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LLM Writing Tropes.md

tropes.fyi

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Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#181

Post by rdiddly »

I have a suspicion that saddling a chat context with all this instruction would paradoxically produce worse results due to being overconstrained. But I haven't tested this. It's just that some of these are legitimate writing techniques that are simply overused. Is every single one of them always and automatically bullshit?

Also whoever claims "no human writes like this" hasn't been to LinkedIn... though the humanity of those writers might be debatable. But all the vapidity, all the pointless chatter to fill up time and space, it learned that from us.

I wouldn't have delegated this to an AI. Human for human, human for AI.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#182

Post by subscribed »

Planktonne wrote: post #143

I find this repellent; why not, instead of trying to push unwelcome generated prose below the radar, stop trying to waste everyone's time? People don't object to these patterns because they hate lists of three; they object to them in this context because of what they signal about the content. If using AI to write is nothing to be ashamed of, then you shouldn't feel the need to hide it. If it is something to be ashame…

I sometimes use AI to quickly summarise a handful of several MB long PDF files.

This allows me to order them in order of the relevance to start getting my data and information faster.

Applying a constraints like in the published template will make it slightly less awful. It's going to be discarded anyway, but at least the experience is going to be better.

Not every LLM output is going to be published for you to consume. If hazard a guess most never sees the light of the day.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#183

Post by aprentic »

The next big game is going to be played by LLM designers. Points will be assigned for successfully influencing humans to use stupid language patterns.

If you can convince people that SVO is a distinctly AI pattern it's an automatic win.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#184

Post by palmotea »

mobrienv wrote: post #157
jazzyjackson wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents complaint is explicitly not about the style of the prose, use whatever you want to check your grammar and reduce redundancy. The complaint of poisoning the well is regarding content that is not intended to express anything at all, the old “why would I read what nobody bothered to write”

The issue is that you're conflating the process of transcription with the act of expression. If I feed an LLM my own raw research notes and technical observations and use it to help structure those thoughts into a readable essay, I haven't "avoided writing". The "why would I read what nobody bothered to write" argument only applies to people who ask a bot to hallucinate an opinion from scratch. It doesn't apply to au…

> If I feed an LLM my own raw research notes and technical observations and use it to help structure those thoughts into a readable essay, I haven't "avoided writing".

> The "why would I read what nobody bothered to write" argument only applies to people who ask a bot to hallucinate an opinion from scratch. It doesn't apply to authors using the tool to clarify their own ideas.

You're wasting my time if you share LLM writing. If you're going to do it that way, share your notes and your prompt. Otherwise, you're being inconsiderate.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#185

Post by palmotea »

Lerc wrote: post #149
firefoxd wrote: post #146

If you are serious about sharing written ideas, I suggest you avoid using this type of prompts at all cost. I've worked with LLMs to write on my blog and they are pretty good at first glance [0]. But do it a few time and you'll notice that those tropes are the least of your problems. Not only all your articles will sound the same, but you'll see that same voice on other blogs, news articles, white paper, etc. It's as…

I have seen people suggest that the problem is that LLMs let you express any of your ideas, but the number of people with ideas worth expressing is limited. In a sense I think this is accurate, but not inevitable. I think there is a lack of creative thinking, but it has come from a world that doesn't value it and suppresses difference. There is a brilliant line in Treehouse of Horrors IV where Principle Skinner says…

> I have seen people suggest that the problem is that LLMs let you express any of your ideas, but the number of people with ideas worth expressing is limited.

It doesn't just have to be one problem.

1. Laundering your "ideas" through an LLM makes them less of your ideas, at best you get the classic two sentences of content embedded in two pages of padding.

2. LLMs removed a filter that help cut down on the amount of useless writing we'd have to wade through. The difficulty of expressing an idea acts as a filter to weed out many (but not all) ideas not worth expressing. That applies to both to people with ideas worth expressing and those without.

On the former, I've had the experience of having an idea, then witnessing it fall apart as I try to express it, as I think about it more deeply. LLMs let you avoid that.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#186

Post by Kye »

>> "Consider this list: https://tropes.fyi/tropes-md"

>> "How would you organize these LLM quirks, ontologically speaking? I have this notion that the better path is to identify what kinds of things are emerging and prompt to do those things better; accept it as something LLMs are going to do and treat it as something to improve on instead of something to eliminate."

The output is a bit better on blind prompting with applying the results. Here's the gist:

1. Compression artifacts — the model encoding structure implicitly

2. Attention-economy mimicry — the model trained on engagement-optimized writing

3. False epistemic confidence — the model performing knowledge it doesn't have

4. Affective prosthetics — the model simulating emotional register it can't inhabit

5. Mechanical coherence substitutes — the model managing the problem of continuity

Spot corrections are too spotty. Going higher levels with these kinds of problems seems to work better.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#187

Post by JimDabell »

firefoxd wrote: post #146

If you are serious about sharing written ideas, I suggest you avoid using this type of prompts at all cost. I've worked with LLMs to write on my blog and they are pretty good at first glance [0]. But do it a few time and you'll notice that those tropes are the least of your problems. Not only all your articles will sound the same, but you'll see that same voice on other blogs, news articles, white paper, etc. It's as…

> I often hear this here: "if you don't bother writing, why should I bother reading?"

That is an opinion somebody shared on X which has been mindlessly repeated over and over again in other places such as this site.

Why do you value those comments when all they are doing is parroting something they didn’t think themselves? It seems to undermine your point entirely. There is zero originality or effort in those comments. Why are you bothering to read them?

Copying and pasting somebody else’s opinion from one social media site to another is no more virtuous than what you are complaining about.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#188

Post by Lerc »

chmod775 wrote: post #180
Lerc wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it has more to do with LLM's being statistical models than human creativity lacking in the input. The creativity and millions of voices and tones may be there, but since these models tend to go for the most likely next words, polishing this away becomes a feature. I have always thought this is a rather misguided view as to what LLMs do and indeed what statistical models are. When people describe something a…

> They find the probability of every word that could come next. If we're being pedantic, they find a* probability for every token (which are sometimes words) that could come next. What actually ends up being chosen depends on what the rest of the system does, but generally it will just choose the most probable token before continuing. * Saying the probability would be giving a bit too much credit. And really calling…

I was using the term word to be consistent with the previous comment. It need not be a word, or even text at all.

Most systems choosing the high probability thing is what probability is.

They're just relative scores. If you assume they add to one and select one based on that it's a probability.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#189

Post by firefoxd »

JimDabell wrote: post #187
firefoxd wrote: post #146

If you are serious about sharing written ideas, I suggest you avoid using this type of prompts at all cost. I've worked with LLMs to write on my blog and they are pretty good at first glance [0]. But do it a few time and you'll notice that those tropes are the least of your problems. Not only all your articles will sound the same, but you'll see that same voice on other blogs, news articles, white paper, etc. It's as…

> I often hear this here: "if you don't bother writing, why should I bother reading?" That is an opinion somebody shared on X which has been mindlessly repeated over and over again in other places such as this site. Why do you value those comments when all they are doing is parroting something they didn’t think themselves? It seems to undermine your point entirely. There is zero originality or effort in those comment…

I value that opinion because it resonates with me. When I use an LLM to write an article, it's usually because I don't have the time or energy to go through my normal process of writing.

Sure, I still end up with a polished article, but a lot of it is not entirely my idea or something I would have written through the filter of my own experience. So in order to share my true take on a subject, I have to go through the struggle of writing and bouncing of ideas in my head, which almost always results in a better output.

Re: LLM Writing Tropes.md

#190

Post by [deleted] »

Lerc wrote: post #188
chmod775 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They find the probability of every word that could come next. If we're being pedantic, they find a* probability for every token (which are sometimes words) that could come next. What actually ends up being chosen depends on what the rest of the system does, but generally it will just choose the most probable token before continuing. * Saying the probability would be giving a bit too much credit. And really calling…

I was using the term word to be consistent with the previous comment. It need not be a word, or even text at all. Most systems choosing the high probability thing is what probability is. They're just relative scores. If you assume they add to one and select one based on that it's a probability.

[deleted]
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