Live data from Hacker News

It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

blog.pabloecortez.com

281–290 of 565 posts

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#281

It's insulting but I also find it extremely concerning that my younger colleagues can't seem to tell the difference. An article will very clearly be AI slop and I'll express frustration, only to discover that they have no idea what I"m talking about.

For me it is everyone that has lost the ability to respond to a work email without first having it rewritten by some LLM somewhere. Or my sister who will have ChatGPT give a response to a text message if she doesn't feel like reading the 4-5 sentences from someone. I think the rates of ADHD are going to go through the roof soon, and I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done about it.

ADHD is going to very soon be a major pandemic. Not one we talk about too much, as there are plenty of players ready to feed unlimited supplies of Concerta, Ritalin and Adderal among others.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never put up a copilot PR for colleague review without fully reviewing it myself first. But once that’s done, why not?

It destroys the value of code review and wastes the reviewers time. Code review is one of the places where experience is transferred. It is disheartening to leave thoughtful comments and have them met with "I duno. I just had [AI] do it." If all you do is 'review' the output of your prompting before cutting a CR, I'd prefer you just send the prompt.

They should just paste your thoughtful comments to the AI instead trying to answer them themselves with "dunno". It's very likely that AI could act on them way more appropriately.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#284

It's similarly insulting to read your AI-generated pull request. If I see another "dart-on-target" emoji... You're telling me I need to use 100% of my brain, reasoning power, and time to go over your code, but you didn't feel the need to hold yourself to the same standard?

I think it’s especially low effort when you can point it at example commit messages you’ve written without emojis and emdashes to “learn” your writing style

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even letting the LLM “clean it up” puts its voice on your text. In general, you don’t want its voice. The associations are LinkedIn, warnings from HR and affiliate marketing hustles. It’s the modern equivalent of “talking like a used car salesman”. Not everyone will catch it but do think twice.

It's really not hard to say "make it in my voice" especially if it's an LLM with extensive memory of your writing.

I think no, categorically. The computer can detect your typos and accidents. But if you made a decision to word something a certain way, that _is_ your voice. If a second party overrides this decision, it's now deviating from your voice. The LLM therefore can either deviate from your voice, or do nothing.

That's no crime, so far. It's very normal to have writers and editors.

But it's highly abnormal for everyone to have the _same_ editor, famous for the writing exactly the text that everybody hates.

It's like inviting Uwe Boll to edit your film.

If there's a good reason to send outgoing slop, OK. But if your audience is more verbally adept, and more familiar with its style, you do risk making yourself look bad.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the AI service providers are laughing all the way to the bank, though.

Probably not since they likely aren’t even turning a profit ;)

"Profit"? Who cares about profit? We're back to dot-com economics now! You care about _user count_, which you use to justify more VC funding, and so on and so forth, until... well, it will probably all be fine.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#287
It’s not that people don’t value creativity and expression. It’s that for 90% of the communication AI is being used for, the slightly worse AI gen version that took 30 min to produce isn’t worse enough to justify spending 4 hours on the hand rolled version. That’s the reality we’re living through right now. People are eating up the productivity boosts like candy.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It destroys the value of code review and wastes the reviewers time. Code review is one of the places where experience is transferred. It is disheartening to leave thoughtful comments and have them met with "I duno. I just had [AI] do it." If all you do is 'review' the output of your prompting before cutting a CR, I'd prefer you just send the prompt.

I mean I totally get what you are saying about pull requests that are secretly AI generated. But otherwise, writing code with LLM‘s is more than just the prompt. You have to feed it the right context, maybe discuss things with it first so it gets it and then you iterate with it. So if someone has done the effort and verified the result like it‘s their own code, and if it actually works like they intended, what’s wron…

Nice in theory, hard in practice.

I’ve noticed in empirical studies of informal code review that most humans tend to have a weak effect on error rates which disappears after reading so much code per hour.

Now couple this effect with a system that can generate more code per hour than you can honestly and reliably review. It’s not a good combination.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#290
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know you can AI review the PR too, don't be such a curmudgeon. I have PR's at work I and coworkers fully AI generated and fully AI review. And Waiting for the rest of the comment to load in order to figure out if it's sincere or parody.

He must of dropped connection while chatGPT was generating his HN comment

"must have"
Post reply on HN