Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop • Hacker News Board

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#261

Post by jschveibinz » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 3:05 PM UTC

Serious question: can we define the top 5 parameters that distinguish human-generated non-fiction writing from AI "slop" writing (I don't like the term "slop" because it carries a built-in bias)?

Since AI output is based on the most likely next word/token given the context, let's consider how humans do this, i.e. choose the next word based on context.

Is one of the parameters the degree of "randomization"?

Are these other parameters?

- Specific experience?

- Recent exposure to relevant materials, i.e. paraphrasing?

- Borrowed knowledge from a specific resource?

- Writing style, i.e. choice of words or sentence structure?

I'd like to hear what others think.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#262

Post by newguy1000 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #138

Not to be intentionally contrarian, but I have thought a lot about this: I think good fiction is actually the antithesis of AI, fundamentally. LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output. This can give you some creative results, but it is ultimately kind of limited. I cannot imagine that prompting an AI a thousand times would give you something truly original in the way many high-quality fi…

you have a bad imagination then

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#263

Post by naiveter » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

Penguin Random House seems to be dominating the leaderboard. What's the story here? Are there only very few non-fiction publishers capable of publishing high-quality work, or is Penguin Random House exceptionally good at it?

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#264

Post by rainprincess » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 5:16 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #220

brazzy wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the only result you can judge is also language-only, and the entity has access to a large corpus of descriptions produced by people who have had the experience.

Then you're just comparing descriptions, and you're also dependent on the language skills of the experiencers, and you're still stuck with the problem that language is not a complete map of reality. So an LLM may be able to give you the optimal description of a feeling, on par with what a person would give you; but it won't be equivalent to the actual feeling.

This is related to a statement in semantics called "the map is not the territory"

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#265

Post by duttish » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 5:33 AM UTC

raddan wrote: post #198

duttish wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are the good ones in your view?

People’s tastes in beer and wine vary so dramatically (and there are so many styles) that it’s not clear to me that you can actually have a “best of.” The beer and wine I enjoy the best my wife finds completely unpalatable. For wine, I enjoy a dry Grenache; Mas de Gourgonnier is a good one. For beer, I enjoy a beer with body, a malty profile, and balanced hops; there are many mass-produced styles that fit this, but I…

Sorry, I meant which awards not actual drinks :)