and picking the most convenient conclusion without nuance.

> You can’t be deluded about positives usefulness. If you honestly believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

How can you be deluded? Everyone has used it. they literally see the positive results. It’s not speculative.

But you can miss the positive results if you haven’t used LLMs recently or used agentic ai like cursor. it’s easy to miss the positives

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#105

Post by magic_hamster »

There have been quite a few skeptic blog posts recently about LLM. Some say they won't use it for coding, others for getting creative ideas, and others won't use it for editing and publishing. However, the silent issue all these posts have in common is that resistance is futile.

To be fair, I also don't like using Copilot when working on code. In many cases it turns into a weird experience when the agent generates the next line(s) and I basically become a discriminator judging if the thing really understands my problem and solution. To be honest, it's boring even if eventually it might make me turn in code faster.

With that said, I cannot ignore that LLMs are happening, and this is the future. The models keep improving but more importantly, the ecosystem keeps improving with things like MCP and better defined context for LLM tools.

We might be looking at a somewhat grim prospect. But like it or not, this is the future. Adapt and survive.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#106

Post by andersmurphy »

billy99k wrote: post #99
andersmurphy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the last few years of the AI hype cycle has taught me anything is there's massive late movers advantage. Anyone who spent time learning the AI tools over that period of time has basically wasted their time. Working with agents is nothing like prompt engineering. I imagine whatever comes after will be nothing like agents etc. Sounds like those who try to keep up with AI will be equally unemployed.

If the HN community is an example of this, they will be left behind regardless because they will avoid all tooling and the benefits that comes along with it. I suppose I shouldn't care too much. Less competition for people like me that have embraced the change.

Thing is short/medium term VC subsidies require lots of users to embrace AI. If they don't the money dries up and you end up paying the full price for these models. Which are currently heavily discounted (this is an understatement). How much are you currently paying for your usage 20$/m? 200$/m? How does that look when it's 2000$/m? 20000$/m?

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#107

Post by GeoAtreides »

strken wrote: post #61
sampl3username wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Art is fundamentally a human activity. No amount of artistic work can be delegated to a machine, or else the art is dehumanised.

This seems like it would ban drawing tablets, musical instruments, and a lot of other things which seem silly to ban.

In this particular instance the medium is not the message. or the art.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#108

Post by billy99k »

andersmurphy wrote: post #106
billy99k wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the HN community is an example of this, they will be left behind regardless because they will avoid all tooling and the benefits that comes along with it. I suppose I shouldn't care too much. Less competition for people like me that have embraced the change.

Thing is short/medium term VC subsidies require lots of users to embrace AI. If they don't the money dries up and you end up paying the full price for these models. Which are currently heavily discounted (this is an understatement). How much are you currently paying for your usage 20$/m? 200$/m? How does that look when it's 2000$/m? 20000$/m?

With all of the competition in big tech, prices will go down.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#109

Post by kentm »

cgriswald wrote: post #103
ookblah wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seriously, the near future is going to be: 1) people who reject it completely for whatever reason. 2) people who use it lazily and produce a lot of garbage (lets be honest, this is probably going to happen a lot which is why maybe group #1 hates this future. reminds me of the outsourcing era) 3) people who selectively use it to their advantage. no point in groups 1 and 3 trying to convince each other of anything.

I think that has been the state of affairs for awhile now. I think your explanation for group 1 is true to a degree but have two other additional explanations: (1) Some element of group 1 is ideologically opposed. It might be copyright, or Luddism, or some other concern for our fellow humans. (2) Some are deluded into thinking there are only two groups and that group 3 people are all delusional. Although it is probab…

To be fair, there are a lot of people (especially on Hacker News) in group 2 convincing themselves that they are in group 3. And people in group 1 see that and think that group 3 is a lot lot smaller than AI acolytes think.

Re: I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer

#110

Post by kentm »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #80
scarecrowbob wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gen AI is a great tool, if you approach it with the right mindset." People keep writing this sentence as if they aren't talking to the most tool-ed up group of humans in history. I have no problems learning tools, from chorded key shortcuts to awk/sed/grep to configuring all three of my text editors (vim, sublime, and my IDE) to work for their various tasks. Hell, I have preferred ligature fonts for different langua…

They write that sentence because gen ai has been effective for them. We have intelligent people using ai and claiming it’s useful. And we have other intelligent people who’s saying it’s not useful. I’m inclined to believe the former. You can’t be deluded about positives usefulness. But you can be about the negative simply by using the LLM in a half assed way and picking the most convenient conclusion without nuance.

There’s actual studies that show that you can be deluded about positive usefulness. There was a study that showed people using AI thought they were being 20% more productive but actually had lowered productivity. Even productive people do not accurately estimate Joe properly track time and effort.
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