Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring • Hacker News Board

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#41

Post by IncreasePosts » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #23

Bible Scholar and youtube guy Dan McClellan had an amazing "high entropy" phrase that slayed me a few days ago. https://youtu.be/605MhQdS7NE?si=IKMNuSU1c1uaVCDB&t=730 He ended a critical commentary by suggesting that the author he was responding to should think more critically about the topic rather than repeating falsehoods because "they set off the tuning fork in the loins of your own dogmatism." Yeah, AI could not…

A sloppy mixed metaphor?

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#42

Post by delis-thumbs-7e » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

I personally think “generative AI” is a misnomer. More I understand the mathematics behind machine learning more I am convinced that it should not be used to generate text, images or anything that is meant for people to consume, even if it is the most blandest of email. Sometimes you might get lucky, but most of the time you only get what the most boring person in the most boring cocktail party would say if forced to be creative with a gun pointed to his head. It can help in multitude of other ways, help human in the creative process itself, but generating anything even mildly creative by itself… I’ll pass.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#43

Post by add-sub-mul-div » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

resiros wrote: post #8

I wonder why AI labs have not worked on improving the quality of the text outputs. Is this as the author claims a property of the LLMs themselves? Or is there simply not much incentive to create the best writing LLM?

That's like asking why McDonald's doesn't improve the quality of their hamburger. They can, but only within the bounds of mass produced cheap crap that maximizes profit. Otherwise they'd be a fundamentally different kind of company.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#44

Post by co_king_5 » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

rorylaitila wrote: post #19

Yes I noticed this as well. I was last writing up a landing page for our new studio. Emotion filled. Telling a story. I sent it through grok to improve it. It removed all of the character despite whatever prompt I gave. I'm not a great writer, but I think those rough edges are necessary to convey the soul of the concept. I think AI writing is better used for ideation and "what have I missed?" and then write out the c…

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Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#45

Post by ranprieur » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

This isn't new to AI. The same kind of thing happens in movie test screenings, or with autotune. If something is intended for a large audience, there's always an incentive to remove the weird stuff.

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#46

Post by co_king_5 » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

conartist6 wrote: post #2

Race to the middle really sums up how I feel about AI.

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Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#47

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

Couldn't you simply increase the temperature of the model to somewhat mitigate this effect?

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#48

Post by dsf2d » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

poszlem wrote: post #35

conartist6 wrote: post #2

Race to the middle really sums up how I feel about AI.

I call it the great blur.

I call it a mirage. I get why people are taken aback and fascinated by it. But what the model producers are chasing is a mirage. I wonder when they'll finally accept it?

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#49

Post by vessenes » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

Meh. Semantic Ablation - but toward a directed goal. If I say "How would Hemingway have said this, provided he had the same mindset he did post-war while writing for Collier's?"

Then the model will look for clusters that don't fit what the model consider's to be Hemingway/Colliers/Post-War and suggest in that fashion.

"edit this" -> blah

"imagine Tom Wolfe took a bunch of cocaine and was getting paid by the word to publish this after his first night with Aline Bernstein" -> probably less blah

Re: Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring

#50

Post by gdulli » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #6

I'd like to see some concrete examples that illustrate this - as it stands this feels like an opinion piece that doesn't attempt to back up its claims. (Not necessarily disagreeing with those claims, but I'd like to see a more robust exploration of them.)

Kaffee: Corporal, would you turn to the page in this book that says where the mess hall is, please?

Cpl. Barnes: Well, Lt. Kaffee, that's not in the book, sir.

Kaffee: You mean to say in all your time at Gitmo, you've never had a meal?

Cpl. Barnes: No, sir. Three squares a day, sir.

Kaffee: I don't understand. How did you know where the mess hall was if it's not in this book?

Cpl. Barnes: Well, I guess I just followed the crowd at chow time, sir.

Kaffee: No more questions.