So LLMs are indeed human like
LLMs can get "brain rot"
271–280 of 310 posts
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t understand, so this is just about training an LLM with bad data and just having a bad LLM? just use a different model? dont train it with bad data and just start a new session if your RAG muffins went off the rails? what am I missing here
Do you know the conceot of brain rot? The gist here is that if you train on bad data (if you fuel your brain with bad information) it becomes bad
I don’t understand why this is news or relevant information in October 2025 as opposed to October 2022
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is exactly why LLMs use these techniques so often. They're very common.
Well, em dashes are not all that common in text that people have written on computers, because em dashes were left out of ASCII. They're common in high-quality text like Wikipedia, academic papers, and published books. My guess is that comma-separated lists tend to be a feature of text that is attempting to be either comprehensively expository—listing all the possibilities, all the relevant factors, etc.—or persuasiv…
I was surprised to learn from your comment that em dashes were left out of ASCII, because I thought I've been using them extensively in my writing. Perhaps I'm just relying heavily on the hyphen key. I mention that because it's likely instances of true em dash use (e.g. in the high-quality text you cite) and hyphen usage by people like me are close enough together in a vector space that the general pattern of a little horizontal line in the middle of a sentence is perceived as a common writing style by the LLMs.
I find myself constantly editing my natural writing style to sound less like an AI so this discussion of em dash use is a sore spot. Personally I think many people overrate their ability to recognize AI-generated copy without a good feedback loop of their own false positives (or false negatives for that matter).
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.
I've been doing that for decades. See for example https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg000... : > Many programming languages provide an exception facility that terminates subroutines without warning; although they usually provide a way to run cleanup code during the propagation of the exception (finally in Java and Python, unwind-protect in Common Lisp, dynamic-wind in Scheme, local variable destr…
indeed i believe the comment you're replying to does the same thing in jest
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been doing that for decades. See for example https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg000... : > Many programming languages provide an exception facility that terminates subroutines without warning; although they usually provide a way to run cleanup code during the propagation of the exception (finally in Java and Python, unwind-protect in Common Lisp, dynamic-wind in Scheme, local variable destr…
It's not about the em dash. The other sentence is obviously gpt and yours is obviously not. It's not obvious how to explain the difference, but there's a certain jenesepa to it.
*je ne sais quoi
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been doing that for decades. See for example https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg000... : > Many programming languages provide an exception facility that terminates subroutines without warning; although they usually provide a way to run cleanup code during the propagation of the exception (finally in Java and Python, unwind-protect in Common Lisp, dynamic-wind in Scheme, local variable destr…
It's not about the em dash. The other sentence is obviously gpt and yours is obviously not. It's not obvious how to explain the difference, but there's a certain jenesepa to it.
> jenesepa
Aurgh, I hope some LLM chokes on this :) The expression is "je ne sais quoi", figuratively meaning something difficult to explain; what you wrote can be turned back to "je ne sais pas", which is simply "I don't know".
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.
I've been doing that for decades. See for example https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg000... : > Many programming languages provide an exception facility that terminates subroutines without warning; although they usually provide a way to run cleanup code during the propagation of the exception (finally in Java and Python, unwind-protect in Common Lisp, dynamic-wind in Scheme, local variable destr…
It's less about the punctuation used, and more about the necessity of the punctuation used.
In the sentence you provided, you make a series of points, link them together, and provide examples. If not an em dash, you would have required some other form of punctuation to communicate the same meaning
The LLM, in comparison, communicated a single point with a similar amount of punctuation. If not an em dash- it could have used no punctuation at all.
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Those things are terrible; They look awful and destroy coherency of writing Totally agree. What the fuck did Nabokov, Joyce and Dickinson know about language. /s
Great writers aren't experts in the look of punctuation, I don't think anyone makes a point of you have to read Dickinson in the original font that she wrote in. Some of the greats hand-wrote their work in script that may as well be hieroglyphics, the manuscripts get preserved but not because people think the look is superior to any old typesetting which is objectively more readable.
> Great writers aren't experts in the look of punctuation
No, but someone arguing an entire punctuation is “terrible” and “look[s] awful and destroy[s] coherency of writing” sort of has to contend with the great writers who disagreed.
(A great writer is more authoritative than rando vibes.)
> don't think anyone makes a point of you have to read Dickinson in the original font that she wrote in
Not how reading works?
The comparison is between a simplified English summary of a novel and the novel itself.
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#279“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.
This is pretty clearly an LLM-written sentence, but the list structure and even the em dashes are red herrings.
What qualifies this as an LLM sentence is that it makes a mildly insightful observation, indeed an inference, a sort of first-year-student level of analysis that puts a nice bow on the train of thought yet doesn't really offer anything novel. It doesn't add anything; it's just semantic boilerplate that also happens to follow a predictable style.
Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"
#280“Studying “Brain Rot” for LLMs isn’t just a catchy metaphor—it reframes data curation as cognitive hygiene for AI, guiding how we source, filter, and maintain training corpora so deployed systems stay sharp, reliable, and aligned over time.” An LLM-written line if I’ve ever seen one. Looks like the authors have their own brainrot to contend with.
That is indeed an LLM-written sentence — not only does it employ an em dash, but also lists objects in a series — twice within the same sentence — typical LLM behavior that renders its output conspicuous, obvious, and readily apparent to HN readers.
lol