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It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

blog.pabloecortez.com

401–410 of 565 posts

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#401
post #87

Lately, I've been writing more on my blog, and it's been helpful to change the way that I do it. Now, I take a cue from school, and write the outline first. With an outline, I can use a prompt for the LLM to play the role of a development editor to help me critique the throughline. This is helpful because I tend to meander, if I'm thinking at the level of words and sentences, rather than at the level of an outline. O…

And yet, Will, with all due respect, I can’t hear your voice in any of the 10 articles I skimmed. It’s the same rhetorical structure found in every other LLM blog.

I suppose if to make you feel like it’s better (even if it isn’t), and you enjoy it, go ahead. But know this: we can tell.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#402

I've always been bad at grammar, and wrote a lot of newsletters & blogs for my first startups which always got great feedback, but also lots of grammar complaints. Really happy GPT is so great at catching those nowadays, saves me a lot of Grammar supports requests ;)

Or just get better?

I don’t know how someone can be nerdy enough to be on Hackernews, but simultaneously not nerdy enough to pickup and intuit the rules of English language from sheer osmosis.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#403
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Code review is one of the places where experience is transferred. Almost nobody uses it for that today, unfortunately, and code reviews in both directions are probably where the vast majority of learning software development comes from. I learned nearly zilch in my first 5 years as a software dev at crappy startups, then I learned more about software development in 6 months when a new team actually took the time to…

I agree. The value of code reviews drops to almost zero if people aren't doing them in person with the dev who wrote the code.

I see your point and I agree that pair programming code reviews give a lot of value but you could also improve and learn from comments that happened async. You need to have teammates, who are willing to put effort to review your patch without having you next to them to ask questions when they don't understand something.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#404
post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's like Coke Zero vs Diet Coke: 10x the flavor and 10x the calories.

Coke Zero and Diet Coke are both noncaloric.

If you’re playing the same games they play on the label, sure. There is less than one calorie per serving.

(Edit: in Diet Coke. Not too sure about Coke Zero).

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This generic comment reads like its AI generated, ironically

It’s below me to use LLMs to comment on HN.

Exactly what an LLM would say.

Jk, your comments don't seem at all to me like AI. I don't see how that could even be suggested

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part is that they write the PR summaries in bullet points and then feed them to an LLM to dilute the content over 10x the length of text... waste of time and compute power that generates literally nothing of value

I would love to know how much time and computing power is spent by people who write bullet points and have ChatGPT expand them out to full paragraphs only for every recipient to use ChatGPT to summarize them back down to bullet points.

Cat, I Farted somehow worked out how to become a necessary middleman for every business email ever.

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#407
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tell my team that the diff already perfectly describes what changed. The commits and PR are to convey WHY and in what context and what we learned (or should look out for). Putting the "what" in the thing meant for the "why" is using the tools incorrectly.

Yes, that’s the hard thing about having a “what changed” section in the PR template. I agree with you, but generally put a very condensed summary of what changed to fulfill the PR template expectations. Not the worst compromise

My PR templates are: - what CONCEPTUALLY changed here and why - a checklist that asserts the author did in fact run their code and the tests and the migrations and other babysitting rules written in blood - explicit lists of database migrations or other changes - explicit lists of cross dependencies - images or video of the change actually working as intended (also patronizing but also because of too many painful failures without it)

Generally small startups after initial pmf. I have no idea how to run a big company and pre pmf Im guilty of "all cowboy, all the time" - YMMV

Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#408

It's similarly insulting to read your AI-generated pull request. If I see another "dart-on-target" emoji... You're telling me I need to use 100% of my brain, reasoning power, and time to go over your code, but you didn't feel the need to hold yourself to the same standard?

Why have the LLMs „learned“ to write PRs (and other stuff) this way? This style was definitely not mainstream on Github (or Reddit) pre-LLMs, was it? It’s strange how AI style is so easy to spot. If LLMs just follow the style that they encountered most frequently during training, wouldn’t that mean that their style would be especially hard to spot?

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Re: It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

#409
post #334
post #54

I personally don’t think I care if a blog post is AI generated or not. The only thing that matters to me is the content. I use ChatGPT to learn about a variety of different things, so if someone came up with an interesting set of prompts and follow ups and shared a summary of the research ChatGPT did, it could be meaningful content to me. > No, don't use it to fix your grammar, or for translations, or for whatever el…

Do you care if a scifi book was written by an AI or human, out of curiosity?

I'm not the OP but I've been thinking about this for a little bit since I read your question. Part of me says no, what could be more Sci-Fi than a complete and comprehensive story written by a computer. Who wouldn't want Data to have been able to and succeeded at writing a story that connects with his human compatriots? On the other hand, I also understand the concern and feeling of "something lost" when I consider a story written by a human vs a machine.

But if I'm truly honest with myself, I think in the long run I wouldn't care. I grew up on Science Fiction, and the stories I've always found most interesting were ones that explored human nature instead of just being techno fetishism. But the reality is I don't feel a human connection to Asimov, or Cherryh, or any of the innumerable short form authors who wrote for the SF&F magazines I devoured every chance I got. I remember the stories, but very rarely the names. So they might as well have been written by an AI since the human was never really part of the equation (for me as a reader).

And even when I do remember the names, maybe the human isn't one I want a lot of "human connection" with anyway. Ender's Game, the short story and later the novel were stories I greatly enjoyed. But I feel like my enjoyment is hampered by knowing that the author of a phenomenal book that has some interesting things to day on the pains caused by de-humanizing the other has themselves become someone who dehumanizes others often. The human connection might be ironic now, but that doesn't make the story better for me. Here too, the story might as well have been written by an AI for all that the current person that the author is represents who they were (either in reality or just in my head) when I read those stories for the first time.

Some authors I have been exposed to later in life, I have had a degree of human connection with. I felt sadness and pain when Steve Miller died and left his spouse and long time writing partner Sharon Lee to carry on the Liaden series. But that connection isn't what drew me to the stories in the first place and that connection is largely the same superficial parasocial one that the easy access into the private lives of famous people gives us. Sure I'm saddened, but honesty requires me to note I'm more sad that it reminds me eventually this decades spanning series will draw to a close, and likely with many loose ends. And so even here, if an AI were capable of producing such a phenomenal series of books, in a twisted way as a reader it would be better because they would never end. The world created by the author would live on forever, just like a "real" world should.

Emotionally I feel like I should care that a book was or wasn't written by an AI. But if I'm truly honest with myself, the author being a human hasn't so far added much to the experience, except in some ways to make it worse, or to cut short something that I wish could have continued forever.

All of that as a longwinded way of answering, "no, I don't think I would care".

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