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New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

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Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#521

Post by normie3000 »

cvoss wrote: post #418
pvtmert wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started making deliberate grammar and spelling mistakes in professional context. Not like I have a perfect writing anyway, but at least I could prove that it was self-written, not an auto-generated slop. (Could be self-written slop though :) This applies not only work-stuff itself also to the job-applications/cv/resume and cover-letters.

I appreciate you including a few minor mistakes in this very post: > I started making deliberate grammar and spelling mistakes in professional context[s]. Not like I have ~a~ perfect writing anyway, but at least I could prove that it was self-written, not an auto-generated slop. (Could be self-written slop though :) > This applies not only [to] work-stuff itself also to the job-applications/cv/resume and cover-letter…

To me the OP read like a particular dialect of English which is quite common on HN, rather than being incorrect.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#522

Post by jbxntuehineoh »

kraftman wrote: post #159
dematz wrote: post #48

One pattern I've noticed recently is sort of formulaic comments that look okish on their own, maybe a bit abstract/vague/bland, and not taking a particular side on good/bad in the way people like to do, but really obviously AI when you look at the account history and they're all the same formula: >this is [summary] >not just x, it's y >punchy ending, maybe question Once you know it's AI it's very obvious they told it…

It's wierd because the barrier to not have that in is so low, you can just tack on 'talk like me not AI, dont use em dashes, don't use formulaic structures, be concice' and itll get rid of half of those signals.

conspiracy: the people behind these bots intentionally run very obvious bots to distract everyone from the less-obvious bots

It's not just clever—it's devious!

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#523

Post by heresie-dabord »

altairprime wrote: post #332
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

How dire the literacy crisis, that chatbots are their only exposure to composition.

The future of education is LLMs representing educational standards to a population of innumerates and illiterates.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#524

Post by SolubleSnake »

kklisura wrote: post #317

Off-topic, tangentially: Can we generate a huge amount of code, just compilable code, which is essentially just a trash. We seed the github, bitbucket, etc. and pollute the training grounds.

I think this may actually begin to happen anyway with the increased use of coding agents. A lot of the reason people/workers were not in a 'developer' position before was not only because they didn't know how to or want to learn how to code, but because they just didn't know how to or want to learn how to... think.

How many times have you had a coworker/boss/user ask for something totally nonsensical, impossible, or maybe even illegal? These people when they get unleashed on these agents and on large business problems are going to be a menace. They will create walls and heaps and mountains of working but totally stupid code as the AI attempts to work with their malformed attempts at a 'thought' and this will pollute github and the codebase for training...eventually it will outnumber serious, professionally written projects and you will reach an inflection point at which AI coding agents 'peak' and they begin to deteriorate.

Either that or you need to somehow ensure you are not training on AI written code but that too will cause a PR problem for the firms as it becomes obvious that AI cannot in fact replace developers?

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#525

Post by mikkupikku »

marssaxman wrote: post #301
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

I've seen some youtube people just holding random objects as though they were microphones, I guess deliberately meming on the conspicuous microphone thing. Or maybe it helps with their confidence, I could see that.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#526

Post by MaKey »

dom96 wrote: post #503
MaKey wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a technical issue - it's a societal one. Do we want online ID verification? Are the trade-offs worth it? Do we want to make the internet a place that requires an ID everywhere for age verification or to prove that you're human? What would the implications be? Regarding your implementation: Most people don't have a passport, so it's a non-starter - but again, this topic is not a technical issue.

I think that it is a technical issue to a certain extent. Governments could make it very easy to prove humanity (and age) in a secure manner that doesn't leak your personal details to the third party that wants to perform the verification. I don't see that as "requiring ID". I think the real question is how much do we care that our online spaces are composed of not just AI bots, but also sock puppet accounts controll…

You're still arguing from a technical perspective while not addressing the societal issues that online ID verification leads to. Do we as society really want an internet that resembles a gated community where you can only enter with an ID? What about the people we exclude? Should we abandon the free internet just because of bots and sock puppet accounts? What about other ways to address the issue?

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#527

Post by mikkupikku »

pluc wrote: post #494
marssaxman wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

Idiocracy called this "talking like a fag".

There's a bit in Anathem about the secular society sometimes having their literacy degenerate to such an extent that they stop using alphabetic / phonetic writing systems and revert to pictographic or ideographic systems. Immediately made me think of the hospital scene in Idiocracy... and also the way some people make heavy use of emojis.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#528

Post by aendruk »

rzzzt wrote: post #455
dylan604 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love using ° with is the opt-shift-8 when posting temps to indicate I'm on a real keyboard and not some device. Plus, it's just faster than typing degrees

℃ and ℉ to the rescue! https://graphemica.com/%E2%84%83

> this is a compatibility character provided for roundtrip compatibility with legacy encodings. […] The Unicode standard explicitly discourages the use of this character

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Unicode_character)

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#529

Post by CuriouslyC »

jeremy151 wrote: post #386
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

You're absolutely right! I kid. I'm also a former avid user of the em-dash, but have mostly stopped using it. I've even started replacing em-dash usage with commas, which often results in a slightly awkward, perhaps incorrect, but quaintly artisanal sentence with a LaCroix-like spritz of authenticity. My double-space-after-a-period though, I will keep that until the end. Even if it often doesn't even render in HTML o…

Sadly, the comma is not a good em-dash replacement. IME, periods and semicolons do the job best. I still use em-dashes in place of parentheses though because they're so much more readable.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#530

Post by marssaxman »

piskov wrote: post #493
marssaxman wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

If you are using a dynamic microphone, most of the time it will be in frame because best distance is around 7cm from your mouth.

Sure, but when you see someone holding up a lav mic between their thumb and forefinger, that's not audio engineering; that has to be social signaling, or perhaps uninformed mimicry.
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