‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

How to Write with an LLM

769 points · 420 comments · joeriddles

  1. Eddy_Viscosity2 · · focus · HN ↗
    "LLM paragraph will register to much of your audience not as writing but as output"

    The best advice for writing for other humans is: don't use LLMs.

    If you're writing for machines, liking coding, then fine go for it. If you're writing for processes with formal highly structured content like manuals, specifications, form content, procedures, information, that sort of thing, then also ok to use LLMS. But if you're writing for a human mind to ingest and extract meaning from, then LLMs are poison.

    1. anonymous_user9 · · focus · HN ↗
      Those of us using our human minds to extract meaning from specifications and manuals don't want to look at LLM slop either.
      1. Eddy_Viscosity2 · · focus · HN ↗
        Slop is slop of course, but I don't 'read' manuals so much as I look stuff up in them. So I only need the information to be clear and style doesn't matter so much. Provided the LLM knows its writing a manual it can do a fair job of presenting the info in a good enough manner. Granted, if someone had used the tool incorrectly and its spouting out flowery prose in a manual, then that is indeed bad.
Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.