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Various LLM Smells

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Re: Various LLM Smells

#41

Post by input_sh »

mil22 wrote: post #7

Those cards, so familiar! Exactly what Opus produced for me. Did Anthropic and/or OpenAI deliberately train their models to produce websites with a specific design language, or did these stylistic preferences emerge naturally as some kind of LLM-selected optimum?

It's not the base model, it's the system prompt in dev tools.

To give an example I'm personally frequently annoyed by, Google's Antigravity will consistently use the word "anthropomorphic" while "thinking" and the end result will consistently have obnoxiously large border radius (kind of like Android's design language).

Codex on the other hand likes to make websites with blue elements on a black background and likes to use emojis for icons for some reason, which is a terrible idea accessibility-wise.

Re: Various LLM Smells

#42

Post by thewebguyd »

spdustin wrote: post #18

- “(The) honest caveat:” (or “genuine caveat:”, both with the colon) - “(The) honest answer:” (again, with colon) - “The thing to internalize:” - “The smoking gun:” (really, sentences that start with “The :” are a strong tell, but those four are the most prolific) - “load bearing” (when not talking about architecture) - “blast radius” (when not talking about actual explosives, but rather the effect of an event/action…

> I would argue about the actual frequency of their use

Assuming you mean load bearing & blast radius, I'd see those used and use them myself very frequently pre LLM, mostly in online discussions though so its telling where they got their training data. Load bearing itself is/was a pretty normal phrase in the ops world in daily discussion.

Smoke test though, I can't say I've ever see irl usage.

Re: Various LLM Smells

#44

Post by thewebguyd »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #24

The LLM doesn't smell like authentic writing but it does a great job for fast and cheap words. We've gained something similar to fast food. Words made very cheap, very fast, easily digestible, but they have no emotion. In short stints it does have a place in the world.

> it does a great job for fast and cheap words

Like corporate manager-type emails, of which I get AI generated ones frequently from company ownership. They think LLMs are the best thing since sliced bread.

It's taken corpo-speak to an entirely new level. On the plus side I no longer have to read them, and can just have AI reply on my behalf with more fast food.

Re: Various LLM Smells

#45

Post by thewebguyd »

dieselgate wrote: post #21
jkdufair wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If claude says "load bearing" once more, I think I'll vomit.

That's a funny one. I don't use LLMs at all but "load bearing" is such a common/over-used internet joke for DIY building projects and stuff like "load bearing caulk". Have never heard it in a software sense really so am slightly perplexed

> Have never heard it in a software sense really so am slightly perplexed

It's been used in an ops context for a long time, pre LLM even. Same with "blast radius" has been a cybersecurity term for as long as I can remember.

Re: Various LLM Smells

#46

Post by Barbing »

thewebguyd wrote: post #42
spdustin wrote: post #18

- “(The) honest caveat:” (or “genuine caveat:”, both with the colon) - “(The) honest answer:” (again, with colon) - “The thing to internalize:” - “The smoking gun:” (really, sentences that start with “The :” are a strong tell, but those four are the most prolific) - “load bearing” (when not talking about architecture) - “blast radius” (when not talking about actual explosives, but rather the effect of an event/action…

> I would argue about the actual frequency of their use Assuming you mean load bearing & blast radius, I'd see those used and use them myself very frequently pre LLM, mostly in online discussions though so its telling where they got their training data. Load bearing itself is/was a pretty normal phrase in the ops world in daily discussion. Smoke test though, I can't say I've ever see irl usage.

Heard smoke test IRL & was confused to see it used indeed in place of “sanity check”. Weird.

Re: Various LLM Smells

#47

Post by Barbing »

GrinningFool wrote: post #27
n42 wrote: post #2

No ___, no ____. Just _____ or using "honest" to describe an approach.

Jab, jab, thrust is how I think about that pattern. Or tap tap whack, if you prefer. And it shows up for for positives too: "Smooth. Effortless. A perfect fit for your needs". In any style of informal or persuasive writing this shows up , as if it has to drive the point in. I kind of wish we'd stop talking openly about what the tells are. It's nice to be able to determine with fair accuracy - but it couldn't last for…

> I kind of wish we'd stop talking openly about what the tells are.

Least this way it’s out in the open perhaps, since enough users have training enabled labs will naturally learn what annoys us.

Had the same thought though

Re: Various LLM Smells

#48

Post by xtracto »

xienze wrote: post #20
dvt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I can't fathom thinking that LLM writing is even remotely passable. People that think this should honestly read more. One book a month is hardly an aspirational goal. You don't even have to read Melville or Hemingway or Chaucer or Shakespeare, just pick up any popular NYT best seller, and it'll be significantly better than anything an LLM can generate.

> I can't fathom thinking that LLM writing is even remotely passable. People that think this should honestly read more. This makes me think you're only exposing yourself to high quality writing online and from an intelligent circle of friends and coworkers. The average person's reading and writing abilities are _atrocious_ and only getting worse. We're almost at the point where kids are communicating through abbrevia…

Someone way more eloquent than me should write a column titled "Why do we read?"

Way back in the past (around 30 years ago) I remember reading an article on "how to read a book" or a similar subject. They argued that, you should not skip the acknowledgments, preface and other "personal" related sections of a book, because it was there where you got a glimpse of the person that was writing the book. The idea being that, you should had in mind that the person writing was explaining something through you.

Carl Sagan even has a video where he argues Books/Writing is some sort of communication through time.

Now, this has been the case historically: A person writes some text (even in botched language like my writing, as English is not my first language) with thinking that someone else in the future will read the ideas and reason about them.

But what about text written by an LLM? Does it have inherent intention? When reading LLM text, it feels like looking at those "this is not a person" photos. Yeah, they are words, yeah they form sentences and paragraphs but... they lack "soul".

Re: Various LLM Smells

#49

Post by dvt »

xienze wrote: post #34
sublinear wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we also saying it's acceptable to feed people junk because it's better than what they would cook? At some point you're just making bad excuses for false scarcity.

Tell me your thoughts on the quality of LLM-generated code. I've never understood this attitude where people are absolutely disgusted by the slightest whiff of AI prose but will happily slurp up AI-generated code by the bucketful and proudly proclaim that it's OK because it's better than the average developer can produce.

The key difference is that code is not the end product, but writing is itself the product. (No one's doing "vibe-product-management" for example.) Tbh, I still think code can have a beauty and elegance to it (like a logical proof can, or like a mathematical theorem can), but there's a difference between the two and I'm way less forgiving of AI writing than I am of AI code, especially considering most code (by line count) is just boilerplate anyway.

Re: Various LLM Smells

#50

Post by tptacek »

The LLM writing sameness is bad. Use LLMs to help your writing! But don't include a word they generate, even just a vocabulary adjustment, in your own output. Have them critique structure and flow, spot overused words and passive constructions and dumb picks for topic sentences. It's great for that, and those are all objective improvements in your writing that won't mess up your style.

The LLM sameness in web design is good. Most sites shouldn't try to be idiosyncratic. The best design for a site with real utility is legibility, and LLMs are better at that than the median developer. Always laying out the same buttons? Always using the same type scales? Good! If it looks good to you, you weren't going to do better on your own, and you were very likely to do worse.

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