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Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

noslopgrenade.com

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Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#311

Post by signatoremo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #134
csbrooks wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, acting in good faith means saying something like "I'm not sure, but Claude says this, which sounds right: [short informative clip from Claude's wall of text]". Don't pretend it's your response, make sure it has info you think is useful, and edit it down.

I'd prefer just "I don't know." I can ask Claude on my own.

No. "I don't know" may be interpreted as "I don't care". Adding additional info may be a way to say "I do care". Similar to sometimes we say "I don't know, but I googled it, and I got this".

Also, LLM's answers can be good if the prompts are good, so can still be helpful.

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#312

Post by mapontosevenths »

layer8 wrote: post #170
sweetheart wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the point OP is making is that it's entirely possible that the person doing this _does_ see it as them being as helpful as possible. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck, or that it isn't annoying, though. I dunno, just seems like a coin toss to me: was this backed by good intentions or not? Without other "evidence", assuming that it was well-meaning but misguided feels better for _both_ of us (at least in my experi…

Good intentions don’t excuse bad behavior, and shouldn’t oblige one to silently accept it.

No, but they obligate you to be kind in your response despite your annoyance. The other person was trying to help, but failed. Keep that in mind if you feel the need to correct them.

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#313

Post by mapontosevenths »

filoeleven wrote: post #280
sweetheart wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the point OP is making is that it's entirely possible that the person doing this _does_ see it as them being as helpful as possible. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck, or that it isn't annoying, though. I dunno, just seems like a coin toss to me: was this backed by good intentions or not? Without other "evidence", assuming that it was well-meaning but misguided feels better for _both_ of us (at least in my experi…

Hence: > If you encounter a slop grenade, share this page Culture is cultured, it isn't the wilds, and requires pruning.

This is the sort of thing that only someone on the spectrum would consider doing in a professional setting, and they will end up getting coached by HR.

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#314

Post by semitones »

connorboyle wrote: post #270

The first several paragraphs of this article got a score of "100% AI-generated" on Pangram: https://www.pangram.com/history/d06c8513-9ee3-4a1d-b02f-c1ec...

Agreed, this article has a lot of tell-tale signs of AI writing... Which is so ironic

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#315

Post by semitones »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #230

This page rather reeks of LLM slop itself. If not…well I don't know what to call this style of writing exactly but I see it all the time on LinkedIn (or some annoying startup landing page) and it's very upsetting to me. "You asked a simple question. They lobbed a document." "Your wall of text suppresses dialogue. They can't reply, can't push back, can't clarify. It's a weapon disguised as helpfulness." "Let it sharpe…

It is absolutely AI-generated.

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#316

Post by [deleted] »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #259

AI conversations are like dreams: everyone has one they like and wants to share it with others ... but no on gives a crap about your dream/chat session, because it was uniquely appealing to you , and not them. Don't bore your co-workers (or others) with descriptions of your dreams, and don't throw a computer's dreams (AI chat logs) at them either.

[deleted]

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#317

Post by e28eta »

bluGill wrote: post #72
SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

> Nobody writes essays in Slack I 100% write long texts in Slack. I always try to provide as much context as possible when reaching out to someone with a question or request.

Do you start every response off with "that is a great question"? I don't know any human who does. "that is a great question" is reserved either for really hard questions, or sarcasm. The majority of questions are not great, they are just things the asker needs a simple answer.

I remember listening to this Freakonomics episode [1] on the phrase.

It covers a variety of times people might use it. Sometimes it's genuine, other times it's flattery. Some people use it all the time (and in the episode they talk about calling someone on it). One guest says it's a bridge, to go from the question asked to the question you want to answer instead.

I don't see it in this transcript, but I also thought I remembered hearing/reading that it can be a sign the speaker doesn't know the answer offhand, and needs to consider the question to formulate their answer. I think I'd classify that as a genuine usage: the question is something the speaker hasn't considered before, and thinks is worthy of consideration.

[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/thats-a-great-question-rebr...

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#318

Post by fc417fc802 »

jraph wrote: post #286
MarkusQ wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... or practice sarcasm On the plus side, it gets easier with practice.

Sorry, my English was approximative, I meant that I would need to be sarcastic. But yeah, it does. Of course, sarcasm always works out great with people who don't already get that they are boring you to death with a long monologue...

Your english was correct; I believe the reply was humorously misinterpreting your meaning (it might even qualify as sarcastic).

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#319

Post by Forgeties79 »

keybored wrote: post #251
Forgeties79 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re going to go down that route, then we should also acknowledge that it’s a nerd forum that is typically reserved for serious discussion. Being sarcastic and cracking wise is generally discouraged

People make jokes here plenty. And being sarcastic? Only all the time. You can post 300-word matter-of-fact, spelling out all the premises comments. Or twenty-word quips that say the same thing. Both will be accepted depending on the mood. But stubbornly trying to win arguments (imagined or real)? Oy vey. That’s a reservation that takes up a private jumbo jet. Edit: And I saw your pot/kettle reply that you deleted. O…

I removed it - apparently not fast enough - because it felt mean-spirited and I was trying to let this go but apparently you are unable to do the same.

Also, making fun of the way somebody talks is incredibly rude and shitty. I don’t know why you feel the need to mock me like that in an attempt to make me feel self conscious about my speech patterns. That’s not cool and it is incredibly low, to say the least.

Either way I think it best if we both just moved on.

Re: Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations

#320

Post by efskap »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #301
otherme123 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago, answering "just google it!" was considered rude in some forums. It was asumed that some people didn't have enough googlefu, so googling for them was considered a good help. Also, almost all StackOverflow could be boiled down to a "RTFM" and close the questions. Today there might be people who can't extract enough juice from LLMs, so it is not entirely useless to say "I was able to extract this info fr…

Except 99% of the time they are asking it's because they explicitly need a real opinion or the info couldn't be found via LLMs. But instead of giving an "I don't know", they paste back an wall of text with an incorrect answer that the sender hasn't even read or verified to be true. At least with "I don't know" the asker can move on to someone who might know faster.

It reminds me of how LLM hallucination is attributed to "I don't know" being underrepresented in training data, and it being a better strategy to guess on evaluations rather than admit not knowing.

Different reward function, but the same behaviour emerges.

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