It's rude to show AI output to people • Hacker News Board

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#121

Post by jddj » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:18 PM UTC

gharper wrote: post #8

vouaobrasil wrote: post #2

A lot of the reason why I even ask other people is not to get a simple technical answer but to connect, understand another person's unexepected thoughts, and maybe forge a collaboration –– in addition to getting an answer of course. Real people come up with so many side paths and thoughts, whereas AI feels lifeless and drab. To me, someone pasting in an AI answer says: I don't care about any of that. Yeah, not a pers…

It’s the conversational equivalent of “Let me google that for you”.

It's the conversational equivalent of an amplification attack

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#122

Post by scarface_74 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:18 PM UTC

drewvlaz wrote: post #49

majormajor wrote: post #20

LLMs are very very good at adding words in a way that looks "well written" (to our current mental filters) without adding meaning or value. I wonder how long it will be before LLM-text trademarks become seen as a sign of bad writing or laziness instead? And then maybe we'll have an arms race of stylistic changes. --- Completely agree with the author: Earlier this week I asked Claude to summarize a bunch of code files…

One of the largest issues I've experienced is LLMs being too agreeable. I don't want my theories parroted back to me on why something went wrong. I want to have ideas challenged in a way that forces me to think and hopefully lead me to a new perspective that I otherwise would have missed. Perhaps a large portion of people do enjoy the agreeableness, but this becomes a problem not only because I think there are larger…

That’s simple - after it tries to be helpful and agreeable I just ask for a “devils advocate” response. I have a much longer prompt I use sometimes involve being a “sparring partner”.

And I go back and forth sometimes between correcting its devils advocate responses and “steel man” responses.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#123

Post by unyttigfjelltol » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:18 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #114

pyman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't our parents go through the same thing when email came out? My dad used to say: "Stop sending me emails. It's not the same." I'd tell him, "It's better. "No, it's not. People used to sit down and take the time to write a letter, in their own handwriting. Every letter had its own personality, even its own smell. And you had to walk to the post office to send it. Now sending a letter means nothing." Change is ine…

I really don’t think they’re the same thing. Email or letter, the words are yours while an LLM output isn’t.

Which words, exactly, are "yours"? Working with an LLM is like having a copywriter 24/7, who will steer you toward whatever voice and style you want. Candidly, I'm getting the sense the issue here is some junior varsity level LLM skill.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#124

Post by accrual » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:19 PM UTC

bhaney wrote: post #59

dcreater wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will have a web where proof of humanity is the de facto standard. Its only a question of when. Things have to get worse before they get better in afraid

How would that help? Plenty of humans will just continue to be willing AI-proxies.

It would raise the barrier to entry, I suppose. I agree with GP that at some point in the future, real human output will become more rare and more valuable. And pure "human made" content (movies, music, books, blog posts, comments, etc.) may have access controls or costs associated.

We're already seeing the social contract around hosting your own blog change due to the constant indexing from AI crawlers.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#125

Post by stefan_ » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:19 PM UTC

GPerson wrote: post #89

lvl155 wrote: post #38

While I understand this sentiment, some people simply suck at writing nice emails or have a major communication issue. It’s also not bad to run your important emails through multiple edits via AI.

Seems like there are potential privacy issues involved in sharing important emails with these companies, especially if you are sharing what the other person sent as well.

Ha, did you see the outrage from people when they realized that them sharing their deepest secrets & company information with ChatGPT was just another business record to OpenAI that is total fair game in any sort of civil suit discovery? You would think some evil force just smothered every little childs pet bunny.

Tell people there are 10000 license plate scanners tracking their every move across the US and you get a mild chuckle, but god forbid someone access the shit they put into some for profit companies database under terms they never read.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#126

Post by pyman » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #114

pyman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't our parents go through the same thing when email came out? My dad used to say: "Stop sending me emails. It's not the same." I'd tell him, "It's better. "No, it's not. People used to sit down and take the time to write a letter, in their own handwriting. Every letter had its own personality, even its own smell. And you had to walk to the post office to send it. Now sending a letter means nothing." Change is ine…

I really don’t think they’re the same thing. Email or letter, the words are yours while an LLM output isn’t.

Initially, it had the same effect on people until they got used to it. In the near future, whether the text is yours or not won't matter. What will matter is the message or idea you're communicating. Just like today, it doesn't matter if the code is yours, only the product you're shipping and problem it's solving.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#127

Post by scarface_74 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

ninetyninenine wrote: post #36

The problem here is that I’ve been accused multiple times of using LLMs to write slop when it was genuinely written by myself. So I apologized and began actually using LLMs while making sure the prompt included style guides and rules to avoid the tell tale signs of AI. Then some of these geniuses thanked me for being more genuine in my response. A lot of this stuff is delusional. You only find it rude because you’re…

I did too, the AWS “house style” (former ProServe employee) of writing even before LLMs can come across as AI Slop. Look at some blog posts on AWS even pre-2021.

I too use an LLM to help me get rid of generic filler and I do have my own style of technical writing and editing. You would never know I use an LLM.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#128

Post by moomoo11 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

phito wrote: post #4

I really wish some of my coworkers would stop using LLMs to write me emails or even Teams messages. It does feel extremely rude, to the point I don't even want to read them anymore.

Why? AI is a tool. Are their messages incorrect or something? If not who cares, they’re being efficient and thus more productive.

Please be honest. If it’s slop or they have incorrect information in the message, then my bad, stop reading here. Otherwise…

I really hope people like this with holier than thou attitude get filtered out. Fast.

People who don’t adapt to use new tools are some of the worst people to work around.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#129

Post by moomoo11 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #114

pyman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't our parents go through the same thing when email came out? My dad used to say: "Stop sending me emails. It's not the same." I'd tell him, "It's better. "No, it's not. People used to sit down and take the time to write a letter, in their own handwriting. Every letter had its own personality, even its own smell. And you had to walk to the post office to send it. Now sending a letter means nothing." Change is ine…

I really don’t think they’re the same thing. Email or letter, the words are yours while an LLM output isn’t.

The prompt is theirs.

Re: It's rude to show AI output to people

#130

Post by AlecSchueler » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

righthand wrote: post #94

SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse when they accidently leave in the dialog with the AI. Dead giveaway. I got an email from a colleague the other day and at the bottom was this line: > Would you like me to format this for Outlook or help you post it to a specific channel or distribution list?

Seriously you should respond to the slop in the email and waste your coworkers time too. “No I don’t need this formatted for Outlook Dave. Thanks for asking though!”

That wastes your own time as well though.