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It's insulting to read AI-generated blog posts

blog.pabloecortez.com

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

#511

Post by ljm »

palmotea wrote: post #440
stephendause wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is total speculation, but my guess is that human reviewers of AI-written text (whether code or natural language) are more likely to think that the text with emoji check marks, or dart-targets, or whatever, are correct. (My understanding is that many of these models are fine-tuned using humans who manually review their outputs.) In other words, LLMs were inadvertently trained to seem correct, and a little message…

My guess is they were trained on other text from other contexts (e.g. ones where people actually use emojis naturally) and it transferred into the PR context, somehow. Or someone made a call that emoji-infested text is "friendlier" and tuned the model to be "friendlier."

Maybe the humans in the loop were all MBAs who believe documents and powerpoint slides look more professional when you use graphical bullet points.

(I once got that feedback from someone in management when writing a proposal...)

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

#512

Post by ljm »

y0eswddl wrote: post #503
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may thank millenial hipsters who used think emojis are cute and proliferation of little javascript libraries authored by them on your friendly neighborhood githubs. Later the cutest of the emojis paved their way into templates used by bots and tools, and it exploded like colorful vomit confetti all over the internets. When I see this emojiful text, my first association is not with an LLM, but with a lumberjack-be…

Everyone in this thread is now dumber for having read this comment. I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.

I love how these elaborate stereotypes reveal more about the author than the group of people they are lampooning.

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

#513

Post by bmacho »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #312
jihadjihad wrote: post #23

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?

For this "LLM style were already the most popular, that's how LLM works, then how come LLM style is so weird and annoying" I have 2 theories.

First, LLM style did not even exist, it's a match of several different styles, choice of words and phrases.

Second, LLM has turned a slight plurality into a 100% exclusivity.

Say, there are 20 different choices to say the same thing. They are more or less evenly distributed, one of them is a slightly more common. LLM chooses the most common one. This means that

   situation before : 20 options,  5% frequency each
   situation now    :  1 option, 100% frequency
LLM text is both reducing the variety and increases the absolute frequency drastically.

I think these 2 theories explain how can LLM both sound bad, and "be the most common stye, how humans have always talked" (it isn't).

Also, if the second theory is true, that is, LLM style is not very frequent among humans, that means that if you see someone on the internet that talks like an LLM, he probably is one.

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

#514

Post by rideontime »

corporat wrote: post #373
rideontime wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For transparency, what role did AI serve in drafting this comment?

AI was used to analyze logical fallacies in the original blog post. I didn’t use it to draft content—just to spot the straw man, false dilemma, and appeal-to-emotion tactics in real time. Ironically, this exact request would’ve fit the blog’s own arguments: "AI is lazy" / "AI undermines thought." But since I was using AI as a diagnostic tool (not a creative one), it doesn’t count. Self-referential irony? Maybe. But a…

I'd merely noticed that your comment mimicked the writing style of popular LLMs. Guessing you spend a lot of time with them?

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

#515

Post by analog31 »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #312
jihadjihad wrote: post #23

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?

I wonder if there's an analogy to the style of Nigerian e-mail scams, that always contain spelling errors, and conclude with "God Bless." If the writing looks too literate, people might actually read and critique it.

God Bless.

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

#516

Post by bmacho »

y0eswddl wrote: post #503
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may thank millenial hipsters who used think emojis are cute and proliferation of little javascript libraries authored by them on your friendly neighborhood githubs. Later the cutest of the emojis paved their way into templates used by bots and tools, and it exploded like colorful vomit confetti all over the internets. When I see this emojiful text, my first association is not with an LLM, but with a lumberjack-be…

Everyone in this thread is now dumber for having read this comment. I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.

Jokes on GP, I give up reading most comments when I don't like them anymore, usually after 1-2 sentences.

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

#517

Post by apwheele »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #312
jihadjihad wrote: post #23

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?

I do remember 1 example of an emoji in tech docs before all of this -- learning github actions (which based on my blog happened in 2021 for me, before ChatGPT release), at one point they had an apple emoji at the final stage saying "done". (I am sure there are others, I just do not remember them.)

But agree excessive emoji's, tables of things, and just being overly verbose are tells for me anymore.

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

#518

Post by medstrom »

korse wrote: post #158
alyxya wrote: 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…

:Edit, not anymore kek Somehow this is currently the top comment. Why? Most non-quantitative content has value due to a foundation of distinct lived experience. Averages of the lived experience of billions just don't hit the same, and are less likely to be meaningful to me (a distinct human). Thus, I want to hear your personal thoughts, sans direct algorithmic intermediary.

HN favors very fresh comments, to give them all some time in the limelight.

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

#519

Post by jdiff »

brabel wrote: post #165
geerlingguy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately I have more appreciation for broken English and short, to the point sentences than the 20 paragraph AI bullet point lists with 'proper' formatting. Maybe someone will build an AI model that's succinct and to the point someday. Then I might appreciate the use a little more.

You can ask ai to be succinct and it will be. If you need to you can give examples of how it should respond. It works amazingly well.

It's extraordinarily hit or miss. I've tried giving instructions to be concise, to only give high level answers, to not include breakdowns or examples or step-by-step instructions unless explicitly requested, and yet "What are my options for running a function whenever a variable changes in C#?" invariably results in a bloated list with examples and step-by-step instructions.

The only thing that changed in all of my experimentation with various saved instruction was that sometimes it prepended its bloated examples with "here's a short, concise example:".

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

#520

Post by [deleted] »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #312
jihadjihad wrote: post #23

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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