Using LLMs to write defeats the whole purpose. When you write you learn, you see where you had gaps in knowledge and understanding and it prompts you to go back and fill them up. It helps bring out and sharpen your reasoning. Using an LLM to write is like Using a forklift at the gym. You learn nothing.
Do your own writing
221–230 of 265 posts
Re: Do your own writing
#222This reduces writing to one concept: thinking and the writing is just a byproduct. But writing is also presentation and also communication. There is nothing wrong with speechwriters. Various authors spilled out their thoughts in rough format and had writers turn them into better structured, prosed and understandable projections. Hand writing each sentence that is presented as an end-product to the reader doesn't solv…
Keep in mind that thoughts similar to yours produce the same output from an LLM. You may be thinking “my thoughts are original” and I would agree, but we won’t be able to see the original parts when it runs through an LLM.
Re: Do your own writing
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I think writing is writing to an audience which includes yourself. When you're thinking you are speaking in your mind which means you can not really listen to yourself at that same time. You don't hear yourself from yourself. You are too busy talking (in your head to yourself) that you can not really think about what you just said to yourself. You are producing language, not consuming it But when you read what you ha…
I think this is correct. I told a coworker that when I edit my email drafts they get shorter. He was surprised and said that his get longer. I trim and refine. Sure, I add details that I missed at first. But I also create better structure and remove ambiguity or unnecessary words.
Yesterday, I was working on an email for someone who I was trying very hard not to overwhelm with technical details. I cut it roughly in half in terms of words, but I also turned paragraphs in single lines of sequenced steps or concise statements without decorating the text with unneeded aphorisms / commentary.
I was pretty pleased with the end result. This is only possible because of careful rereading and reflection (including knowing my intended audience). I imagine an LLM can approximate this, but I don't trust one to craft with the same level of care. Then again, we all think we're better than the robots at the things we care about most.
I understand the urge to throw mechanical writing at the bots. But a human will grasp the need to add a detail explaining the why of something when (the current) bots gloss over it. There's still nuance worth preserving.
Re: Do your own writing
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, this is the kind of thing LLMs are very good at. Knowing the specifics and details and minutiae about technologies, programming languages, etc.
Oh Lord, no. Not at all. That's what they're terrible at. They are ok-ish at superficial overviews and catastrophically bad at specific minutiae
Honest, non-confrontational, non-passive aggressive question: Have you used any of the latest models in the last 6 months to do coding? Or frankly, in the last year?
Re: Do your own writing
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't use search engines for much of anything nowadays (does anybody still?) At work I read documentation if I need to learn something.
This is a very strange and contradictory situation. I'm not sure there's any point in engaging with you since there is nothing but a stream of weak dismissals farming for engagement. You dismiss LLMs because of factual inaccuracy, which is fair, but now you're doubling down on an anti search engine stance, which is weird, because the modern substitute is letting LLMs either use search engines on your behalf or learn…
I've noticed that HN can attract some of the most extreme people I've ever seen, and I suppose there is precedent in the tech world when I'm reminded of the story of Stallman not using a browser but instead sending webpages to his email where he then reads the content. It's literally nonsensical for 99.9999% of the population and I've read similar absurd things on HN as well.
This person not using LLMs is fine, I understand the argument like you said, but the double down on not using search engines either makes me not take anything they say seriously. Not to be too crass but it reminds me of this situation on the nature of arguing on the internet [0].
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/pxb2kn/i_got_int...
Re: Do your own writing
#226I 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.
All LLM output is always dry as fuck quite frankly. At all levels from ideas and concepts through to the actual copy. And that’s dotted with pure excrement. I think the only reason it’s seen as good anywhere is there are a lot of tasteless and talentless people who can pretend they created whatever was curled out. This goes for code as well. If I offend anyone I will not be apologising for it.
> curled out
This is the kind of understated yet thoroughly disgusting imagery an LLM couldn't come up with on its own, great example.
Re: Do your own writing
#227[dead]
Re: Do your own writing
#228Agree with the underlying point: "don't let an LLM do your thinking, or interfere with processes essential to you thinking things clearly through." My own experience, however, is that the best models are quite good and helping you with those writing and thinking processes. Finding gaps, exposing contradictions or weaknesses in your hypotheses or specifications, and suggesting related or supporting content that you mi…
was curious how it might look if we started seeing prompts/steering inline with the finished product: https://dvelton.github.io/trace/examples/the-post.html
First impression is love that! Need to study it more.
We need—or at least I need—a better UI/tool to manage the sequence of edits and collaboration, drafting, rubber-ducking, and evaluation that AI tools provide. Including the prompts and edits is a nice feature, though I would also like more comparison "where we started" vs "where we are now."
Re: Do your own writing
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh Lord, no. Not at all. That's what they're terrible at. They are ok-ish at superficial overviews and catastrophically bad at specific minutiae
Honest, non-confrontational, non-passive aggressive question: Have you used any of the latest models in the last 6 months to do coding? Or frankly, in the last year?
They note in another comment they don't even use search engines so I don't think they're the right person to ask regarding frontier models.
Re: Do your own writing
#230this maps to what im seeing in visual AI too. rendering quality is insane now, nobody disputes that. but most AI generated images look generic and flat because theres no direction behind them
same thing with writing imo. the output quality is technically fine but if you didnt wrestle with the ideas yourself the result reads like noone actually thought about it
writing forces you to confront where your thinking is vague. directing a photo shoot does the same thing actualy, the moment you have to commit to a specific angle or framing you discover what you realy want to say. skip that step and you get competent emptiness