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We're losing our voice to LLMs

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Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#371

Post by lupire »

zwnow wrote: post #257
oidar wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's more is the suspicion of it being written by AI causes you to view any writing in a less charitable fashion. And because it's been approached from that angle, it's hard to move the mental frame to being open of the writing. Even untinged writings are infected by smell of LLMs.

Thats whats happening to me with music and discovering new artists. I love music so much but I simply can not trust new music anymore. The lyrics could be written by AI, the melodies couldve been recommended by AI or even the full blown song could've been made by AI. No thanks, back to the familiar stuff...

You hate AI more than you love music?

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#373

Post by ethbr1 »

gordonhart wrote: post #250
coffeecoders wrote: post #99

I actually think we’re overestimating how much of "losing our voice" is caused by LLMs. Even before LLMs, we were doing the same tweet-sized takes, the same medium-style blog posts and the same corporate tone. Ironically, LLMs might end up forcing us back toward more distinct voices because sameness has become the default background.

My theory is that LLMs are accelerating [online] radicalization by commoditizing bland, HR-approved opinions. If you want to sound like a human on the internet, for better or for worse the easiest way is to say something that would make Anthropic’s safety team have a heart attack.

> If you want to sound like a human on the internet, for better or for worse the easiest way is to say something that would make Anthropic’s safety team have a heart attack.

That's always been the somethingawful crowd's stance since, what, 2000ish?

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#374

Post by ethbr1 »

Sammi wrote: post #355
jrockway wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grok still has that annoying tone, it just uses it to say weird things.

Grok sounds like the "how do you do fellow kids" meme. It just sounds cringe.

So like a 54 year old rich white man trying to post cool edgy takes?

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#375

Post by ricardo81 »

anbotero wrote: post #120
chemotaxis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not just LLMs, it's how the algorithms promote engagement. i.e. rage bait, videos with obvious inaccuracies etc. I guess, but I'm on quite a few "algorithm-free" forums where the same thing happens. I think it's just human nature. The reason it's under control on HN is rigorous moderation; when the moderators are asleep, you often see dubious political stuff bubble up. And in the comments, there's often a fair…

I want to agree with this. Maybe OP is young or didn't frequent other communities before "social networks", but on IRC, even on Usenet you'd see these behaviors eventually. Since they are relatively open, at some point comes in someone that doesn't give care about anything or it's extremely vocal about something and... there goes the nice forum.

>Maybe OP is young or didn't frequent other communities before "social networks", but on IRC, even on Usenet you'd see these behaviors eventually.

I was too young for IRC/Usenet and started using the net/web in the late 90s, frequenting some forums. Agreed that anyone can come in and upset the balance.

I'd say the difference is that on the open web, you're free to discover and participate in those social settings for the most part. With everything being so centralised and behind an algorithm the things you're presented are more 'push' than 'pull'.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#376

Post by fugalfervor »

matkoniecz wrote: post #324
lambda wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this sounds like something you could just do yourself after putting a piece down for a day or two and coming back to it with fresh eyes. What benefit is there of cooking the oceans with a bullshit generator? Like, sure, it's possible to do this with an LLM, but it's also possible to do it without, at roughly similar levels of effort, without contributing to all of the negative externalities of the LLM/genAI ec…

Being able to get useful feedback immediately rather than 48 hours later is useful if you need text today.

Great, now I can procrastinate longer and still meet deadlines. By accelerating climate change.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#377

Post by fugalfervor »

fragmede wrote: post #318
lambda wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this sounds like something you could just do yourself after putting a piece down for a day or two and coming back to it with fresh eyes. What benefit is there of cooking the oceans with a bullshit generator? Like, sure, it's possible to do this with an LLM, but it's also possible to do it without, at roughly similar levels of effort, without contributing to all of the negative externalities of the LLM/genAI ec…

Because the complaints about the power and water usage of AI are mostly motivated reasoning. I don't like AI, therefore I'm going to find a reason not to like it. I Listen, if it's Greta Thunberg pointing out that AI datacenters use a lot of resources, yeah, I'm willing to listen. But when the voices saying "but what about all the water/electricity is wasting" is coming from individuals I know personally haven't prev…

"anecdotally, some people in my life said something that was measurably true but that I didn't like. I think they're being phony."

Who is using motivated reasoning here?

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#378

Post by Aurornis »

jfindper wrote: post #188
Aurornis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe OP is young or didn't frequent other communities before "social networks", but on IRC, even on Usenet you'd see these behaviors eventually I’m not exactly old yet, but I agree. I don’t know how so many people became convinced that online interactions were pleasant and free of ragebait and propaganda prior to Facebook. A lot of the old internet spaces were toxic cesspools. Most of my favorite forums eventually…

> pleasant and free of ragebait and propaganda Most people are putting forth an argument of pervasiveness and scale , not existence.

I remember a thread a while ago where someone was claiming that Hacker News comments were much more civilized and on topic in the early days.

So someone pulled up Wayback Machine archives of random dates for HN pages. The comments were full of garbage, flame wars, confidently incorrect statements, off topic rants, and all the other things that people complain about today.

It was the same thing, maybe even slightly worse, just in a different era

I think the people who imagine that social media is worse today either didn’t participate in much online socialization years ago or have blocked out the bad parts from their memory.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#379

Post by anonymouskimmer »

tptacek wrote: post #274

If you care about voice, you still can get a lot of value from LLMs. You just have to be careful not to use a single word they generate. I've had a lot of luck using GPT5 to interrogate my own writing. A prompt I use (there are certainly better ones): "I'm an editor considering a submitted piece for a publication {describe audience here}. Is this piece worth the effort I'll need to put in, and how far will I need to…

> LLMs are quite good at (1) noticing multi-paragraph arcs that go nowhere

I wonder if this is due to LLMs being trained on persuasive writing.

Re: We're losing our voice to LLMs

#380

Post by hhh »

Spivak wrote: post #361
hhh wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. You can just use ANY abliterated model or non-safety aligned model. People have popularized ‘hard r or you’re hardware’ for a while now, but any self hosted LLM that’s de-aligned will gladly say whatever. People believe this and continue to get fooled by LLMs all day.

I don't think I would want to hang out in any online space where the n-word is a shibboleth. The practice of asking members to do something that would ostracize you from the rest of society is cult behavior—even if it's not intended as such.

I agree, and it’s also a stupid measure that doesn’t stop anything.
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