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Do your own writing

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Re: Do your own writing

#161

Post by ozozozd »

nerevarthelame wrote: post #12

I agree with most of this, but my one qualm is the notion that LLMs "are particularly good at generating ideas." It's fair enough that you can discard any bad ideas they generate. But by design, the recommendations will be average, bland, mainstream, and mostly devoid of nuance. I wouldn't encourage anyone to use LLMs to generate ideas if you're trying to create interesting or novel ideas.

Having to fix the LLM’s recommended solution is a good exercise though.

It’s like being a smart-ass for the right reasons, without any social consequences.

Re: Do your own writing

#162

Post by chrismorgan »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #9

I've long considered writing to be the "last step in thinking". I can't tell you how many times an idea, that was crystal clear in my mind, fell apart the moment I started writing and I realize there were major contradictions I needed to resolve. Likewise I also have numerous times where writing about something loosely and casually revealed to me something that fundamentally changed how I viewed a topic and really co…

So often have I started writing a commit message about why I’d done something this way, and realised a problem or thought of another approach, and ended up throwing away the entire change and starting from scratch.

(Aside: you should probably write longer commit messages.)

Re: Do your own writing

#163

Post by tomjen3 »

ori_b wrote: post #112
roadside_picnic wrote: post #9

I've long considered writing to be the "last step in thinking". I can't tell you how many times an idea, that was crystal clear in my mind, fell apart the moment I started writing and I realize there were major contradictions I needed to resolve. Likewise I also have numerous times where writing about something loosely and casually revealed to me something that fundamentally changed how I viewed a topic and really co…

If you drop the premise of writing, drop the premise that you need something well written. Just give me the same information you would have given the LLM.

Do you really want five minutes of audio of me rambling, then some instructions for how to split it up and organise it?

Plenty of people make LLMs make text longer, but writing a short accurate text with the essential points is much harder.

Re: Do your own writing

#164

Post by nine_k »

chrismorgan wrote: post #162
roadside_picnic wrote: post #9

I've long considered writing to be the "last step in thinking". I can't tell you how many times an idea, that was crystal clear in my mind, fell apart the moment I started writing and I realize there were major contradictions I needed to resolve. Likewise I also have numerous times where writing about something loosely and casually revealed to me something that fundamentally changed how I viewed a topic and really co…

So often have I started writing a commit message about why I’d done something this way, and realised a problem or thought of another approach, and ended up throwing away the entire change and starting from scratch. (Aside: you should probably write longer commit messages.)

Corollary: write the commit message first, implement things later! Not a joke, this is almost like TDD works. (TDD writes formal tests, which is much more involved.)

Re: Do your own writing

#165

Post by the-mitr »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #9

I've long considered writing to be the "last step in thinking". I can't tell you how many times an idea, that was crystal clear in my mind, fell apart the moment I started writing and I realize there were major contradictions I needed to resolve. Likewise I also have numerous times where writing about something loosely and casually revealed to me something that fundamentally changed how I viewed a topic and really co…

> I can't tell you how many times an idea, that was crystal clear in my mind, fell apart the moment I started writing and I realize there were major contradictions I needed to resolve.

perhaps because writing is a third order exercise.

first order being in thinking in one's mind, one has to talk with oneself. second order is talking to someone else we are directing thoughts towards that person, but in writing we have to imagine the reader and then write.

https://alandix.com/academic/papers/writing-third-order-2006...

Re: Do your own writing

#166

Post by globular-toast »

dummydummy1234 wrote: post #16
nerevarthelame wrote: post #12

I agree with most of this, but my one qualm is the notion that LLMs "are particularly good at generating ideas." It's fair enough that you can discard any bad ideas they generate. But by design, the recommendations will be average, bland, mainstream, and mostly devoid of nuance. I wouldn't encourage anyone to use LLMs to generate ideas if you're trying to create interesting or novel ideas.

I have found the one of the better use cases of llms to be a rubber duck. Explaining a design, problem, etc and trying to find solutions is extremely useful. I can bring novelty, what I often want from the LLM is a better understanding of the edge cases that I may run into, and possible solutions.

Do you not know any people who can help? Suddenly realised how lonely this sounds.

Re: Do your own writing

#167

Post by visarga »

The cognitive benefit of writing comes from externalizing and evaluating ideas under friction. LLM conversation provides more friction per unit time than solo drafting because you're constantly reacting to a semi-competent interlocutor who gets it almost-right in ways that force you to articulate exactly where it went wrong.

I checked my logs and I write 10 words in chat for 1 word in LLM output for final text. So it's clearly not making me type less. I used to type about 10K words per month now I type 50-100K words per month (LLM chat is the difference).

The surplus capacity provided by LLMs got reinvested immediately in scope and depth expansion. I did not get to spend 10x less time writing.

Re: Do your own writing

#168

Post by ohthehugemanate »

andai wrote: post #121
protocolture wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've long considered writing to be the "last step in thinking". I can't tell you how many times an idea, that was crystal clear in my mind, fell apart the moment I started writing and I realize there were major contradictions I needed to resolve. Likewise I also have numerous times where writing about something loosely and casually revealed to me something that fundamentally changed how I viewed a topic and really c…

I noticed that when speaking on a subject I tend to explain it in simple terms, but when writing, I tend to get bogged down in details, pedantry and technical language. I started publishing my writing recently and I too often fall back into "debugging my mental model" mode, which while extremely valuable for me , doesn't make for very good reading. I guess the optimal sequence would be to spend a few sessions writing…

I do this too, and i find this a great use for my LLMs. I write the full detail as a part of integrating. Claude or Copilot helps me craft the communication versions.

Re: Do your own writing

#170

Post by __mharrison__ »

monkaiju wrote: post #25
dummydummy1234 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found the one of the better use cases of llms to be a rubber duck. Explaining a design, problem, etc and trying to find solutions is extremely useful. I can bring novelty, what I often want from the LLM is a better understanding of the edge cases that I may run into, and possible solutions.

I always find folks bringing up rubber ducking as a thing LLMs are good at to be misguided. IMO, what defines rubber ducking as a concept is that it is just the developer explaining what their doing to themselves. Not to another person, and not to a thing pretending to be a person. If you have a "two way" or "conversational" debugging/designing experience it isnt rubber ducking, its just normal design/debugging. The…

My understanding was that rubber ducking was using a different portion of your brain by speaking the words.

The same discovery often happens when you explain a problem to a coworker and midway through the explanation you say "nvm, I know what I did wrong"

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