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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

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Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#311

Post by Crestwave »

doright wrote: post #94
AstroBen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this immediately comes to mind https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/04/29/supplied_can_ai_change_you... A study on whether LLMs can influence people on r/changemymind

This only came to light after the study had already been running for a few months. That proves that we can no longer tell for certain unless it's literal GPT-speak the author was too lazy to edit themselves. Teachers will lament the rise of AI-generated answers, but they will only ever complain about the blatantly obvious responses that are 100% copy-pasted. This is only an emerging phenomenon, and the next wave of p…

> This only came to light after the study had already been running for a few months. That proves that we can no longer tell for certain unless it's literal GPT-speak the author was too lazy to edit themselves.

Rule 3 of the subreddit quite literally bars people from accusing posts of being AI-generated. I have only visited it a few times in recent times, but I noticed quite a few GPT-speak posts with comments calling it out getting removed and punished.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#312

Post by colechristensen »

ozim wrote: post #296
sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

I always get triggered when people argue against „rote memorization” - but it also is technique that builds up knowledge, skills and experience. Even if one won’t need that specific know how after exams - just realization how much one can memorize and trying out some approaches to optimize it is where people grow/learn.

Memorizing things is somewhat helpful but being able to parrot back answers to questions is not at all the same thing as knowledge, skills, or experience. Memorizing a bunch of facts is an adequate way to fool someone into thinking you have those things. Testing for memorized facts is a good way to misidentify useful skills.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#313

Post by cadamsdotcom »

LLMs and AI use create new dichotomies we don’t have language for.

Exploring a concept-space with LLM as tutor is a brilliant way to educate yourself. Whereas pasting the output verbatim, passing it as one’s own work, is tragic: skipping the only part that matters.

Vibe coding is fun right up to the point it isn’t. (Better models get you further.) But there’s still no substitute for guiding an LLM as it codes for you, incrementally working and layering code, committing to version control along the way, then putting the result through both AI and human peer code reviews.

Yet these all qualify as “using AI”.

We cannot get new language for discussing emerging distinctions soon enough. Without them we only have platitudes like “AI is a powerful tool with both appropriate and inappropriate uses and determining which is which depends on context”.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#314

Post by AdieuToLogic »

fallinditch wrote: post #289
sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

It's been obvious since ChatGPT blew up in early 2023 that educators had to rethink how they educate. I agree that this situation that the author outlines is unsatisfactory but it's mostly the fault of the education system (and by extension the post author). With a class writing exercise like the author describes, of course the students are going to use an LLM, they would be stupid not to if their classmates are usin…

> The onus should be on the educators to reframe how they teach and how they test. It's strange how the author can't see this.

> Universities and schools must change how they do things with respect to AI, otherwise they are failing the students.

Hard disagree.

Students need to answer a fundamental question of themselves;

  Am I here to learn or to get a passing grade?
If it is the former, the latter doesn't really matter.

If it is the latter, the former was not the point to begin with.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#315

Post by lazyasciiart »

_AzMoo wrote: post #302
derefr wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one other very useful form of "expansion" that LLMs do. If you aren't aware: (high-parameter-count) LLMs can be used pretty reliably to teach yourself things. LLM base models "know things" to about the same degree that the Internet itself "knows" those things. For well-understood topics — i.e. subjects where the Internet contains all sorts of open-source textbooks and treatments of the subject — LLMs really…

I use LLMs a huge amount in my work as a senior software engineer to flesh out the background information required to make my actual contributions understandable to those without the same background as me. eg, if I want to write a proposal on using SLO's and error budgets to make data driven decisions about which errors need addressing and which don't, inside a hybrid kubernetes and serverless environment, I could do…

This usage had never occurred to me but including adequate background information is definitely something I struggle with - I'll definitely try this!

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#316

Post by thomasahle »

necovek wrote: post #54

I've already asked a number of colleagues at work producing insane amount of gibberish with LLMs to just pass me the prompt instead: if LLM can produce verbose text with limited input, I just need that concise input too (the rest is simply made up crap).

The one case where this doesn't work, is if the prompt is, say 3 ideas, which the LLM expand to 20, and the colleague then trimmed down to 10.

Ideally there's some selection done, and the fact you're receiving it means it's better than a mean answer. But sometimes they haven't even read the LLM output themselves :-(

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#317

Post by Falimonda »

necovek wrote: post #54

I've already asked a number of colleagues at work producing insane amount of gibberish with LLMs to just pass me the prompt instead: if LLM can produce verbose text with limited input, I just need that concise input too (the rest is simply made up crap).

And you do what with the prompt once you have it?

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#318

Post by _qswe »

palata wrote: post #223
_qswe wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding or being interesting has nothing to do with it. We use calculators and computers for a reason. No one hires people to respond to API requests by hand; we run the code on servers. Using the right tool for the job is just doing my job well.

> We use calculators and computers for a reason. No one hires people to respond to API requests by hand; we run the code on servers We were talking about writing, not about vibe coding. We don't use calculators for writing. We don't use API requests for writing (except when we make an LLM write for us). > Using the right tool for the job is just doing my job well. I don't know what your job is. But if your job is to…

We were talking about writing, not about vibe coding.

No one said anything about vibe coding. Using tools appropriately to accomplish tasks more quickly is just common sense. Deliberately choosing to pay 10x the cost for the same or equivalent output isn't a rational business decision, regardless of whether the task happens to be writing, long division, or anything else.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against doing things manually as a learning exercise or creative outlet. Sometimes the journey is the point; sometimes the destination is the point. Both are valid.

I don't know what your job is.

Here's one: prepping first drafts of legal docs with AI assistance before handing them off to lawyers for revision has objectively saved significant amounts of time and money. Without AI this would have been too time-consuming to be worthwhile, but with AI I've saved not only my own time but the costs of billable hours on phone calls to discuss requirements, lawyers writing first drafts on their own, and additional Q&A and revisions over email. Using AI makes it practical to skip the first two parts and cut down on the third significantly.

Here's another one: writing technical reports for my day job. Before they'd integrated AI into their platform, I would frequently get rave reviews for the quality and professionalism of my issue reports. After they added AI writing assistance, nothing changed other than my ability to generate a greater number of reports in the same number of billable hours. What you're suggesting effectively amounts to choosing to deliver less value out of ego. I still have to understand my own work product, or I wouldn't be able to produce it even with AI assistance. If someone thinks that somehow makes the product less "interesting", well then I guess it's a good thing my job isn't entertainment.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#319

Post by fallinditch »

easygenes wrote: post #299
fallinditch wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been obvious since ChatGPT blew up in early 2023 that educators had to rethink how they educate. I agree that this situation that the author outlines is unsatisfactory but it's mostly the fault of the education system (and by extension the post author). With a class writing exercise like the author describes, of course the students are going to use an LLM, they would be stupid not to if their classmates are usin…

Amusingly, when I asked o3 to propose changes to the education system which address the author's complaints wrt writing assignments, one of the first things it suggested was transparent prompt logging (basically what the author proposes). https://chatgpt.com/share/6817fe76-973c-8011-acf3-ef3138c144...

O3 actually came up with a good blueprint for an 'AI-centric teaching guide'. Impressive.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#320

Post by halfadot »

> Don’t let a computer write for you! I say this not for reasons of intellectual honesty, or for the spirit of fairness. I say this because I believe that your original thoughts are far more interesting, meaningful, and valuable than whatever a large language model can transform them into.

Having spent about two decades reading other humans' "original thoughts", I have nothing else to say here other than: doubt.

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