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Do your own writing

alexhwoods.com

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Re: Do your own writing

#51

Post by gavmor »

dgxyz wrote: post #19
nerevarthelame wrote: post #12

I agree with most of this, but my one qualm is the notion that LLMs "are particularly good at generating ideas." It's fair enough that you can discard any bad ideas they generate. But by design, the recommendations will be average, bland, mainstream, and mostly devoid of nuance. I wouldn't encourage anyone to use LLMs to generate ideas if you're trying to create interesting or novel ideas.

All LLM output is always dry as fuck quite frankly. At all levels from ideas and concepts through to the actual copy. And that’s dotted with pure excrement. I think the only reason it’s seen as good anywhere is there are a lot of tasteless and talentless people who can pretend they created whatever was curled out. This goes for code as well. If I offend anyone I will not be apologising for it.

Agreed! No LLM is producing Pynchon, Calvino, Borges, Castaneda, Le Guin, Vonnegut.

Re: Do your own writing

#52

Post by jrowen »

nerevarthelame wrote: post #12

I agree with most of this, but my one qualm is the notion that LLMs "are particularly good at generating ideas." It's fair enough that you can discard any bad ideas they generate. But by design, the recommendations will be average, bland, mainstream, and mostly devoid of nuance. I wouldn't encourage anyone to use LLMs to generate ideas if you're trying to create interesting or novel ideas.

I think it's just a confusing use of the term "generating." It's thinking of the LLM as a thesaurus. You actually generate the real idea -- and formulate the problem -- it's good at enumerating potential solutions that might inspire you.

Re: Do your own writing

#54

Post by gavmor »

CharlesW wrote: post #5

The title and of this article is Don't Let AI Write For You , when its point seems to be closer to Don't Let AI Think For You (see "Thinking"). This distinction is important, because (1) writing is not the only way to faciliate thinking, and (2) writing is not neccessarily even the best way to facilitate thinking. It's definitely not the best way (a) for everyone, (b) in every situation. Audio can be a great way to c…

Writing is, however, a uniquely distinct and well-studied way to facilitate thinking.

I've definitely lost something since migrating my Artist's Way morning pages and to the netbook. (Worth it, though, to enable grep—and, now, RAG).

Re: Do your own writing

#55

Post by kristopolous »

I write far better than any llm ... I've tried to get them to help me with writing, they always fuck it up.

The biggest problem is they don't understand the time effort tradeoff between understanding and language so they don't know how to pack the densities of information properly or how to swim through choppy relationships with the world around them while effectively communicating.

But who knows, maybe they're more effective and I'm just an idiot.

Re: Do your own writing

#57

Post by paulpauper »

CharlesW wrote: post #5

The title and of this article is Don't Let AI Write For You , when its point seems to be closer to Don't Let AI Think For You (see "Thinking"). This distinction is important, because (1) writing is not the only way to faciliate thinking, and (2) writing is not neccessarily even the best way to facilitate thinking. It's definitely not the best way (a) for everyone, (b) in every situation. Audio can be a great way to c…

Yeah this is my problem. I can come up with ideas, but in writing my ideas never come out well. AI has helped me to express my ideas better. People who write well or are successful at writing sometimes fail to understand how uncommon is it to actually be good at writing. Shit is hard.

Re: Do your own writing

#59

Post by vicchenai »

the gym analogy lands. you dont hire someone to do your reps, but its fine to hire a trainer to critique your form. that distinction matters when thinking about how to actually use these tools.

Re: Do your own writing

#60

Post by dgxyz »

gavmor wrote: post #51
dgxyz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All LLM output is always dry as fuck quite frankly. At all levels from ideas and concepts through to the actual copy. And that’s dotted with pure excrement. I think the only reason it’s seen as good anywhere is there are a lot of tasteless and talentless people who can pretend they created whatever was curled out. This goes for code as well. If I offend anyone I will not be apologising for it.

Agreed! No LLM is producing Pynchon, Calvino, Borges, Castaneda, Le Guin, Vonnegut.

I think that’s an unfair comparison. It can’t even produce Mills and Boon trash.
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