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LLMs can get "brain rot"

llm-brain-rot.github.io

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Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#301

Post by rhubarbtree »

standardly wrote: post #93
avazhi wrote: post #47

“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.

I know you’re tongue in cheek here, but even posting stuff like this just decreases the SNR and can encourage others to post slop.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#302

Post by roenxi »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #278
roenxi wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? T…

> (A great writer is more authoritative than rando vibes.)

A great author is equivalent to rando vibes when it comes to what writing looks like, they aren't typesetting experts. I have a shelf of work by great authors (more than one, to be fair) and there are few hints on that shelf of what the text they actually wrote was intended to look like. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if several of them were dictated and typed by someone else completely with the mechanics of the typewriter determining some of the choices.

Shakespeare seems to have invented half the language and the man apparently couldn't even spell his own name. Now arguably he wasn't primarily a writer [0], but it is very strong evidence that there isn't a strong link between being amazing at English and technical execution of writing. That is what editors, publishers and pedants are for.

[0] Wiki disagrees though - "widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#303

Post by ewoodrich »

potsandpans wrote: post #292
avazhi wrote: post #47

“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.

Im curious where all you top commenters were 5 years ago when grammarly was a product used by most professional writers. If you weren't as incensed then, it's almost like your outrage and compulsion to post this on every hn thread is completely baseless.

Perhaps because it didn't stick out like a sore thumb? Or because it became so prevalent they observe the exact same tics in every other article they read nowadays?

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#304

Post by kragen »

astrange wrote: post #300
kragen wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's a spandrel of some other feature of their training. Presumably em dashes occur disproportionately often in high-quality human-written text, so training LLMs to imitate high-quality human-written text instead of random IRC logs and 4chan trolls results in them also imitating high-quality typography.

Nah, because it's new. 3.5 didn't emdash and I don't think 4 even did. Besides, LLMs' basin of high quality text is Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is full of em dashes.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#305

Post by Psyonic »

standardly wrote: post #93
avazhi wrote: post #47

“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.

well played

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#306

Post by potsandpans »

ewoodrich wrote: post #303
potsandpans wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im curious where all you top commenters were 5 years ago when grammarly was a product used by most professional writers. If you weren't as incensed then, it's almost like your outrage and compulsion to post this on every hn thread is completely baseless.

Perhaps because it didn't stick out like a sore thumb? Or because it became so prevalent they observe the exact same tics in every other article they read nowadays?

Are you speaking for yourself? Or someone else?

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#308

Post by nativeit »

WA wrote: post #204
andai wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Turns out that LLMs learn a lot better and faster from educational content as well. This is partly because the average Common Crawl article (internet pages) is not of very high value and distracts the training, packing in too much irrelevant information. >The average webpage on the internet is so random and terrible it's not even clear how prior LLMs learn anything at all. You'd think it's random articles but it's n…

Don‘t forget the terabytes of torrented ebooks. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell... https://www.classaction.org/news/1.5b-anthropic-settlement-e...

I suspect this is the "secret sauce" to making a coherent model.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#309

Post by landdate »

prayerie wrote: post #174
landdate wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care for them either. What am I supposed to hear some famous names and swoon?

You ok there?

Yes, but that doesn't mean I won't react with the same hostility that I recieve. It contradicts common sense one user will be burdened by hostility, and when they lash back out, the accosters will show it as proof of something. In another aspect, most people I have met in real life are cowards who don't dare speak out of turn. Of course, I have never had this issue in real life or otherwise, and I take personal joy in the wisdom I raise before the invalids, even though they will never appreciate or understand it.

Re: LLMs can get "brain rot"

#310

Post by landdate »

fredoliveira wrote: post #205
landdate wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. They wrote fiction.

I guess I'll ask: what's wrong with fiction?

Years past humans would hear stories from within their social circle. These are important because they create bonds and pass on wisdom & knowledge from one to many. From this, humans gained a yearn for hearing stories, but without adequate restrictions anything that fulfills pleasure can and will becomes a vice. The average human will spend their little "free time" (another delusion) toiling as an observer to fantasies conjured up by individuals they have no connection or relationship with. Fictional media preys on your mind the same way a video game, or a coke, or any one of these artificial productions of the modern world preys on you.

It's utterly pointless and degrades one's life into voyeurism. Many don't think of this, nor think about the food they eat, the work they do, the "life" they live, they only think of the consequences if they become painfully visible. Even then you will see people unwilling to get out of the bond of slavery, and form lies to protect their habit just as an addict of heroin addict would.

Non-fiction can be as bad (biographies, documentaries), but (for the most part) it's primary purpose isn't a voyeur's pleasure, so it's rarely abused in the same way.

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