‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

How to Write with an LLM

769 points · 420 comments · joeriddles

  1. S-E-P · · focus · HN ↗
    I fear in the future people will read even less because of how often people cheap out and use AI to write. I know the author of this article tells you never to use a single word it suggests, however I still, while reading, am checking for any amount of AI used. This makes reading less enjoyable, and even a bit stressful.

    If you can't spend the time to write it, why should anyone read it?

    Everything I post is from my own finger tips, only to get a reply from someone using a bot. I'm tired.

    1. ferngodfather · · focus · HN ↗
      People on my FOSS project couldn't see the issue with their AI slopped documentation contributions.

      On one hand I'm like, yeah fair enough it needed writing and something is better than nothing.

      On the other I know nobody wants to read it now because it's just word vomit rather than how a human would write something they'd like another human to read.

      I hate it so much.

      1. LtWorf · · focus · HN ↗
        On Debian we recently voted whether to permit or forbid llm usage (spoiler, AI usage at will won).

        One person was arguing that they need llm because english isn't their first language and then it helps them write better and be understood. I was incapable of reading their (extremely long) email of arguments; I tried but my mind just went elsewhere as my eyes were moving through the lines.

        At the very end there was a disclaimer that llm had been used to "aid" in writing that very email.

        Poor guy thinks he's communicating better but all he's doing is making his emails completely unreadable. It's a sad state of affairs.

        1. dist-epoch · · focus · HN ↗
          It kind of makes sense that if English is not their first language, the can't review the LLM English output also.

          However most likely they just don't understand what good communication looks like, LLMs are perfectly capable of turning anything into clear concise communication, in fact an easy tell that something is LLM written is that it's just too precise and clear, humans are much more rambling.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.