I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#391

Post by Guestmodinfo » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #297

wcfrobert wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are two forms of writing, each serving a different purpose. (1) writing to communicate ideas, in which case simpler is almost always better. There's something hypnotic about simple writing (e.g. Paul Graham's essays) where information just flows frictionlessly into your head. (2) writing as a form of self-expression, in which case flowery and artistic prose is preferred. Here's a good David Foster Wallace…

Even when communicating ideas, there's a simplicity/nuance trade-off to be made. I could say "Trump's unpredictable, seemingly irrational policy choices have alienated our allies, undermined trust in public institutions, and harmed the US economy" Or I could "The economy sucks and it's Trump's fault because he's dumb and an asshole" They both communicate the same broad idea - but which communicates it better? It depe…

I will choose the second one because it packs more wrongs that he has done which are not addressed by the first choice of words :)

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#392

Post by lukeschlather » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:44 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #330

GMoromisato wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He walked up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He strode up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He sidled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He tromped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" Each of those sentences conveys as slightly different action. You can almost imagine the person's face has a different expression in each version. Yes, I hate it when amateurs just search/rep…

I know you know everything I'm about to write, but I read a lot of dubious quality fiction. It needs to be made clear that if the butler "strides" up to Helen, then I, the reader, am expecting him to eject her from the party, tell her that her car is on fire, or something equally dramatic. The writer can subvert this expectation, but must at least acknowledge that it exists. The butler can stride up to Helen with a s…

Between stride and walk, it seems like it would be unusual for any character in a romance novel to merely walk rather than stride. If anything the simple walk would need explanation.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#393

Post by 6SixTy » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:46 AM UTC

Uehreka wrote: post #303

nitwit005 wrote: post #193

This is also happening to artists, people who make YouTube shorts, and similar. Everyone gets accused of being AI if the feel happens to match. I'm sure there's some voice actor out there who can't get work because they sound too similar to the generated voices that appear in TikTok videos.

I did a video a couple years ago about a thing I did in Factorio[0] and got a couple comments who didn’t ask if I had used an AI voice, they just straight up told me that the AI voice I used was off putting. I didn’t use an AI voice, in fact I appeared on camera at the end of the video in part so that people wouldn’t have to guess, but I guess people who thought I was AI didn’t feel like watching the whole video. I s…

I remember a video where the only thing that stuck with me was that the guy was working on his English skills, and used an AI voice. That's not abnormal by any stretch of the imagination nor memorable, but how he edited the AI voice made it about as natural as a normal voice.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#394

Post by wjb3 » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #351

phantasmish wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He scrambled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He kick-flipped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" [edit] electric-slid! Pirouetted! Somersaulted!

Let's not forget "sashayed" and "marched"

"slunk"

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#395

Post by RossBencina » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

dgan wrote: post #241

phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

I consider myself fluent in English, I watch technical talks and casual youtubers on English daily, and this is the first time I encounter this word lol. The only "stride" I know relates to the gap betweeb heterogeneous elements in a contiguous array

Indeed "to stride" is roughly to walk with a larger than normal distance (gap) between steps.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#396

Post by Guestmodinfo » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #332

encroach wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you prefer a simpler style, then why did you write "the deeper I got into the world of literature" instead of "as I studied literature more"? Why did you say you were "pushed towards" simpler language instead of "I liked it more"? Why did you say "I feel the pain in my bones" and "drives me insane" instead of "I dislike it"? Why did you say "the big boy SAT words should pop out of the page unaccompanied" instead o…

These actually all mean different things.

It's a pain to read your reply because it's wrong. The poster you're replying to correctly wrote the phrases and you are trying to malign his or her painstaking work by such a low effort reply without explaining exactly where he or she is wrong

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#397

Post by clevergadget » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

protocolture wrote: post #387

komali2 wrote: post #80

> There were unspoken rules, commandments passed down from teacher to student, year after year. The first commandment? Thou shalt begin with a proverb or a powerful opening statement. “Haste makes waste,” we would write, before launching into a tale about rushing to the market and forgetting the money. The second? Thou shalt demonstrate a wide vocabulary. You didn’t just ‘walk’; you ‘strode purposefully’, ‘trudged we…

>I'm a native English speaker that studied writing in university I am a native english speaker who had to unlearn OP's writing style to pass my tertiary education. In particular I sat an english bridging course for non english speakers. I was often told off for "editorialising" and wasting space with useless descriptions.

til we go out of our way to make our writers boring...

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#398

Post by lukeschlather » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 2:56 AM UTC

psunavy03 wrote: post #174

codeflo wrote: post #74

To my eyes, this author doesn't write like ChatGPT at all. Too many people focus on the em-dashes as the giveaway for ChatGPT use, but they're a weak signal at best. The problem is that the real signs are more subtle, and the em-dash is very meme-able, so of course, armies of idiots hunt down any user of em-dashes. Update: To illustrate this, here's a comparison of a paragraph from this article: > It is a new frontie…

Armies of idiots hunt down em dashes because they're too stupid to understand the proper use of them.

I'm used to simply using a single dash - and I am surprised that anyone who isn't an AI would feel strongly enough to insist upon the em dash character that they would use them deliberately. I will admit the use of a dash (really an em dash in disguise) in that previous sentence felt clunky, but I just felt I needed to illustrate. I mostly write text in text boxes where a dash or pair of dashes will not be converted to an em dash when appropriate, and I often have double dashes (--long-option-here) auto-converted to emdashes when it is inappropriate, so I really dislike the em dash and basically don't use it. Doesn't really seem to be a useful character in English.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#399

Post by RossBencina » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 3:02 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #297

wcfrobert wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are two forms of writing, each serving a different purpose. (1) writing to communicate ideas, in which case simpler is almost always better. There's something hypnotic about simple writing (e.g. Paul Graham's essays) where information just flows frictionlessly into your head. (2) writing as a form of self-expression, in which case flowery and artistic prose is preferred. Here's a good David Foster Wallace…

Even when communicating ideas, there's a simplicity/nuance trade-off to be made. I could say "Trump's unpredictable, seemingly irrational policy choices have alienated our allies, undermined trust in public institutions, and harmed the US economy" Or I could "The economy sucks and it's Trump's fault because he's dumb and an asshole" They both communicate the same broad idea - but which communicates it better? It depe…

I don't think they communicate the same broad idea at all. Making "unpredictable, seemingly irrational" choices is far from equivalent to being a dumb asshole. Your second version assumes the equivalence, which, hypothetically speaking, could provide a nice cover for purposeful malfeasance, could it not?

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#400

Post by GMoromisato » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 3:03 AM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #392

strken wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you know everything I'm about to write, but I read a lot of dubious quality fiction. It needs to be made clear that if the butler "strides" up to Helen, then I, the reader, am expecting him to eject her from the party, tell her that her car is on fire, or something equally dramatic. The writer can subvert this expectation, but must at least acknowledge that it exists. The butler can stride up to Helen with a s…

Between stride and walk, it seems like it would be unusual for any character in a romance novel to merely walk rather than stride. If anything the simple walk would need explanation.

Agreed. As always, it depends on what the author is trying to convey. At the first meeting, you probably do want to describe the walk in a way that reveals the character's inner motivation. Are they excited to walk up to the woman? Scared? Bored? They would walk differently depending on the feeling.

But a different scene might be better with the pedestrian "walk". Imagine that the main character enters the woman's office with an ostentatious bouquet of flowers. In that scene, maybe the emphasis is on the flowers or on the reaction of the woman or her co-workers. In the scene, a simple "he walked" might work best.