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Slop Cop

awnist.com

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Re: Slop Cop

#31

Post by Swizec »

chromacity wrote: post #22

Like the original Grammarly, I think this can be useful for business writing because these tools help you get to the point. Many students are rewarded for using flowery language in school essays, but if you're composing an email or writing a design doc, just optimize for reading time and clarity. But for general use, I think this is misguided. The problem with LLM output is not that it's using em dashes or words such…

> "I had a shower thought and I asked a chatbot to write five pages of text about it." I don't need prettier words, I need there to be fewer of them?

Always judge an author by the length of their text.

Decades of insights barely condensed into 200 pages? Great! Hours of thought expanded into 200 pages? Very bad.

Same length of text but lands very differently. Same is true for emails, tweets, videos, and even just talking. Say less! But not too little either.

Re: Slop Cop

#32

Post by tombert »

chromacity wrote: post #22

Like the original Grammarly, I think this can be useful for business writing because these tools help you get to the point. Many students are rewarded for using flowery language in school essays, but if you're composing an email or writing a design doc, just optimize for reading time and clarity. But for general use, I think this is misguided. The problem with LLM output is not that it's using em dashes or words such…

Tangential, but I remember when I was studying for the ACT, there was something in one of the practice books that stuck with me. I'm paraphrasing but it was something like "Good writing is clear and easy to understand. It's about communication, make sure you communicate".

It was something that I guess I logically knew but hadn't fully realized. I had always tried to be fancy with my writing and pad it out to meet minimum word counts, with "understand-ability" being somewhat of an afterthought. Just that one statement in my ACT prep book made me, in my opinion, a significantly better writer.

Re: Slop Cop

#34

Post by ameliaquining »

gus_massa wrote: post #13
keybored wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is so original that it can’t make cliches out of decently-worn phrases and constructions by itself.

It's just following what the prompt says, something like: fake prompt> To sound smart, use as much literary tricks from LinkedIn Grow Hackers as possible. If they prompt asked to sound like Strawberry Shortcake, the AI pudding would be full of berry interesting cooking analogies.

The interesting thing is that LLMs sound kind of like LinkedIn Growth Hackers even if you don't explicitly tell them to do that, unless you instead tell them to sound like something else. (And even then, there are still similarities.)

Re: Slop Cop

#35

Post by cjlm »

I find it funny that all of these little tools lean into the slop = poop dynamic.

I'm building writetrack.dev - a writing signal sdk that helps folks understand proof of process. It takes a different approach to writing analysis and I'm pretty sure the logo will never feature a brown turd.

Re: Slop Cop

#36

Post by grahamplace »

Swizec wrote: post #31
chromacity wrote: post #22

Like the original Grammarly, I think this can be useful for business writing because these tools help you get to the point. Many students are rewarded for using flowery language in school essays, but if you're composing an email or writing a design doc, just optimize for reading time and clarity. But for general use, I think this is misguided. The problem with LLM output is not that it's using em dashes or words such…

> "I had a shower thought and I asked a chatbot to write five pages of text about it." I don't need prettier words, I need there to be fewer of them? Always judge an author by the length of their text. Decades of insights barely condensed into 200 pages? Great! Hours of thought expanded into 200 pages? Very bad. Same length of text but lands very differently. Same is true for emails, tweets, videos, and even just tal…

As the saying goes: “If I had more time, I would’ve written a shorter letter”

Re: Slop Cop

#37

Post by lemagedurage »

tavavex wrote: post #19

This is a confused and misguided project. It makes the mistake of failing to identify why the AI 'style' feels wrong. The author decided to replicate similar tools by breaking down AI writing into bite-sized issues, but it just doesn't work the same way as correcting grammatical errors. Because of this, the author had to really try to find what's so wrong about these patterns in isolation, so all of it comes off as a…

Yeah, "don't overuse these patterns" is the right attitude for tools like this, not "fix all mistakes". And that's OK?

Re: Slop Cop

#38

Post by krackers »

Mistletoe wrote: post #33

>Staccato Burst. Now I have a name for the thing I despise the most about AI writing.

Isn't this called the tricolon? Ironically the names of the patterns all seem AI generated.

Re: Slop Cop

#39

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

Wow! Did you know that Abraham Lincoln let AI write the Gettysburg Address? 17 patterns identified out of only 305 words. I don't know why I ever let him get the ad revenue.

Re: Slop Cop

#40

Post by edaemon »

chromacity wrote: post #22

Like the original Grammarly, I think this can be useful for business writing because these tools help you get to the point. Many students are rewarded for using flowery language in school essays, but if you're composing an email or writing a design doc, just optimize for reading time and clarity. But for general use, I think this is misguided. The problem with LLM output is not that it's using em dashes or words such…

Yeah, this comic summarizes the issue pretty well: https://marketoonist.com/2023/03/ai-written-ai-read.html
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