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I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

marcusolang.substack.com

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Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#511

Post by embedding-shape »

astrange wrote: post #460
embedding-shape wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add "Always use dash instead of em dash" to the developer/system prompt, and that's never an "issue" anymore. Seems people forget LLMs are really just programmable (sometimes inaccurate) computers. Whatever you can come up with a signal, someone can come up with an instruction to remove.

That doesn't work, they beat it so hard into ChatGPT it won't always listen to you about it. You can't stop it from doing the "if you like I can " thing in every reply either.

> That doesn't work, they beat it so hard into ChatGPT

I don't think you're able to set either the developer or system prompt on ChatGPT, you're gonna have to use the OpenAPI (or something else) to be able to set that. Once you have access to setting text in those, you can better steer how the responses are.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#512

Post by kennyloginz »

amenhotep wrote: post #462
pksebben wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you know, I feel like we don't actually do that so much these days. It's simply too likely that the receiving party is going to take you at face value or make up their own deeper meaning. Take irony / sarcasm / satire. They're pretty dead compared to what they used to be. I can recall a time when just about everything had subtext, but now you kind of have to play it straight. You can't respond to a racist with sarcas…

You're right, there's absolutely no sarcasm ever seen on the internet or anywhere else. These days if you say something sarcastic they throw you in jail!

These days

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#513

Post by komali2 »

pksebben wrote: post #495
dragonwriter wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't respond to a racist with sarcasm because anyone listening will just think you agree with them. You absolutely can, if you are actually dealing with people listening , because sarcasm is signalled with (among other things) tone (the other things include the listeners contextual knowledge of the speaker.) You can't do it online , in text , where the audience is mostly strangers who would have to actively di…

It's a matter of degree. You're right, of course, but there was a time not so long ago when such things were ubiquitous - even on the internet. Once upon a time, even the darkest corners like 4chan were actually kind of tongue-in-cheek. Then it slowly dawned on everyone that there were a bunch of people there who weren't kidding, and things kind of went to pot. In a reversal of the aphorism; those were more complex t…

> Once upon a time, even the darkest corners like 4chan were actually kind of tongue-in-cheek.

I distinctly remember both the invention of q-anon and the idea of Trump as a presidential candidate happening on 4chan as a we're-all-in-on-it joke, until true believers started showing up and thinking we believed too. Not a joke anymore...

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#514

Post by komali2 »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #503
pksebben wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of degree. You're right, of course, but there was a time not so long ago when such things were ubiquitous - even on the internet. Once upon a time, even the darkest corners like 4chan were actually kind of tongue-in-cheek. Then it slowly dawned on everyone that there were a bunch of people there who weren't kidding, and things kind of went to pot. In a reversal of the aphorism; those were more complex t…

It’s not even really a problem of the Internet necessarily; it’s rather a symptom of the growing political divide in Western society. Things are “simple” now because we’ve reached the point where nuanced discussion is pointless. In Europe you can be jailed for going against the Accepted Opinions™, and we’re seeing a rise in politically motivated attacks. There is no logical solution to emotionally backed rhetoric lik…

Who are the Turtle Island terrorists? I only know of four people accused of attempting to build a bomb, but not actually having done so.

Surely you aren't taking a government at its word on a politically charged case? Need we trudge out the Chicago 7 again?

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#515

Post by cadamsdotcom »

xandrius wrote: post #459
cadamsdotcom wrote: post #243

It is a shame that the author has to change to keep up, and I feel their pain but .. it’s also the price of progress. We all do things to keep up when change comes for our work and skill sets. LLMs - like all tools - reduce redundant & repetitive work. In the case of LLMs it’s now easy to generate cookie cutter prose. Which raises the bar for truly saying something original. To say something original now, you must al…

I think you say that so easily because it doesn't actually impact you. It'd be absolutely pissed off if I had to constantly watch out how I naturally write because otherwise people will shame me for thinking I had used AI.

Put a tpyo in — that’ll keep them guessing.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#516

Post by eszed »

mmooss wrote: post #357
wcfrobert wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are two forms of writing, each serving a different purpose. (1) writing to communicate ideas, in which case simpler is almost always better. There's something hypnotic about simple writing (e.g. Paul Graham's essays) where information just flows frictionlessly into your head. (2) writing as a form of self-expression, in which case flowery and artistic prose is preferred. Here's a good David Foster Wallace…

> writing as a form of self-expression, in which case flowery and artistic prose is preferred. Many all-time great writers, Hemingway being the leading exemplar, completely disagree.

Yah. The first clause is still true, though. (Signed, Hemingway fanboy.)

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#517

Post by komali2 »

lazylizard wrote: post #426
kazinator wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He vermiculated obliquely toward Helen, and from a yet comfortable distance mumbled a barely audible request for permission to ask how she's doing.

wodehouse loved ejaculated

Me too

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#518

Post by komali2 »

dgan wrote: post #443
gertlex wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you've heard the expression "hitting your stride". (native english speaker who was a bookworm as a kid; I admittedly had to ask gemini to recall the general phrase that I had in mind)

Nope, never heard!

It's similar to "getting into the rhythm of something" (non musical), but is a more permanent implication, you coming from a place of a novice and moving into someone more familiar with e.g. a given job.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#519

Post by astrange »

embedding-shape wrote: post #511
astrange wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work, they beat it so hard into ChatGPT it won't always listen to you about it. You can't stop it from doing the "if you like I can " thing in every reply either.

> That doesn't work, they beat it so hard into ChatGPT I don't think you're able to set either the developer or system prompt on ChatGPT, you're gonna have to use the OpenAPI (or something else) to be able to set that. Once you have access to setting text in those, you can better steer how the responses are.

ChatGPT has personalization settings that you can use to set part of the system prompt. Other chatbots usually have this too.

How much they follow it depends. Sometimes they know you wrote it and sometimes they don't. Claude in particular likes to complain to me its system prompt is poorly written, which it is.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#520

Post by eszed »

wcfrobert wrote: post #281
komali2 wrote: post #80

> There were unspoken rules, commandments passed down from teacher to student, year after year. The first commandment? Thou shalt begin with a proverb or a powerful opening statement. “Haste makes waste,” we would write, before launching into a tale about rushing to the market and forgetting the money. The second? Thou shalt demonstrate a wide vocabulary. You didn’t just ‘walk’; you ‘strode purposefully’, ‘trudged we…

Well there are two forms of writing, each serving a different purpose. (1) writing to communicate ideas, in which case simpler is almost always better. There's something hypnotic about simple writing (e.g. Paul Graham's essays) where information just flows frictionlessly into your head. (2) writing as a form of self-expression, in which case flowery and artistic prose is preferred. Here's a good David Foster Wallace…

> simpler is almost always better

Yeah, a lot's hiding in the "almost", there. I've said this on this board before, but I have to write a lot of documentation for non-technical users, and the maximally-straightforward stuff doesn't get read, far less remembered. When I mix in some personalization, and a bit of imagination, it gets much better results. The example that most easily springs to mind was something like "if you don't regularly use this system, you can skip the next bit and come back to it when you have to; if you do, then imagine you're a squirrel", and then I named all the variables after nuts, and analogized choices between burying data underground versus storing in a tree. I know typical HN engineers would hate that sort of thing, but you have to know your audience before you can decide what works best.

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