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AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

rickmanelius.com

331–340 of 729 posts

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#331
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also many others stating the same things - and they are getting flagged and downvoted for it. Just because those of you who disagree are more vocal, downvote and flag-happy doesn't make you right.

HE WOULD NEVER FLAG SOMEONE JUST FOR DISAGREEING! He would make up an excuse that is entirely untrue and then flag them. Oh wait, I'm thinking of my last encounter with him.

If you're going to directly accuse me of malfeasance, link the threads so people can make their own opinions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233565

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49242231

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#332
post #114
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I address it with AI. Write REVIEW.md. I have CC check itself pretty well. I also put into agent/claude/review instructions to write using simple English skill and humanizer skill. Then not to write redundant comments. It’s not perfect but definitely catches lots of slop.

It's actually insanely difficult to get LLMs not to produce comments. Even with explicit "NEVER LEAVE ANY COMMENTS WHATSOEVER", they still do, across basically all providers.

No problems with GPT-5.6 Sol here. I have an agent file that says, among other things, only to document purpose and intent, not just what the code does, and not write obvious comments. It's been so effective that it often doesn't comment anything at all, including some stuff that's so niche that it must be explained carefully. As a result, I've had to pull back a bit and tell it explicitly which areas to actually add comments for.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#333
post #36

The part that astonishes me is that in the year of our common era two thousand twenty-six that it's not universally offensive and reviling to post an AI-generated response to another person. If I'm reading something on the internet, I'm either reading it to learn, or I'm reading it to be persuaded. If I wanted the LLM to teach me (thank you, no), I would ask an LLM. I'm reading your website/newsletter/email because I…

while i might not have written it, i used my masters in prompt engineering to carefully guide its creation :)

If this is not sarcastic, which school gives such a masters

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#334

Eventually, AI will be a far better writer than a human is, and then nobody will want to read the human generated subpar writing. AI writing is rapidly improving. Human writing, on average not so much.

I'll take "subpar" human writing, music, art, or whatever any day of the week.

People say this, but AI artists keep getting listens on music platforms, doing at least as well as human artists if the listener is making a blind choice.

https://www.promarket.org/2026/05/04/consumers-prefer-ai-mus...

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#335

Every time this comes up I have to ask, how do you know it is AI? Sure, sometimes there are strong tells, like if they forget to take off the "Do you want me to change anything" at the end. But AI was trained on good writing. Good writing looks like AI. I've had to reduce my use of em dashes for example because they are an "AI tell". I used to like using the term "load bearing". And the list gets longer every day. Ev…

The problem with AI writing isn’t the tics and the tells. The problem with AI writing is that it’s bad.

The typical highly voted HN AI-written post has an annoying clickbait title, then jumps into a meandering chain of “so there I was” scene-setting, assertions of dubious reliability & relevance, and supposed supporting examples. All punctuated by short, unhelpfully dramatic sentences that would interrupt the high-level narrative, if only there were one.

I’m really curious what “good AI writing” you had in mind. My personal intuition is that for almost any topic, the HN LLM-generated post du jour has a far superior cousin sitting in the archive pre-2021.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#336
post #36

The part that astonishes me is that in the year of our common era two thousand twenty-six that it's not universally offensive and reviling to post an AI-generated response to another person. If I'm reading something on the internet, I'm either reading it to learn, or I'm reading it to be persuaded. If I wanted the LLM to teach me (thank you, no), I would ask an LLM. I'm reading your website/newsletter/email because I…

Don't get me wrong, I loathe the AI style as the next person. But I don't buy your argument: if a person used AI to produce a text it doesn't mean they haven't steered the I in the direction they wanted the conversation to go and (hopefully) review the output. That's an added value Yes, it would be nice if it was also pleasant to read

It's still a lower effort contribution and because the surface is plausible and the content is usually verbose, it's a bigger waste of time for the other party than a low effort 100% human contribution.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#337
For me the bar is still quality. Sure it bothers me if I search for something and find a crappy AI written tutorial that answers none of my questions, but if I found a high quality well written, insightful, and informative tutorial, I would not care if it were AI written.

I guess the same thing goes for articles written by humans. I don't really read the articles that are "Shower thoughts that I think are profound" or "The way I do things is the way everyone should do things"

There is a fairly common wisdom that the way you get good at writing is by writing a lot, I'm prepared to cut people a lot of leeway at people putting all of the stuff out there before they are good at writing. It's just the path you have to take. That's OK, because I don't have to read it.

And I'm fine with people making crappy AI generated tutorials while they figure out how to make better AI generated tutorials. I am not fond of people who are creating bulk content by volume without any regard to quality or improvement. Some may be doing this to make money, and maybe that works, I suspect for the most part it doesn't. I don't appreciate it though, whether it be AI or human produced bulk content.

I'd spare a thought for those who feel that they are producing high quality content when they are not. Everyone has a poor perspective on something sometimes. Usually the harshest punishment they will face is the feelings their future selves experience when they look upon their work with a more balanced perspective.

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#338
I suspect the free market of information content will ultimately sort this all out. I feel similarly about AI art, but to get to that point I had to go to my city's art museum and experience artwork in person. There's just no comparison between being in the same room with a Michelangelo sculpture and peering at a Stable Diffusion/Midjourney/Whatever image on one's screen, there just isn't. What AI can do though is create endless content and too many are content with that, see linkedin.

TLDR: Content != Art

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#339
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HE WOULD NEVER FLAG SOMEONE JUST FOR DISAGREEING! He would make up an excuse that is entirely untrue and then flag them. Oh wait, I'm thinking of my last encounter with him.

If you're going to directly accuse me of malfeasance, link the threads so people can make their own opinions. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49242231

Sadly - most people on the site can't read them. Only the power users, such as yourself.

But I am glad you've decided to engage. Now will you answer my question?

Re: AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read)

#340
While I don't always agree with everything Drew writes, the title of his blog post[1], "Please stop externalising your costs directly into my face," really resonated with me.

At the end of the day I don't care how much of what you're presenting is your own words vs AI generated, as long as I can see evidence that you have reviewed and understood what you've passed to me. My resentment and ire is raised when the onus is pushed on me to be the first real human reviewer, having to do all the weighing of merit, practicality and in some cases plausibility that the quote un-quote author should have done before ever hitting send. It's passing the buck and an abdication of responsibility. It is lazy and makes more work for those you foist it upon when your role should be making the effort in your communications to make it easier for the recipient. Not wasting their time having to spend orders of magnitude more effort refuting bullshit you shouldn't have put out there in the first place.

It is something that has always pissed me off, however AI has made it fair easier for lazy people to think they sound smart and externalise their costs into my face.

[1] https://drewdevault.com/blog/Stop-externalizing-your-costs-o...

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