The LLM Lobotomy?

Post by bbminner » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 6:25 PM UTC

gregsadetsky wrote: post #46

bbminner wrote: post #40

Am I the only person who can sense the exact moment an LLM-written response kicked in? :) "sharing some of the test results/numbers you have would truly help cement this case!" - c'mon :)

I actually 100% wrote that comment myself haha!! See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45316437 I think it would have sounded more reasonable in French, which is my actual native tongue. (i.e. I subconsciously translate from French when I'm writing in English) ((this comment was also written without AI!!)) :-)

Oh, my honest apologies then, Greg! :) I am not a native speaker myself. And as far as i can tell, the phrasing is absolutely grammatically correct, but there's some quality to it that registers as LLM-speak to me.

I wonder how the causal graph looks here: do people (esp those working with LLMs a lot) lean towards LLM-speak over time, or both LLMs and native speakers picked up this very particular sentence structure from a common source? (eg a large corpus of French-English translations in the same style?)

Post by gregsadetsky » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 7:16 PM UTC

bbminner wrote: post #61

gregsadetsky wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually 100% wrote that comment myself haha!! See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45316437 I think it would have sounded more reasonable in French, which is my actual native tongue. (i.e. I subconsciously translate from French when I'm writing in English) ((this comment was also written without AI!!)) :-)

Oh, my honest apologies then, Greg! :) I am not a native speaker myself. And as far as i can tell, the phrasing is absolutely grammatically correct, but there's some quality to it that registers as LLM-speak to me. I wonder how the causal graph looks here: do people (esp those working with LLMs a lot) lean towards LLM-speak over time, or both LLMs and native speakers picked up this very particular sentence structure…

No apologies needed, but thanks for your kind words! I think that we’re all understandably “on edge” considering that so much content is now llm-generated, and it’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t.

I’ve been removing hyphens and bullet points from my own writing just to appear even less llm like! :)

Great stylistic chicken and egg question! French definitely tends to use certain (I’m struggling to not say “fancier”) words even in informal contexts.

I personally value using over-the-top ornate expressions in French: they both sound distinguished and a bit ridiculous, so I get to both ironically enjoy them and feel detached from them… but none of that really translates to casual English. :)

Cheers

Re: The LLM Lobotomy?

Re: The LLM Lobotomy?